Posted on

Pain

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. 

PopSugar: Here's What to Do If You Battle Neck Pain

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.

Posted on

Learning not to be broken

“Hike your own hike” is a quote every hiker knows by heart. It’s not hard to memorize, but it can be hard to incorporate into your own hiking practice. It’s meant to say that there is no wrong way to hike. You can go fast, or slow. You can stop and smell the roses, or you can race up and down the mountain without stopping to take in what’s around you. You can use lists, trying to check off each trail or mountain, or you can hike the same mountain every day for the rest of your life. You can hike up and drive down, you can drive up and hike down. You can hike by yourself, or you can hike with a group. There is no right way or wrong way to hike. But sooner or later, there are going to be people, you are going to want to meet people, and you are going to need people.

When I finally do make it to the trailhead for my first ever hike up a real mountain, I see people. They all look so put together, so confident. They are all talking to each other, smiling and laughing. They all have maps, and cool jackets and hiking shoes and water bottles. 

And they have backpacks. I have a backpack. But it’s shredded in half and all the supplies are shattered from being run over by my car. Hell, I don’t even know if the supplies in my backpack were the right things, so it probably doesn’t matter anyway. Why do they all look so happy? Why won’t they look at me? Why won’t they help me figure all this out? I want so badly to join their group, but I don’t know how to ask. I don’t even know the right questions to ask, and I certainly don’t know how to tell them all of the thoughts and feelings that are swimming around inside my head. 

Rehab is like that. They tell you in rehab that there are two things that are crucial to your sobriety. First, feel your damn feelings. Fine. Second, make connections. 

They might as well have told me I would have no choice but to fail. They tell you the way human beings connect to each other is through emotion, through the communication of feelings between one person and another. So, I sit in my car and stare out at the groups of people through my window. Maybe if I can find one person. One person who looks as lost as I feel. 

There…I see her. Over there by the trail, looking at her map the same way I should be doing if I had remembered to bring a map. I get out of the car. I run up to her. I start talking. She stares at me. Why is she staring at me? Why won’t she talk to me? And then I realize that she is talking. She seems excited about something. Why can’t I understand what she is saying? Why can’t I understand what she is feeling? Why can’t I get through to her? I’m talking, but it’s like she doesn’t hear me either. It’s like a glass wall is between us. I can see her. I can see her hand gestures and her facial expressions. I can see her smile. I know I should be thankful. I know I should feel warmth and love and a sense of connection that all human beings approach one another with. But it means shit. I should feel her energy, her compassion, her willingness to help, her excitement and…her feelings. I should take it all in, accept her outstretched hand that is asking me to join her on this journey. But it means shit. Because I don’t understand her language. All I feel is apathy. 

Because I just. Don’t. Understand. I take a step back. I walk away. I ignore her outstretched hand. I am engulfed by the enormity of disappointment, loneliness, isolation and anger that I feel every time I try to have a simple conversation with someone. Those feelings are all directed at myself, not to those around me. 

What the fuck is wrong with me that I continue to walk away from people who are trying to reach me? Why the fuck don’t I try harder? I must not be trying hard enough. I can’t reach my friends. I can’t reach my coworkers. I can’t reach other hikers. I can’t reach my family. I must be lazy. I must be too shy. I must not have the strength or courage inside myself to be brave enough to overcome the laziness and shyness to form relationships with people. It’s my fault I’ve lost so many people. I’ve lost past, present and future relationships. What a life I could have known if I had just tried harder to reach people. I am the biggest, laziest and most pathetic loser I have ever met. Who turns down people who WANT to get to know the real you, and chooses isolation instead? Who does that?

There’s a knock on my car window. I look up. There’s a guy outside my window. He seems to be talking to me. I can’t hear him. I start crying, because I know he will turn away in frustration when I don’t respond. I look up again. Why is he still there? Why hasn’t he walked away like everyone else? He opens my car door. He holds out his hand. 

“It’s not your fault”. I flinch. I turn away. I put the car in drive, ready to speed away when he realizes that I can’t possibly relate to him or understand him or care about what he is saying. He puts his hand on my shoulder. “It’s not your fault”. Why does he keep saying that? 

