Day 37 – Family Visit
My parents are visiting me during my midway point of the program this afternoon. Even though I’m shivering in my sleeping bag on the frosty, hardened sand this morning, I’m giddy with excitement to see them. At the same time, my thoughts are racing and my throat is dry from anxiety. Will they see the progress my peers and staff have recognized in me? How will my letter of accountability be received? One of our assignments is to write a letter of accountability (LOA) to immediate family members, which challenges us to acknowledge the areas where we fell short at home. We also have the opportunity to highlight our emotions and thoughts behind the actions we took, as well as intentions for making positive behavior changes in the future. It felt like a weight lifted off my chest after I wrote the LOA, and I decided it would be more impactful to see my parents’ reactions to it rather than sending it in the mail. My staff members remind me that while I have made significant improvements in managing anxiety and regulating my emotions, my parents haven’t witnessed these improvements. They remind me of my own admission that my parents still carry a lot of hurt, worry, and frustration, so I need to temper my expectations on how it will be received.
As the afternoon approaches, I find it difficult to keep myself from glancing up at the road every few minutes. One of the philosophies of this program is that staff never tell us the time, which is effective in helping us stay in the present moment. On this day, however, it’s hard to focus on breakfast clean up because I want to embrace my parents with the reawakened appreciation I feel for them. I created a path with rocks, sticks, and plants as physical metaphors to demonstrate the hurdles, achievements, and goals I hold for our future as a family. I plan on conducting this experiential ceremony as soon as they step off the truck. As I hear the distant rustling of a vehicle approaching our campsite, I nearly leap off my butt pad and hustle to the road. I laugh at my dad wearing a cowboy hat for the first time in his life, and my mom’s oversized 80-liter backpack which stretches down to her lower hamstring. They seem just as happy to see me, but can’t help themselves from commenting on how I must have intentionally rubbed my face in the dirt this morning.
I feel fortunate that I was encouraged to not get my hopes up about seeing pride, joy, and relief on my parents’ faces when reading them my LOA, because it made their admiration for my work that much sweeter. I am grateful that they, too, acknowledge that they have work to do on themselves as well. They have been engaging in the program’s family program to work on their communication styles and boundaries at home. Later in the afternoon, they had the opportunity to sit in on “Milan”, which is a group that is essentially a week’s end report card for each client presented by outgoing staff to incoming staff. At dinner, I was pleased with how much they enjoyed our spiced-up beans and rice dish, but got a crack out of their hesitancy to eat out of a cup cleaned only by dirt and water. After a night of them tossing and turning in their sleep in the cool desert air, I think they appreciated the physical and emotional adversity which had been a catalyst for my change. Witnessing the emotional safety of Group 8, meeting the caring and supportive staff, and building rapport with my trauma-informed therapist, my parents walked away reassured that wilderness therapy was worth the financial and physical investment.
Day 43 – Solo
During my first week at the program, one of the field staff informed me that every client would be participating in a 72-hour solo experience. He said the purpose was to use creativity to build our own campsites, to implement the hard skills we had been working on for weeks, and to gain further self-awareness by reducing distractions. As we are being guided out to our sites, staff informed us that they will check on us at least every 2 hours, a reassuring measure which adds comfort to my anxiety of having to use survival skills independently. When I arrive to my designated site, I am out of eyesight of my peers, but close enough to hear them and staff in case we need to yell in an emergency. There is more work to do at my site than I had envisioned, as I need to build my shelter with my tarp and cordage, dig a sump to properly dispose of my food, dig a latrine as my bathroom, create a firepit, and design an entryway to my site. The first night I struggled to create a fire, but adjusted my bow drilling kit to produce a coal and blow it into a flame. The resulting sense of achievement and physical warmth of the fire is refreshing, and a far cry from numbing emotional pain with drugs and alcohol.
