Wrestling with Depression in the Yosemite Wilderness
The night was as dark as I had ever managed to see with my own two eyes. And the below freezing air of the Sierra Nevada’s was crisp, causing enough discomfort that sleep wasn’t possible. Even cocooned in a sleeping bag with multiple layers of clothing on. For the umpteenth time I had to get up to relieve myself, trying to find my headlamp before escaping what little warmth the sleeping bag was providing.
We made camp at a clearing on the south east side of El Capitan, right at the edge of a drop off into a gulch. In the daylight you could see the vast valley floor, some 2500 odd feet below us. On my walk back now facing towards the ridge on Eagles peak to the east, I could see the unmistakable glow of the star clusters that make up the Milky Way galaxy. I woke Johnny immediately knowing that despite the cold and it being just after 4 am. He would want to be a part of this. We laid there, freezing our asses off in complete awe of how that cloudy distant glow slowly rose into the sky, occasionally taking time to track shooting stars and random satellites.
As the stars slowly disappeared and the blue hues signaling the approach of dawn set in, we moved closer to the mountain’s edge, knowing this was one of the best places to catch the notorious sunrise in Yosemite. While we weren’t at the summit of the granite monolith, witnessing the glory of the Dawn Wall, we had a more than perfect view of the day’s awakening.
I sat on the slope of a rock face, feeling the long awaited warmth of the sun hit my face, thinking to myself about how every moment in the last 72 hours had been a dream come true, something I had only imagined getting to experience, and here I was living it, feeling next to absolutely nothing.
How could I be surrounded and immersed in so much unbelievable beauty, experiencing such incredible moments of joy and awe, and still be consumed by the notion that I didn’t want to be alive.
In my years of battling with anxiety and depression, I all too often allowed it to win. I never made too many attempts to force myself into happiness. I either found myself too deep in it to try, or happiness managed to make itself appear all on its own, even if just for a fleeting moment. During this trip there were many of those fleeting moments, where I could acknowledge “this should make me happy” “this moment is a happy one”. The severed relationship between knowing and feeling was all too present in the moments of desperation for happiness.
The one moment I could feel during this trip is seared into my memory in every way I could wish possible. Even thinking about it elicits the emotions all over again. A moment too perfect to be believable, even as I lived through it.
The drive through Yosemite from the gates to the valley is a long one. It winds and curves through towering redwoods and sequoias on a highway that hugs the cliff side, at times precariously so. The cell service is spotty and if you haven’t downloaded music ahead of time you’re stuck with the quiet hum of the car. I spent a good deal of time being frustrated over the inability to listen to music. Not wanting to sit in the silence with my own deafening thoughts. An inopportune time for the thirteen hour drive from Portland, overnight with no sleep, to start wearing on my patience.
Here I was on a trip I had dreamed of for years, anticipating the opportunity to climb and backpack after a year of being indoors. It was just one song, one silly song that I felt like truly fit the moment and all I could feel was agitation and anger. I hugged highway 120 and its occasional out turns that offered glimpses of what was beyond the forested highway, hoping to end the drive sooner than later.
After what felt like an eternity, service was finally restored, and immediately that silly little song I had longed for, the one that I truly felt like fit here in this moment, started to play.
Then like something out of a movie, the chorus began as I took a winding left turn around a sharp edge, opening the road up to a cliff side panoramic view of Yosemite Valley. If there was ever a moment in my life that stunned me, stopping every thought and bringing every emotion to an abrupt end, this was it. Tears were streaking down my cheeks before I could register I was crying.
For the first time in months, joy radiated itself through me top to bottom and back again. There was no one, and no thing, that could take that moment from me. That could taint or diminish that unadulterated happiness that such a simple, nearly scripted moment brought me. It was however, short lived as I descended into the valley itself, I was met with notorious Yosemite traffic, and was now filled with the anxiety and agitation I had grown so accustomed to feeling over the last few months. Somewhere though, in the core of me, and at the edges of a ghost of a smile, that happiness was there, sitting on the back burner, simmering, still demanding to be paid attention to.
If you know me it would not surprise you to know that this trip was decided on, planned, and executed in 27 days. For me it was a means to an end. If i could just get out, get back to what makes me feel the most alive, what brings me the most happiness, return to the place where my soul just feels free and at ease. Then this darkness that had overtaken me, that was consuming me more and more each day, would go away. My friend Johnny, (truly a saint of a human being), had agreed to join me on my endeavor to backpack the Yosemite wilderness. Flying nearly 3,000 miles across the country with all his gear, giddy and optimistic to embark on this novelty trip.
There are not enough words to describe the gratitude I have for him. The absolute love and safety I feel in our friendship. In hindsight I know there isn’t a single other person I could have gone on this journey with that would have handled what I was going through the way he did.
My depression reared its ugly, scathing, fearful head despite my arduous attempts at masking anything that wasn’t happiness. It was in those moments of trudging through feet of snow with our heavy packs for days, that I learned not only how important it is to allow myself to feel what I was feeling, openly and honestly, but that it was also important to have people in my life that were just there. People who look at the all of it, and bring nothing but empathy and kindness to the table.
The lesson I learned most wasn’t the one where I realized what type of people I wanted to be surrounded by in my life. It was that I wanted to be, for others, what he so willingly and altruistically was for me. A friend who looks at the burden you’re carrying, the demon it creates within you, and just says “I am here” “how can I help” and “I am going to love you, no matter what”
Suicidal ideation, even if it’s passive, is a weight whose heaviness cannot be overstated. It carries shame with it wherever it goes, making even the idea of opening up about it harrowing. Sometimes I wanted to let myself cling to that emptiness, let it truly take over, because the wrestle was just too much. Each time I made an attempt to confide in someone, even just to talk to a close friend or family member to distract from that pull to nothingness, I was sorely reminded of just how busy we all are. How little time we actually take for others. I saw it in myself as well. But to be on the other end of it, the end where that darkness has convinced you that you don’t matter, that you’re all alone, that the pit of emptiness you can’t shake is here to stay. There aren’t words for that type of sadness. That type of loneliness.
For me, it took multiple painful attempts at bravery to find the moment where being honest about what was going on, felt liberating. Two things happened in that moment; I felt that weight and that pull towards a void became just a little bit lighter, and I learned that we need people. We are going to need people over and over again and we are going to have to be that person to someone else. We have to look at our lives, and our relationships, and we have to find a way to be intentional.
A safe place in the form of a person who met me where I was, probably saved my life. And after that one brave moment paid off, each brave moment after that got easier and easier. No matter how hard it seems in the moment, no matter how dark and hopeless it can feel, it gets easier, and it gets better.
Yosemite wasn’t the means to an end I had hoped for. But the bravery I learned through it all was. Now anytime I need a little bit of that bravery, a little bit of love, or a slice of cliff side panoramic happiness, I just play that silly little song. The words remind me that even in our darkest and hardest moments, happiness is not far from us and that we are usually, right where we should be.
You feel like life’s on your shoulders
And crawling under your skin
Nail-biting thoughts lying bedside
But don’t know where to begin
Feeling lesser from pressure
Of waves you can’t swim up
You are what you say,
Just know that you’re good enough
You are right where you should be
You are right here next to me
What do you need when
You have everything?
Cause you are right where you should be
Quinn XCII “Right Where You Should Be”
https://open.spotify.com/track/5s2coZZQHU7IN6ErpXFula?si=PUw3pIeZQqCrYA4lvmHBmw
