Kayaking Is My Therapy

It’s wonderful to definitely be in the joyful throws of springtime. The daylight hours are exponentially lengthening and there is warmth in the sunshine, albeit out of the biting northerly breeze we seem to be experiencing at the moment. With the advent of Spring comes a strong sense of renewed hope and the excitement at the prospect of the long summer months ahead.

I have been telling folks I think I have traversed the winter months relatively unscathed with regard to my depression. There was my hospital psychiatric admission at the beginning of the Autumn last year, but this was thankfully short lived and I returned home with a determination to work hard towards wellness. I think the admission was just the kick in the pants I required at that moment. Indeed, through the Winter, I seem to have flourished with plans being made for my major sea kayaking expedition later this year and a plethora of creative achievements. I was surprised not to have experienced a lengthy dip in my mood during the long dark and cold months. I’m secretly pretty proud of myself too.

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Given this, why then over the last few weeks, just as the warmth and light are returning and I’ve enjoyed some wonderful kayaking adventures, have I found myself fighting to ward off the worrying signs of an impending depressive episode? That they are there is not in question. The poor sleep, the increase in the severity of intrusive thoughts, the strengthening beliefs in failure, incompetence and worthlessness, bouts of crippling anxiety and sadly, thoughts of my suicide. It’s akin to constantly battling the signs and symptoms of a bad cold. The strong hints of a cold are there but it hasn’t fully emerged to lay me low.

I know what to do. I must attend to these warning signs and work to diminish them before they take root and overwhelm my ability to self-care. It was the same for me this time last year too. Unfortunately then, the depression managed to take hold and I lost the joy of the summer months because of it. I’m determined this will not occur again.

What I’m sharing about these worrying symptoms may come as a surprise for many who know me. This is because I’m at that liminal stage of my mental health recovery when I appear to be once more happily coherent, with an outward zest for adventure and outdoor life. This is indeed true. I do feel and experience all of that and more. Yet, there is a fragility within me at the moment which distresses me and causes me to hide this away, preferring to say every time I’m asked, “I’m fine!”. It is easier and preferable to display an air of gaiety than often tell the truth about the capricious nature of my mental health. I do this not because I fear being judged but because instead, I harshly judge myself. I’m sick and tired of hearing my voice whining out my deficiency in overall robustness.

If I choose not to be honest with others about my recovery, how then will I ensure I don’t dive headlong into an unsupported period of depression? The answers to this are not readily apparent to me at the moment but I do have strategies which appear to be helping. The strongest of these is making the effort to engage with my passion for sea kayaking, to get out on the sea even for the briefest of moments. I recognise one of the main drivers for my lowering mood is loneliness. I work alone and I have no close friends to easily spend time with. Yet, when I’m out in my kayak this deep loneliness is readily replaced with the contentment of solitude, where I no longer feel the pain of aloneness, but the pleasure of connection with the richness of natural life around me.

Kayaking is excellent for bringing me into the immediacy of the present moment, where depressive thoughts of the past or the future are deflected by what I notice around me, what I’m experiencing in every moment as it occurs. This is a powerful insight for me because when I’m alone at home, working in my shed, my thoughts tend to ruminate and take me down dark paths of regret and recrimination. It’s when this begins to happen, I make sure to lift my head from my work and look out of my window to visually reconnect with the world of nature almost within arms reach. It’s helpful too to think of the myriad wonderful experiences I’ve enjoyed in the outdoors and recall them moment by moment as if I were there again. I manage to sustain myself by regularly doing this when my intrusive thinking becomes almost too much to bear.

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I sometimes think I flippantly overuse the term ‘Nature Cure’ to describe the benefit of my immersion in the natural realm in my sea kayak. Nature is indeed curative for me. It is the realm where I’m at ease with myself and where my strong self-loathing is dulled. Nature does not discriminate, so I can be present within it in whatever mood I’m experiencing in that moment. It is this lack of discrimination and unquestionable open acceptance of who I am, which invariably leads me to feeling soothed, anxieties quelled and thoughts of desperation forgotten. In those long and pleasant moments out in my kayak, I return to my true self, the person I’m happy to describe as being Nick Ray.

Nature is my therapy and she is consistently present for when I need her most.

I will conclude this blog entry by stating that I’m OK. I’m still strong and I believe I’m continuing to recover from my depression. The recovery pathways may not be linear and even may be circuitous at times, but I’m heading in the right direction. I’m trusting my internal compass and despite struggling to believe it a lot of the time, I know deep down it is leading me towards sustainable wellness.

Finally, I also know I’m not truly alone. It feels like this a lot of the time when my mood is fluctuating but the reality is, I have you, and the unconditional love and support you consistently show me.

Thank you.