Over the next two days, I build an entrance composed of sticks and prickly pear cacti (I later get a consequence for this for not following leave no trace (LNT) rules), set up a bomber A-frame shelter, make a list of the greatest basketball players of all time to alleviate my boredom, and write letters to family and friends. When I return to the group and check in to share my takeaways and emotional experiences, I reflect on new internal coping skills I hope to use in everyday life. The above-mentioned distraction skills I used were helpful in alleviating feelings of hopelessness and guilt over past actions, but I was also forced to sit with those feelings. I practiced cognitive restructuring by journaling and choosing alternate thoughts to recognize that I hope to come home a better person. I remind myself that I am reconnecting with values that will support better decision making in the future. It was interesting to learn about the solo experiences my peers had as well, and reassuring to connect on similar feelings and coping skills.
Day 55 – Crazy Creek
At our program, we are encouraged to make personal therapeutic growth by completing written assignments, developing hard skills such as starting fires and tying knots, and expressing emotional vulnerability. Developing these skills are essentially interventions for the “real world” which are designed to support us with accomplishing goals at home, such as working hard in school, fostering positive relationships, and maintaining consistent daily routines. While we are taught the importance of intrinsic motivation and accountability, our program also recognizes the reality of external motivation in life. A component of the program is to reward clients by celebrating progressions through phases. For example, by advancing to the third phase, one is displaying the ability to call groups and discuss feelings with peers, one has mastered some of the hard skills, as well as displayed growth in individual therapy by completing assignments and accepting help from others. I’ve maintained the belief that I reached this third phase of the program a couple of weeks ago, but was confused as to why I wasn’t rewarded with the standard crazy creek chair and head lamp you’re given once you get there.
Once I finally did reach the third phase, I was told that part of the reason I didn’t advance sooner was because the program wanted to teach me frustration tolerance. During that two-week period, my entitlement issues resurfaced. In part, this looked like passive aggressive check-ins where I expressed my anger and confusion around not getting the crazy creek. Learning to wait and continuing to maintain a positive attitude at the program was something I struggled with at home. I had trouble focusing on consistently completing assignments in college and was resting on my laurels of high school achievements. When I did finally achieve the third phase, I experienced a greater sense of fulfillment and pride than I expected. Over the last few years, there were few accomplishments I could hang my hat on, and one of the reasons I used drugs and alcohol was because I was disappointed and shameful of myself. Being rewarded for making progress and having a positive impact on the community was something I was yearning for, and wilderness therapy taught me that.
Day 70 – Graduation
As I learn that I’m graduating from the program after 70 days in the desert, I’m filled with gratitude, sadness, relief, and a mix of fear and excitement for the future. Part of the process of acceptance has been coming to terms with the fact that I will need further treatment after this wilderness process. This was news to me until I learned about my peers’ aftercare plans. My parents and therapist helped me agree to attend a transitional living program in Boulder, Colorado upon graduation from wilderness. It was recommended that I not go home to alleviate the risk of quickly sinking back into old habits. Instead, a residential program would help me implement the skills I have been learning in wilderness to slowly develop the adulthood independence I have been so badly thirsting for.
My goodbye ceremony is spilling with tears of pride, relief, and sadness. I am crying, two of my peers are as well, and even my dad, who came to the field to pick me up, is turning on the waterworks. I’m touched and surprised at the encouraging comments and positive feedback I get from Group 8. These affirmations later develop into momentous internal messages that I take with me to my next program. As I climb in the car and eventually peel onto the highway, I have an appreciation for all the small things in life I had previously ignored. I physically feel the vibrations and rhythm of the melodies of my favorite band, the delicious greasiness of a Wendy’s burger, and feel overstimulated by the thousands of lights on the Las Vegas strip. It’s certainly ironic that Las Vegas is the nearest major airport.
Wilderness therapy offered me an opportunity to grow as an individual in ways that I would not have been afforded in my previous life. My program helped me develop the emotional maturity, vulnerability, and strength to focus on myself and help others heal. I believe wilderness therapy would benefit anyone who bought into the process, not only for those who need necessary interventions to save their lives, but also high functioning adults. I didn’t find the process to be punitive or punishing, rather the opposite.
If it wasn’t already obvious from my writing, I am filled with gratefulness and relief that I was offered the opportunity to be part of wilderness therapy experience. The course of my life was shifted from sinking into a deeper depression with more and more maladaptive avoidance behaviors, to seeing lights at the end of tunnels. I once again believed I could finish my undergraduate degree, start a fulfilling career, eventually form my own family, and build healthy connections.
