depressed but still going outside
a narrative on how brutal trauma can be
Sometimes I feel like I have nothing to say and then I realize that those are the times I need to speak up the most.
Inside the little animal mind of my brain, I’m thinking about all the ways in which I don’t matter. Lying on the floor, staring at a ceiling painted with blush white strokes, I envision a world where Callie doesn’t exist and it feels comforting.
If I tell my parents this, they ask if my medications need to be adjusted. If I tell my therapist this, she asks if I’ve made a plan. If I tell anyone else this, they squint their eyebrows together and don’t know what to say. How can I blame them? People are programmed to be uncomfortable with depression and its symptoms. People think that if we talk more about suicidal ideation, it’ll just increase the chances of someone acting on it.
In reality, this just buries the pain and isolates those who need help the most.
Because of my depression and chronic suicidal thoughts, I have an odd and possibly disturbing way of thinking about life. I think the concept of having kids can be selfish. I support abortion. I deeply believe in consent and think it’s unfair that people don’t get to choose to be born into this world. I know, it’s strange. Why am I sharing this? This is a hiking newsletter.
Because I so badly crave to live inside famous Mary Oliver quotes.
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
I wish I were that optimistic, but I’m not. I wish hiking and being outside were enough of a reason for me to breathe in the intoxicating vibrancy of life and want to wake up each morning. I wish running through the trees actually pumped me so full of serotonin that it could cleanse my suffering. I wish just looking at the tiny dandelions growing beside the trail made me think more clearly about how wild and precious my life is. But it doesn’t.
I’m exhausted. In my latest therapy session, I divulged even more about where my head has been at lately. Once I was done rambling, my therapist leaned back and looked at me with soft eyes. “That sounds like PTSD.”
A punch in the gut, and what a relief, all at the same time. It’s validating, but it still hurts. It’s like getting to the top of a mountain and feeling a weird sense of both calm and an itch for “what’s next?” I heal, I suppose. Or work my way toward it somehow. I process the grief, trauma, and pain of what happened. I cry a lot. I contemplate possibly going back to a psychiatric hospital because living another day feels impossible. But then realize that those places don’t actually help much, and then I’m back to square one. I keep going to therapy. I keep hiking and running and trying to find myself out there in the woods.
I feel wisps of her blowing through the leaves. I catch a glimpse of fiery red hair and sense her sadness as she crosses along the dirt path. I breathe in her hopelessness and tell her that it will all be okay again someday.
“When?” She asks.
I don’t have an answer, but I know that these feet have more exploring to do. Stay just a little longer, for the adventure at least. You have more hikes in you. You have more runs. More trails. More summits. More mountains. It’s not over yet, my girl.
Begrudgingly, fine.
I’ll look at the trees and try to be okay. I’ll hike the trails and try to find the slightest shard of joy. I’ll run until the miles melt into me and I forget about how hard it is to breathe sometimes. Maybe if I go far enough, I can outrun the parts of myself that hate me the most. Maybe if I hike long enough, I can leave behind the Callie of self-destruction and find the Callie who believes in Mary Oliver quotes.
Yesterday, I went for a run on a nearby trail. It was hot and muggy, the beginning of an unhinged Midwest summer where your eyelids sweat as soon as you walk outside. Since living in St. Louis, I’ve been on this trail hundreds of times. It’s a system of different multi-surface paths, some dirt, some paved, some gravel. On any given day, you can make up whatever length you want by combining and connecting different trails with each other. A true choose-your-own-adventure.
For this run, I was just going for thirty minutes. Easy, cruise miles at a gentle pace. After 5 pm in the evening, several folks were out doing the same thing as me. I have been following a base-building training plan with Vert Run in preparation for a half marathon sometime in September. Race day is months away, but I’ve been throwing myself into this consistent running routine.
Grasping at straws, it feels like.
Over and over, I replay the events from the trauma. Over and over, I feel the same sensations from that day. Over and over, I try desperately to rationalize why it happened and I can’t. I’m driving myself crazy. Is it a penance for not being able to change the outcome? Is it what I deserve for not being able to stop what happened? Or is it truly just my traumatized mind cycling through the memories because it was so horrible I can’t possibly forget?
Either way, over and over, I put one foot in front of the other. Over and over, I run the miles. Over and over, I try to make sense of it all. Over and over. One labored breath at a time, I traverse the trails. In search of my lost self. In search of the answers I know that I’ll never find. In search of temporary relief, until I stop and I find myself right back where I started.
See you out on the trail