Because trauma robs you of so many things. It robs you of remembering a happy childhood. It robs you of family. It robs you of trust and honesty and faith. But most of all, it robs you of connection. The pain of trauma is so intense that you tell yourself over and over again that you will never, ever, expose yourself to that type of pain again. You block out those emotions. And along with those emotions, you block out everything else until you feel so numb it feels like you don’t even exist. That you shouldn’t exist. That you shouldn’t even bother to exist. And perhaps what is even worse is that you tell yourself that your inability to connect to yourself and everyone else around you is your own damn fault. 

Why is he still here? Doesn’t he know I’m broken? That I might be able to smile and nod and answer his questions and tell him all the mountains I plan on hiking, but that really, I am just going through the motions of what I think it means to try and make friends? But he doesn’t leave.

Trauma is something that happens to you. It causes thoughts and emotions that lead to behaviors that we blame on ourselves. And this is the real tragedy of trauma. It makes us think we are broken. That we are shells of the person we so desperately want to become. It robs us of the one thing that makes us human and that allows us to connect to other human beings – the ability to feel. Rehab has taught me that this is not my fault. Rehab has taught me that it is time to let go. It is time to let go of the self-hatred that I have lived with for so many years. My inability to connect with the people I care about, and the people I am only just starting to get to know, is not my fault. Something inside me understands this. I grab his hand, and get out of my car.

Posted on

Rehab. Anger.

Massive storm cloud with impressive lightning bolt

Rehab, like hiking, can also make you angry. Furious. You think you are finally figuring things out. You’ve felt the feelings. You’ve felt the loss and the grief and the shame. You’re still feeling it, and it hurts, but it’s not as scary. You can breathe a little.

And then you get angry. At the tree branches that snag your backpack. At the root that catches your toe and either makes you wince in pain, stumble, or fall rather ungracefully on your ass. You get angry at the wind. At the rain. At the clouds. At the mud. At the relentless uphills and downhills. And the rocks. The fucking New Hampshire rocks. You’re sure they were all put there just to terrorize and antagonize you. Just to make your life more difficult. 

At rehab, the anger comes out of nowhere. Or out of a place that feels all too familiar. The sheer rage that rises up out of you is sudden, and intense. People ask you what is beneath it, what other emotion your anger is keeping you from feeling. You tell them they are being ridiculous. I’m angry. I’m frustrated. There are no other emotions. I’m angry at nature, and angry for what it is doing to me. 

Seriously? Am I really important enough that nature is out to get me? The nature that you love, that you adore, that you feel at peace in? That nature? 

I’m angry. At the people here who don’t smoke fast enough. Or who smoke too often. Or who talk to me when I’m trying to smoke. How dare they try to be social with me? Don’t they understand I don’t LIKE to talk? I’m angry at the girl across from me who is so caught up in the fact that she is a nurse that she won’t shut up about it. Let’s face it – she won’t shut up about anything. She talks to hear herself talk. She talks while the group leader is talking. She talks to the people sitting next to her. During group. WTF. How is it you think you are so important that we all want to hear what you think? 

So, I’m angry. Furious. I want to strangle everyone and everything. I don’t want to rehab anymore. I don’t want to hike anymore. I’m too fucking angry.

Wait. 

Did I really say that? Did I really just say that I don’t want to hike anymore? I’m full of shit. Sure, I’m angry. But is it possible I’m scared? Is it possible I’m scared that I can’t do this? Do I really have what it takes to climb this mountain? What do I do when I leave here and these feelings are still here and I can’t stop crying but there’s no one around who understands why I’m crying and the pain is too big and I want to turn around, get off this trail and go home? 

You cry. And you talk to someone who has been there. You talk to someone who knows what it’s like to cry as if your heart is broken, until it feels like you can’t cry anymore. And then you cry some more. And they know. They’ve been there. And they tell you it’s okay and that it feels awful and that it feels like it will break you. But they also tell you that it eases.

And you have no choice but to believe them. So, for just a moment, you do. And you keep hiking.

Posted on

Rehab. Part One.

