Shut Off My Brain

Here we are and it’s May. It’s been roughly 8-9 weeks since we “locked down”. I haven’t written much; in my own journal or on here. I’ve been able to. I’ve had a very hard time with this. I haven’t been able to ask for help. I’ve struggled to get my thoughts out. There has been very little to no self care. The loss of my routines and “fear” of the outside world really threw me for a loop. I’ve come to realize that I don’t really have hopes and dreams yet, and maybe I never did.

With it being May that means it’s Mental Health Month. Talking about my own struggles to help break the stigma has been half of the goal of this blog. I’ve been very bad at that since lock down. My brain is always on. It always has multiple thoughts going at all times. I can’t stop that and most of the time it’s hard to focus on one at a time. It gets to be overwhelming a times. It makes my anxiety, when it pops up, that much worse. I thought everyone was this way. It took me a long time to figure out how to deal with it. To be honest I still haven’t completely done it. There is one thing I’ve always been able to do, since I found it, to shut my brain off. Rock Climbing. When I climb I get so focused that my brain will actually only have one thought or no thoughts at all. There have been times I’ve been so “shut off” that I have realized I was listening to music and yet couldn’t hear it. I’ve heard a girl screaming for help as her father was actually dying and it felt like she was miles away. Granted at that point I didn’t know exactly what happened. That will be another story at another time. I struggle to get his purple face out of my head, and now there he is again.

Anyway where were we. I’ve been climbing for about 11 years, mostly in a gym though I do have a small list of outdoor trips. I think I’ve been climbing with the same group of people for maybe 7-8 years now. I’ve lost count. The lock down had taken them away from me. It took climbing away from me. I didn’t realize how much I missed both of them and for very different reasons. I love climbing. There’s so much problem solving involved. It’s just as much of a mental game as well as a physical game. I love problem solving. That’s the Virgo in me. When I’m on the wall my brain can shut off and just focus on one thing. It truly clears my head. The friends I’ve made are really the first set of guys I’ve ever been really open and vulnerable with. While I was going through my divorce and first round with my therapist (couples counselor at the time) I learned that I needed to be me and let other people see who I was. If they liked it great. If not it was time to find new people. What I found in these guys was true friendship. I found guys that would support me for me. This new me was someone that could be liked by others and myself. Being in lock down took them and climbing from me. My own way to shut my brain off and give myself a reprieve from thinking was gone. This had an increasingly negative impact on my mental well being. It took lots of hard discussions and thought to realized what I had lost and what the real impact of that was.

Well a few weeks ago one of those friends told me he was going to build a climbing wall in his garage. Inspiration hit and after a chat with my therapist about it I decided I was going to do the same thing. I had never built anything before. I longed to being climbing again. If I couldn’t see my friends I could at least turn off my brain for a bit. In three weeks I had most of the frame finished, holes drilled, and t-nuts hammered in. Now I was stuck. Now we had a real dilemma. The frame weights probably 2-300 pounds without the plywood attached. There was no way the witch and I were going to get that set up and then braced to be able to add the legs. The one friend has two teenage sons that could help me. We were in lock down and trying to stay socially distant. We didn’t go over there the first time were invited because of this. Last weekend that changed. I broke. I needed people and I needed help. I asked him and my other friend if they’d come over and help. They were all nice enough to come over and help me set my wall. We climbed for a few, which was a great release for the two of us that hadn’t been able to climb in 7-8 weeks. Now we’re meeting once a week at each others’ houses to have a small sense of normalcy. I can now shutoff my brain, but more importantly I’ve been able to regain a connection to the guys who supported my transition to who I am becoming now. I know there will be a time where we will probably all go our separate ways, but I really can’t thank them enough for their friendship so far. I know we’ll always meet up again in a gym somewhere and it’ll be like nothing has changed.

I like to keep a small group of friends. Those friends I would do anything for. Some of them I’ve known for 20 years, some for 7-8, and some for less. I wouldn’t trade any of them for anything. This is a big thank you to all of those friends who have been there for me. I can only hope I’ve done enough for you.