Though I suspect I’ve struggled with some periods of depression and anxiety since my teens, I never really gained the language to express them until the last couple of years. All I can remember, really, is being caught in these storms of emotion that turned me irritable and impatient and unkind in their wake.
The most challenging part now is accepting the demise from those storms. It’s witnessing what they uncover, judgement free, and integrating to some form of betterment.
Summer 2019
From 2017 to 2019, I spent most of August in Ten Sleep Canyon, WY. This dolomite-lined canyon has been an indomitable presence in my development as a sport climber. It was the place where I climbed most of my “firsts” from 10c all the way to 13b. It has been my refuge, my safe place, my second home to zip away to on weekends.
Because of this, a big part of me expected that canyon to dissipate the extreme anxiety I was battling the summer of 2019.
Unsurprisingly, it didn’t. A fine line exists between escapism and healing time in nature, and I was unintentionally erring on the side of escape. I just wanted to outrun the undulations of emotion and enjoy some time outside touching my favorite rock.
Therapy and Digging into Origins of Exiles
Earlier that summer, before my annual month-ish long trip to Ten Sleep, at my wits end, I decided to try therapy. I felt like I was reeling out of control and lacked the tools to recenter myself. I was recovering from a SLAP tear in my left shoulder and attending weekly physical therapy appointments, and scheduled my [mental] therapy for the same days.
I joked that Wednesdays were treatment days for body and mind.
In early sessions, I learned the term “exiles” from my therapist. He handed me a book to read called “You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For.” I found myself rolling my eyes (metaphorically) at the title and cover, but progressed to reading it with a voracious appetite, finding that it may have been written specifically for me.
Exiles are the parts of us that we choose to suppress and hide. They are the dark spaces that we wish would lighten and simultaneously seek to obscure, even as they scream to control the decisions we make and the interactions we have and the reactions we wield.
I remember sitting on the new couch in the therapist’s office, hugging a pillow. He was sitting across from me with a whiteboard and a marker, ready to dig into my exiles. Ready to identify them.
Pressure to be Perfect. Need for Control. Anxiousness. Frustration. The list was longer, but these were the ring leaders. The first two were, or are, the most vehement in my life. They are the ones that drive the others, and that remain even as I’ve tried to “chill out” and “be cool;” social pressures that are put on many women in the outdoor industry (and elsewhere) with unattractive or uncomfortable feelings that well up to the surface.
We concluded the session with the assignment of deciphering the origins of the exiles, to better understand why they exist. Understanding origins provides us with clarity and compassion, even in the case of examining the parts of ourselves of which we are ashamed.
For me, the Pressure to be Perfect and Need for Control feed off of one another. They are rooted in my childhood, where “successes” were applauded regardless of how I got there and failures were either ignored or deemed personal attestations to inadequacy.
And that’s why I needed control.
If I could control the situation, I could be the success instead of the failure. This is hallmark fixed mindset, rooted deep into my core due to my upbringing. And ironically, as I preached the opposite to the kids I was coaching, I was tripping over all those feelings I had swept under the rug for years.
And so, on that trip to Ten Sleep, I spent lazy mornings scribbling origin stories in my journal. Learning why those pressures for perfection and inclinations for control came to be and pondering whether I could live with them. Hoping on hope I could learn to see them as entities somewhat outside of myself, to view them more objectively and empathetically, as the author of “You Are…” suggests.
Rising Performance through an Anxiety Rollercoaster
Some days I would feel empowered. I would say, “see, I am trying to be better. I am trying to love myself.” I was showing myself that I was worth investing in by at least trying to follow through on therapy. To apply new tools.
But other days, I was frustrated at a level that made my skin crawl. That made it hard to sit still but difficult to control my movements, as the frustration at feeling what I felt burst from me in little fire-fights.
I was climbing well. Really well, considering I had torn my labrum badly enough to raise the question of surgery 6 months before and had taken a few of those 6 months off from climbing entirely. I felt strong and fluid on the rock, but my mind was buzzing at a level that felt insurmountable some days.
But I was there to climb, so I did.
The thing is, sending routes near my previous limit that I had had no expectation of even trying in the wake of my injury, wasn’t making me feel better.
Looking back I can see that this was a good thing. I was peeling my self worth away from my climbing and strengthening my identity to contain more facets than are provided purely through athletic performance.
Crown Prince
This route went down on the crest of a wave of anxiety that was threatening to cause me to have a full on meltdown in front of friends, and maybe strangers.
The day I sent this climb, I was so deep in the hole that I didn’t even want to be at the crag. Like, I really didn’t want to be there. I was exhausted and irritated and all I could see in my near future was curling up in a ball in defeat in my tiny, windowless van where no one could see me.
I warmed up on the middle of the route. I tried the opening boulder a few times, failing to execute the powerful moves. I took a power nap on my pack, defeated and exhausted as my two partners explored a nearby route.
I thought, “one more go or so, I guess.” And my friend made we yell at the base of the climb with him to get me psyched enough to pull out all the stops on the opening boulder problem. That little bit of yelling quelled some of the rising anxieties and allowed me to execute the boulder.
I talked to myself through the middle of the route and at the rest before the redpoint crux, hoping to remind myself that I was capable. That I just needed to stand up and stay tight.
I found myself clipping the chains, though not in a way I’ve ever experienced. As I slapped the rope through the draw and leaned back into my harness, my head fell into my hands and tears welled up a little. And I was wholly overwhelmed. Shocked and thankful that at this point in my shoulder recovery I was able to climb this route. But mostly just relieved that I didn’t have to fight anymore.
That was maybe the most powerful aspect. I always enjoy fighting for a send, but in conjunction with having to fight to be content with my exiles, it felt like too much.
Sport as a Tool
Perhaps the most lasting reinforcement from that day was that climbing serves as mirror, lens, and fertile ground.
As mirror, it can reflect the journey of healing, both physically and mentally.
As lens, it can magnify strengths and shortcomings, allowing for examination and alteration.
As fertile ground it weathers the extremes of drought and over saturation and yields the necessary components for growth.
You just have to listen. Observe yourself and your reactions without judging, which, yes, is just as hard as it sounds and not nearly as simple. But it gets a little easier, not every time, but over time.
Ten Sleep Canyon is on the ancestral lands of the Apsaalooké (Crow), Cheyenne, and Očeti Šakówin (Sioux) tribes.