Antarctica & Depression

This is a little piece I started to write for my blog but never published. I rediscovered it on my computer and I thought it might help anyone who's struggling with depression or low self-esteem.

I think it’s easy to believe me when I say my six months in Antarctica was a travel adventure that changed my life. Although I have to say it wasn’t exactly a travel adventure so much as it was a work adventure.  I was hired to be a dishwasher in the industrial galley that served anywhere between 200 and 2,000 people in a season.  The reason we were all there was science, but the majority of people worked to support that science by cooking, painting, maintaining and so on.  As scientists rotated in and out so did the dishes, and as the dishes pilled up my sanity tended to go down.  This general wear on all of our psyches led to some interesting nights were the whiskey bottles were emptied a little too quick.  This is the part were you’re probably expecting me to say, “and those people I drank with, cried with, laughed with, they’re what changed me.”  Those people were special.  And funny.  And odd!  In all my travels I always come home saying, “It was the people that made it special!” This true of everywhere from my neighborhood Starbucks (adventures come in all sizes) to the incredible steepes of Mongolia.  It’s true of all my travels, except Antarctica.

That was the only adventure were the people didn’t leave the biggest mark on my heart and soul.  This time, it really was the land.  

Two years prior to going to Antarctica I’d just had it all with life.  I felt as many people do at some point in their life.  Beyond worthless.  Hopeless.  And at the same time, smiling through my days and using all my energy to look happy rather then figuring out how to get happy.  I hit my rock bottom, and I hit it with a dull thud.  I attempted suicide and after being released from my suicide watch, crash landed back at my parent’s house.  I was 22 and seeing no future for myself.  I’d flunked out of college. My friends were not only graduating, but they were going on adventures that only increased my empty feeling that I would never do anything worthwhile.  I had yet to even get a passport.  

After a year that I can only imagine stressed my parents beyond belief I began to claw back to life.  I started searching for what could be my adventure.  How could I get out of my pit and into an amazing life as fast as possible?  How could I do it when I was broke, a college dropout, going on two years of unemployment and on shaky ground with my confidence?  By going to Antarctica of course!  I had been searching high and low for “my thing” and when I saw the tip about Antarctica I knew, I KNEW, that was MY THING. I WAS GOING.  The quest to get my foot in was what I needed to get my lifeforce going again.  I had a purpose.  I was going to Antarctica damn anyone who told me otherwise.

It took me a year to research, talk and badger anyone I could find who would help me.  Getting a job as a dishwasher is essentially the lowest position I could get there.  I didn’t care.  I was going.

What changed me the most was seeing me, as I was, reflected in Antarctica.  Looking out over the vast and empty landscape I saw a geographical reflection of how I felt.  Antarctica was the big emptiness inside me.  It was like facing all that emptiness I couldn’t bear and just standing inside of it. The fact that Antarctica is so hostile to any people or even attempts to be tamed made it powerful.  Depression is powerful.  But to be awed by that big empty land made me realize that I too, at all times, am amazing beyond words.  Not because the empty was good or bad or beautiful or ugly or really describable, but merely because it existed.  I existed.  Even when I’m a big pit of dark sadness I am something. And I might not respect or even enjoy myself while I’m in it, but would anyone truly wish Antarctica away?  Would any of us believe this world would be better or happier or prettier if we could just wipe it away?  Of course not. Antarctica is going away and we’re in a near panic over it.  Why then do I wish to erase the parts of me that are my own Antarctica?  

It took me a long time to stop feeling ashamed of the scars on my wrists and that bleak time in my life.  I can thank Antarctica for showing me that time in my life was real and it was important and nobody (especially me) has the right to judge it.  And if I ever do slip back into judgement, I look at photos of Antarctica, and I remember, I am that and that is me.  There’s no need to label it or explain it, it just is, and it’s all perfect and just as it should be.  

At the same time, no one wants to live in Antarctica forever.  It’s important to see what you’re meant to see, tuck the knowledge inside you, and carry on.  Carry on.