33,473 Helping Hand Photos - Free & Royalty-Free Stock Photos from Dreamstime

Quitting drinking and going to rehab is like trying to climb your very first 4,000-foot New Hampshire mountain. With no preparation whatsoever. 

Before you can even go to rehab, you have to stop drinking. And suffer the ramifications of an addiction that has strangled you for years. Your addiction stares you straight in the face, looming down on you like a towering mountain, taunting you, shaming you and threatening to squash you like an insignificant worm that is wiggling around in the mud trying to get away. But you can’t get away. No matter how hard you try, the mountain just seems too big, and you have no idea where to start. 

Fear. What if I can’t stop? Or, more importantly, what if I try? There are reasons I drink. Do I really want to find out what those reasons are? Do I really want to face those reasons? Fear stops me every time. 

I’ll skip through the part where I take my last drink. I’ll skip the struggles with medication assisted treatment. I’ll skip the part where I desperately try to get into a program. I’ll skip the efforts at ZOOM meetings and accountability and buying AA coins online.  I’ll skip those parts. Because it was not successful. 

Three months later, I get a bed. “This is it”, I think. It will be a relief to be in a place where I don’t have the option to drink. It will be easier than being at home and trying not to stop at the liquor store. And then two weeks later, I’ll have broken myself of the habit and be good to go. No problem. I’m ready to get in the car and drive the two hours to New Hampshire and start hiking. It can’t be that hard. I have no idea what I need to hike, no map and haven’t exercised in months, but I’ve got this. I’ll breeze through, hike up the mountain, see the sights, hike back down, and find myself safely back at home where I belong. 

Right. 

I drive my car to the trailhead. I try to find the start of the trail. I don’t have a map, or the right apps on my phone. I’m lost already and I haven’t even started. I put my meager backpack down, get back in the car, and try to figure out what to do. Where is everyone? Where are all the hikers? Where are their cars? My brain feels muddled and confused. I must be in the wrong spot. I have to find where I’m going. I’m supposed to be there by nine. If I’m not there by nine, the rehab might not let me in. I’m about to screw up my chance and I haven’t even stepped foot on the trail. I put the car in reverse. It moves about a foot and then stops. I put it in drive and try to move forward. It won’t budge. 

I get out of the car. 

I stare at my backpack which is now lodged up in the wheel well after I successfully ran over it in my rash attempt to get out of the parking lot. It’s wedged so tightly I can’t get it out. All my hiking gear is in there. How can I hike when I don’t have my backpack? How can I go to rehab when I don’t have my backpack? I need to jack up my car and get the damn backpack out. What’s the next right step? I need help. 

No, I don’t. I’ve never changed a tire, but I’m sure I can figure it out. It can’t be that hard. But my head is swimming with fear and uncertainty about what comes once I get the backpack out. Am I seriously here at rehab? Am I seriously going to try hiking a mountain when I can’t even find the trail?

Then I look up. 

Help is staring me right in the face. It has been there all along, waiting for me to ask. An outreached arm that I wasn’t sure I wanted. I was angry. I was frustrated. The day was not going as I had planned. Did I want the help? Or did I want to stay locked up in my own little world of anger, which was covering up my hatred of myself for getting into this predicament in the first place. Such an idiot. Who gets to a trailhead and can’t find the damn trail? Only an idiot. Who runs over their only source of comfort? Only an idiot. Who won’t ask for help? Only a stubborn idiot. 

But the help is persistent. They try to help me free my backpack. I tell them I am going to jack up my car by myself. I have never done this before, but I’m sure I can figure it out. They tell me to call AAA. I breathe. I am thankful someone else has a voice of reason. Because right now, in this moment, I do not. I relent. Right then, in that moment, I take the next right step. This is what a hiker does, right? They take a step. I have never hiked before, but I am sure about this one thing. Hikers take a step. And when they take a step, it leads them somewhere. So, I take that step. I go inside. I call AAA. Something inside me lets loose a little. Just a little, but it is a start. 

Posted on

Bravery

I always thought I was brave. Until I met my wife. 

She was married when we met. To a man. They had been married for twenty years. It was a stable marriage. They had three kids together. They truly loved each other, and provided a loving and trusting home for their children. It was the type of life that no woman would dream of leaving. 

