All the stress of running over my backpack and meeting new people and being angry and sad and heartbroken and full of grief has tired me out before I have even started hiking. I’m exhausted. I’m not ready for a big hike. I go home, get in my pajamas, take my meds and go to bed. I’m not cut out for this.
Or maybe I need to expect less from myself. Every muscle in my body is screaming at me in pain. Never in my life have I had pain like this. Sure, my joints have hurt, I’ve had surgeries, I’ve had migraines, and I’ve had reflux so bad I thought I was having a heart attack. But this pain is different. It feels as if all the emotional pain and trauma that has been locked away behind the thick wall in my brain has leaked out and found its way deep into the muscles in my neck, shoulders, back and hips. Pain that is so deep it feels like a vice planted in the core of each muscle. I haven’t cried in years, but apparently rehab makes you feel like you can’t stop crying, and that your heart is breaking with each tear. The exhaustion is so real, so profound and so utterly consuming that you feel like you’ve hiked every four-thousand-footer in the same day and then decided to tackle the ones in Maine and Vermont as well. There is no relief until you can finally close your eyes at the end of the day and experience the gratitude for the medication that helps you sleep without dreaming.
And the thing with rehab, is that there is no protection from all of this pain. There is no amount of ibuprofen that can take it away. You have no choice but to sit with it, feel it and endure it. And then, in all of your misery, you are supposed to ask for help. Rehab is torture. But I’m sober.