This is not a current event. I wanted to write a few words about something that happened last year as a means of illustrating how anxiety can drive a person to do very bizarre things. Even significant hardship can be easier to deal with than out of control anxiety.
Caution: possible disturbing content.
Unfathomable as it may seem to some readers, this is a true story.
I won’t go into the details, but in the Spring of 2010 my home life had become so stressful, so full of constant anxiety and panic, that I left and was living in the woods. I will say only this: at that time I was renting the home in which I now live, so I didn’t have ultimate control. It was early Spring. The snow was gone but grass had not really started to grow much and leaves were just emerging on the trees. I had been feeling anxious and panicky for a long time and it finally reached a point where I began actively planning to end my life. In a moment of relative calm I realized I had options. So I threw a few things in my Jeep Cherokee and headed off into a remote forest area. I had no real idea what the plan was at that moment, other than to escape to better circumstances in order to be able to formulate a plan. It is probably worth noting I live very near a large, mostly untamed “multiple use forest”. Uses include logging and recreation. There are hundreds of square miles of wilderness with only dirt and gravel logging roads here and there.
I didn’t have money for a motel room or apartment. It wouldn’t have made any difference if I did. I was absolutely too anxious and panicky to deal with people at the time. So I did what I could to protect myself, and that meant heading for the hills (literally).
I did have prior experience camping and hiking, so having only an open camp fire for heat and cooking was not a first time experience. It was cold at night but days were pleasantly warm. There was a lake nearby for bathing and washing clothes, but the water was very cold! Food was an immediate concern as I had only been able to take a few things with me. Fortunately I did have rope and string, which combined with rocks, sticks and other forest bounty could be used to fabricate traps for small game such as squirrels (sorry animal lovers, this was a question of survival). Despite prior outdoor experience, this was by no means an easy existence. Squirrels and other small game are not stupid, nor do they have poor reflexes! Trapping them with string, rocks, and sticks is no trivial task. Even with skill it takes luck. I knew the basic methods, but had never done this before so food was scarce.
I was busy trying to figure out how to sustain this style of living long term if I didn’t come up with a better plan. It dawned on me that my anxiety had such an evil grip I couldn’t even be a normal homeless person! No living in a city alley for me. No begging or scavenging trash bins for food. No shelter in an abandoned building or under a bridge. No way! I couldn’t be around people! My version of homeless would have to be living in these remote areas, taking sustenance from whatever nature provided.
It took only a few days to come up with a plan. If the plan didn’t work I supposed I would just become permanently homeless! I don’t own a cell phone, but somehow I’d had the presence of mind when throwing things in the Jeep to bring a cordless phone. Late one night I drove back “home” to be within range of the phone’s base unit in order to make a call. Pay phones were not even an option due to my anxiety! The phone battery had gone dead from being away from the charger too long, but thanks to my radio and electronics hobby I was able to improvise a crude means of powering it from flashlight batteries. So at 2:30 in the morning, I was wandering around in the darkness carrying a cordless phone with two flashlight batteries taped to it, trying to dial a number in near zero light conditions (my flashlight batteries were busy powering the phone). I had to count buttons on the keypad with my finger to know which was which. The plan failed that night, as my anxiety turned to sheer panic over making the phone call and I was not able to complete the task.
I made another attempt the next night and somehow succeeded. So there I was at 2:30-ish in the morning, hiding in some bushes near my “home”, talking to some kind person on the other end of a mental health crisis line while in a semi-coherent state from panic, vomiting at frequent intervals from the stress and passing out at least once. The precise details are something of a mystery, as the terror of the situation (talking to a stranger on the phone) prevented much of the encounter from being committed to memory. That call saved me from being homeless for the long term. A meeting with a crisis worker was set up for a convenient and somewhat safe outdoor location.
The crisis worker whisked me away for a three day stay at a quiet motel, where the staff had strict instructions to not disturb me for any reason. It was extremely stressful, but not as much as going “home”. Despite it was now the weekend and he was not on duty, that worker came out to see how I was doing every day. He got me set up with a case manager. Since I had to wait some days for the initial meeting with said case manager, I returned to my cozy little remote corner of the forest to wait.
I spent my days exploring possible walking routes to town. I didn’t know how events would play out but I did know I would soon be out of gas and wanted some means of getting into town if the need arose. It was 50 miles from town to my campsite by road, but only about 10 to 12 miles in a direct line. I walked many miles of long abandoned logging roads, snowmobile and ATV trails. I never did find a workable route. Every former road and trail was blocked by hazardous water obstacles at some point. I walked many miles a day for several days, never seeing or hearing another human the whole time.
I drove back to civilization (or what passes for it around these parts) on the morning of the appointment with the case manager. That appointment was also set for a convenient outdoor location since that is all I could manage with my anxiety level at the time. My Jeep was all but out of gas. I had enough to get back to my little campsite, but would not be able to return from there again if something wasn’t done that morning. I had no money. Even if I had it wouldn’t have helped since there was no full service station in town and I was absolutely unable to deal with self serve. Fortunately this diligent case manager had my tank filled so I could return a few days later for our next meeting.
The tenuous transition back to residing in an actual building happened soon after, though things were not easy at first. A process was set in motion which would result in home becoming home again, and also to transition ownership of the residence to me. For the first time in my life I would have real control over my living environment.
Seeing the struggle I had just to survive and do everyday things, the case manager in turn set me up with daily living support services. Through a combination of services, I have been able to get some of my physical health problems addressed; have learned to buy gas at some self serve stations; learned to use a debit card at some stores; have become able to deal with some phone calls some of the time; have become able to shop (with cash) at some smaller stores. All things that were completely impossible before. But, I need to make a lot more progress just to be able to stay out of crisis in the future.
Thanks for posting this, Paul. I really like your blog and although I don’t write often, I do come here to catch up on reading whenever I can, and it does help me a lot. I wanted to say a couple of things, I hope you don’t mind.
First, I understand that you may be frustrated with the pace of your progress, but those are very meaningful and important achievements! They may seem little to others that take them for granted, I can see that, but when one knows by experience how difficult things that others take for granted may be for us to achieve, it’s obvious they are not little at all, they are VERY meaningful.
Second, something occurred to me while reading these recent entries: I think we tend to take some of our good aspects for granted, as if they were not important or valuable just because we have them already. But they should be counted as parts of our assets towards improvement too, I believe. For instance, there are things you can do that I totally can’t: you have a technical skill and are very good at it; you have discipline and organization and talent to write a blog; you can drive. I can’t do any of that. In my view your progress should also include these things that you can already do, you know. They are not that easy. They are part of your positives and abilities, too.
I don’t know if I expressed well what I mean to say, I hope you get the idea.
Thanks for the kind comments, Nadia. I understand and your points are well taken.
It is true that for me the things I have achieved were big leaps. I do realize that but I’m finding it impossible not to be frustrated and frightened when I realize how much further I have to go to be able to keep myself out of crisis after my current support ends. I must try to lighten up on myself.
Thanks for reminding me to not take some positive things for granted because I already have them. I almost never think about the things I can do or my strengths except when someone points them out. Even then they are in mind only briefly, then forgotten again. That is another area I need to work on. I’m sure you have strengths of your own that are different than mine. I think we all do.