Except she did. 

We met nine years ago. Our friendship developed instantly. The connection was deep and the respect was mutual. I had been in multiple relationships with women since my early twenties. Dating a woman was never even on her radar. The attraction between us crept up subtly, without each of us realizing it was there. Although perhaps we both did. I had not had a true friend in longer than I could remember, so I equated our sometimes-flirtatious encounters as just something that close friends did. We passed innocent notes back and forth, joking about dating and getting married someday. Never dreaming that those notes were the beginning of an incredible journey.

A journey that never would have become a reality if not for her bravery. She left a marriage that was all she had ever known. A marriage that, although not providing the type of happiness that a relationship should, was still a loving one. Leaving a marriage such as this one for a new relationship, a relationship between two women nonetheless, is a decision I cannot even begin to imagine making. Yes, the financial implications, logistics and divorce proceedings would be difficult. However, the relationship with her kids was where her real bravery shone through. Her children were the most important thing in her life. Their relationship was open, honest, trusting and real. The fear of losing them, either due to divorce or a same-sex relationship, was intense and all-consuming. Yet she continued to move forward with our relationship, believing in the strength and connection that we continued to grow every day. She had raised her kids to be open-minded, inquisitive and honest with her, qualities that resulted in them not only accepting our relationship, but also loving me and treating me as if I were their own family.

Her bravery did not stop there. In the coming year, she would be let go from the job she had been at for twenty-five years, sell the house her kids had grown up in, receive a terrifying medical diagnosis, and suddenly lose her ten -ear old family dog. Since then, she has gone back to school and received her bachelor’s degree in Nursing. She started a new job, completely different from the one she knew so well, and has flourished in her new role. She found a specialist and stabilized on medication, even while hating the thought of taking pills and being frightened of the potential effects of the disease in the future. She bought a new house in the same town so that her kids could remain in the public school they knew so well, despite there being more affordable housing in neighboring towns. Her new puppy brings joy to this new house every day.

Through all of these life circumstances, her bravery is evident. Her strength is both inspiring and contagious. However, it is the subtler actions she takes on a daily basis that make me appreciate her bravery even more. I am a hiker. I always have been. I climb tall mountains, hike long miles and stay overnight in the backcountry. She prefers shorter walks on smaller mountains, and a warm bed to sleep in. Staying overnight in the woods was something she had never done. Yet she chose to try this, because she wanted to share with me an activity that I loved and had always wanted to share with her. For a number of reasons which I will not identify here, she was uncomfortable, fearful and uncertain about sleeping in a tent in the woods, miles away from the nearest road. 

But she did. Because she is brave. And because she loves me. 

That is my wife.

Posted on

QUOTES

PEMA CHODRON

“To stay with that shakiness – to stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness – that is the path of true awakening. Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic – this is the spiritual path. Getting the knack of catching ourselves, of gently and compassionately catching ourselves, is the path of the warrior.”

“If we’re willing to give up hope that insecurity and pain can be exterminated, then we can have the courage to relax with the groundlessness of our situation. This is the first step on the path.”

“If you resist that kind of panicky energy, even at an involuntary, unconscious level, the fear can last a long time. The way to work with it is to drop the story line and not pull back or buy into the idea that “this isn’t okay”, but instead to smile at the panic, smile at this dreadful, bottomless, gaping hole that’s opening in the pit of your stomach. When you can smile at the fear, there’s a shift: what you usually try to escape from becomes a vehicle for awakening you to your fundamental, primordial goodness, for awakening you to clear-mindedness, to a caring that holds nothing back. The image of the warrior is of a person who can go into the worst of hells and not waver from the direct experience of cruelty and unimaginable pain. So that’s our path: even in the most difficult situations, we do our best to smile at fear, to smile at our righteous indignation, our cowardliness, our avoidance of vulnerability.”

“We long to have some reliable, comfortable ground under our feet, but we’ve tried a thousand ways to hide and a thousand ways to tie up all the loose ends, and the ground just keeps moving under us. At every turn we realize once again that it’s completely hopeless – we can’t get any ground underneath our feet.” 

J.B. Priestly – Delight

“I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.”

