Walk Your Path
*Originally written in 2022, 3-4 months before another crash in mental health.
I do not know where lead the paths;
The end of the road is out of view.
May it be enough for me to know
That Love will see my footsteps through.
-Ghalib
There’s a tree-lined path, perhaps a quarter-mile long, in my quaint Iowa town. It connects my residential neighborhood to a large, beautifully built wooden playground. Beyond the park, the path winds at a slight decline past softball and baseball fields before entering the street. It is frequented by walkers and bikers, as well as children running towards the playground.
This Iowa town has been “home” for my entire life, though my residence for only nine years. My dad’s job in the United States Air Force required our family to move every two to three years. Despite this turnover of cities, houses, and people, our return to this charming, rural town has been a constant. To this day, I have many relatives--including a grandparent, an aunt and uncle, great aunts and uncles, cousins, and second cousins--here, all in this city of just over 6,000 people.
Growing up, my sister and I could count on staying with my grandparents here for three weeks each summer and usually a week over Christmas break as well.
This particular path has been here during each of those stays. I walked, biked, scootered, and skateboarded my way to the park as a child and adolescent. Located just down the street from my grandparents’ home, the park and its tables provided a convenient setting for picnics and family gatherings.
During my middle and high school years, I biked down the path with basketball in hand to the outdoor courts. My goal was to be the best basketball player possible, hoping for a chance to play in college.
But when I attended the local college to play soccer, not basketball, my mental health made it hard to do anything. My condition deteriorated to a dangerous state. Starting my first soccer training camp that fall, I knew that my mental health was not conducive to a happy and successful start to college. The wrestling in my brain was so horrendous that I either had to end my suffering by taking my life or seek mental health treatment. Gratefully, I opted for the latter.
At that time, the path became a place of retreat. Avoiding the dorms, my peers, and the stressful, new college environment, I spent long stretches of time at my grandma’s house.
My mom and I would walk to the shelter house where we discussed, for the first time, the possibility of having mental illness. I shared the extreme discomfort I experienced--anxiety with a pounding heart and shaking hands, panic attacks, racing thoughts of worry and fear, a depression that made life appear so dark. I explained my embarrassment, guilt, and shame over my recurring suicidal thoughts. We discussed whether I should try psychiatric medications.
For the next year and a half, as I battled the worst of my mental illnesses, I traversed this path. I ambled here alongside my mom and dad when I was so depressed, anxious, and suicidal that I was terrified to leave my bed. They encouraged me to get sunlight and exercise. Each step felt heavy, like I was plodding along at 500 lbs. I could hardly keep up with my parents’ pace.
Towards the end of sophomore year, after trying several medications and losing hope that I would ever think or feel better, my doctor and I found two psychiatric medications that dramatically transformed my mental health. I went from suicidal and hospitalized to thriving academically, becoming a soccer team captain, dating a girl, and enjoying college life.
The tree-lined path was there in the good times and the bad. I walked on it many times with my girlfriend, who became my fiancée. After we broke off our engagement, I returned to the path as I tried to make sense of my thoughts and feelings.
The path had a break from my presence for a few months while I attended physical therapy school in a different city. But flooded with a return of my mental illness symptoms, I withdrew just five months into the program and returned to my parents’ home. The path was there waiting for me.
For the next five years, I frequented the path--sometimes alone, sometimes with family, as I sought treatment after treatment and fought to resist the suicidal thoughts that swirled in my mind. A return to the level of mental health I experienced during my final two years of college proved to be elusive; no treatment provided sufficient relief in returning me to a state of functionality or relative peace. The path heard angry, frustrated words spoken between my family and me. It heard loving, hopeful words, too.
On one cool morning, during the summer of 2021, I walked the path again. After experimenting with various treatments during the past five years, my doctor and I decided to return to the two previously effective psychiatric medications. Once again, I experienced a complete and dramatic transformation in my mental health. At the time of this specific walk, I hadn’t been employed for seven months due to the distressing symptoms of major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. Yes, I was on “welfare”: my treatment was paid for by Medicaid. And just one month prior, I was still suicidal and complained of miserable cognitive dysfunction--slow thoughts, impaired short-term memory, and sometimes even a lack of thoughts altogether.
Thankfully, at the time of this walk, I had experienced close to full mental health for one month. During this stretch, I occasionally walked on the path. Sometimes I listened to music or a podcast. Sometimes I just took quiet time, soaking in the peaceful surroundings and the ability to think well.
I enjoyed the trees, the movement of my body, and the fresh air.
On this pristine summer morning, I considered all that I and this path had been through. I was still alive and walking the path today. What an accomplishment. So grateful.
Today, my stride felt strong, my mood was positive, and my thinking processes were clear. I became overwhelmed with pride for my ability to keep walking this physical path and the path of life, despite all the odds against me.
As displayed by my story, the path of mental illness can be challenging. My path included nine years of battling suicidality, depression, anxiety, cognitive dysfunction, shame, guilt, embarrassment, and countless trial-and-error treatment methods. While I hope your path is both shorter and smoother, my encouragement remains the same: keep walking your path.
For some of us, carrying on takes a ton of personal strength. It also requires the support of family, friends, therapists, and doctors. You don’t have to walk your path alone.
I don’t know what you carry on your path right now: mental illness yourself, supporting a friend or family member, or perhaps some other form of suffering. Whatever it is, keep walking your path. Coming from my current healthy perspective, I can honestly say, it is more worth the struggle than you can even imagine.
Whatever you are going through, my hope is that you find the health and peace you desire. Especially in the complicated field of mental health treatment, the timing of that breakthrough is unpredictable. As a result, the path can certainly be messy and require high degrees of patience. But just keep walking.
The path in my town endures four seasons. Winter brings frigidly cold temperatures, periodically settling below zero degrees, with inches of snow on the path. In spring, the pavement warms with sunshine on some days and pelting rain on others. In summer, with temperatures frequently over 90 degrees, the path burns. In autumn, temperatures cool and leaves fall from the trees, blanketing the waiting pavement. Whatever season, whatever weather, the path waits there to be walked. I have walked this path in each climate season and in every season of life.
Whatever season of life you are in and no matter how impossible the journey may seem, I urge you to walk your path. Fight for health and life with every ounce of strength you can muster. Lean on those who love you. Seek mental health treatment if needed. If you are someone who supports a struggling individual, continue to love, advocate for, and support your friend or family member, no matter how challenging that relationship may be.
Whatever you have before you, may you just . . .
WALK YOUR PATH.