SHEL SILVERSTEIN

Where the Sidewalk Ends

“Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black, and the dark street winds and bends. Past the pits where asphalt flowers grow. We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow, and watch where the chalk-white arrows go. To the place where the sidewalk ends.

WARRIOR – DEMI LOVATO

This is a story that I have never told
I gotta get this off my chest to let it go
I need to take back the light inside you stole

You’re a criminal
And you steal like you’re a pro

All the pain and the truth
I wear like a battle wound
So ashamed, so confused
I was broken and bruised

Now I’m a warrior
Now I’ve got thicker skin
I’m a warrior
I’m stronger than I’ve ever been
And my armor, is made of steel, you can’t get in
I’m a warrior
And you can never hurt me again

Out of the ashes, burnin’ like a fire
You can save your apologies
You’re nothing but a liar
I’ve got shame, I’ve got scars
But I will never show

I’m a survivor
In more ways than you know

‘Cause all the pain and the truth
I wear like a battle wound

So ashamed, so confused
I’m not broken and bruised

‘Cause now I’m a warrior
Now I’ve got thicker skin
I’m a warrior
I’m stronger than I’ve ever been
And my armor, is made of steel, you can’t get in
I’m a warrior
And you can never hurt me

There’s a part of me I can’t get back
A little girl grew up too fast
All it took was once, I’ll never be the same

Now I’m taking back my life today
Nothing left that you can say
‘Cause you are never gonna take the blame anyway

Now I’m a warrior
I’ve got thicker skin
Now I’m a warrior
I’m stronger than I’ve ever been
And my armor, is made of steel, you can’t get in
I’m a warrior
And you can never hurt me again

This is Me – Keala Settle and The Greatest Showman Ensemble

I am not a stranger to the dark
Hide away, they say
‘Cause we don’t want your broken parts
I’ve learned to be ashamed of all my scars
Run away, they say
No one’ll love you as you are

But I won’t let them break me down to dust
I know that there’s a place for us
For we are glorious

When the sharpest words wanna cut me down
I’m gonna send a flood, gonna drown ’em out
I am brave, I am bruised
I am who I’m meant to be, this is me
Look out ’cause here I come
And I’m marching on to the beat I drum
I’m not scared to be seen
I make no apologies, this is me.

Another round of bullets hits my skin
Well, fire away ’cause today, I won’t let the shame sink in
We are bursting through the barricades and
Reaching for the sun (we are warriors)
Yeah, that’s what we’ve become 

Brave – Sara Bareilles

Everybody’s been there, everybody’s been stared down
By the enemy
Fallen for the fear and done some disappearing
Bow down to the mighty
But don’t run, stop holding your tongue
Maybe there’s a way out of the cage where you live
Maybe one of these days you can let the light in
Show me how big your brave is

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly, I wanna see you be brave

Innocence, your history of silence
Won’t do you any good
Did you think it would?
Let your words be anything but empty
Why don’t you tell them the truth?

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly, I wanna see you be brave

“My struggle ended the day I started telling my story” – Chris Heron

Posted on

Owls Head – the final 48

August 14th, 2006: I had been dreading this hike for years before I was actually able to complete it.  I normally hike by myself…mostly because I enjoy the solitude but also because until recently, I had no one in my life to hike up these higher summits.  As much as I value my alone time, I knew that an 18 mile hike in one day would be much more pleasant with company.  Not to mention I have a great deal of anxiety on a good day, and the thought of this hike by myself was enough to send me flying into a panic.  I finished 47 of the 48 by the summer of 2015.  By the summer of 2016, I had managed to rope my girlfriend’s two teenage sons into tackling Owl’s Head with me.  I channeled their teenage bravery, and off we went. It took us 10 hours, and the last 3 miles on the Lincoln Woods Trail was one of the longest 2.9 miles of my life, but we finished.  I will never forget that feeling I had while I was running toward the cairn on the summit of Owl’s Head; it was one of the sweetest moments of my life. It meant that I had conquered, even if only for that one day, the heavy weight of anxiety that seems to limit me in so many ways in my life.  But for that day, on that hike, I was finally able to enjoy that victory, and I have carried those emotions with me every day since then.