Managing Depression by Flying with Eagles

In updating my website I came across this blog post from January 2021. I am sharing it now as I am fresh off of a staff meeting with Team Red, White & Blue . A few things have changed - my mental health is much better and I am now a staff member. But the impact that this organization has had on me, is still true.

*This post may contain triggers for those who suffer from depression. Please know that you are not alone and call 988 if you or a loved one are struggling. It also touches on domestic violence. If you need assistance call 800-799-7233.

I look back at a blog post I had written for Team Red, White, and Blue regarding my time as an Eagle Leader Fellow back in 2016. The initial sentence, I truly believe sums up my entire time within this organization.

“As I was getting close to mile 4 in the race that I accidentally entered as part of Team Red, White and Blue’s Trail Running Camp…”

Who accidently enters a 5 mile race when they haven’t run in years? Me, I guess. But when it is with this group of people we call our Eagle Family it just happens. I have said it before and I will say it again, being surrounded by other Eagles, you feel this intense sense of safety. But it is not a content type of safe - it is a brave, do things you never imagined you would do, type of safety. I don’t know how to explain it other than that. But I know that in this safety - you are safe to be 100% authentically yourself.

This authentically yourself can be telling your story, even if you have never told it to anyone before. It can be sitting in silence knowing that the others are saving space for you when you are ready. It can be being proud of yourself for DNF’ing a 50k at mile 16 because you know at least you gave it your all. It can be pushing yourself harder than you have ever before. Or most recently for me, it can mean bawling your eyes out as you are climbing a mountain that Mollie Geyer, PMP picked because 1. You are in UT and from ND and climbing anything in that elevation is not easy. 2. You are physically not where you are used to be, so the climb is a challenge and your lungs are on fire. 3. The emotions of the past months are crashing down as you are simply trying to put one foot in front of the other and not go tumbling down the very trail you are climbing up.

I have always been pretty open with my struggles of depression and anxiety. It wasn’t until this fall that I realized that as open as I was with my struggles I was never truly honest.

I tend to hide the darkest parts, the ugly parts because they are hard to explain. Anyone who is close to someone who struggles with depression and suicidal ideations knows that never ending feeling of “how can I help, what can I do to fix this?” And those of us in the fight, know there is nothing they can do other than love us, which they do and yet we are still deep in the fight - so it is easier to keep some of the hard truths to ourselves. Also, we keep these hard truths because we don’t fully understand the feelings ourselves.

So hard truth. This September was probably the hardest I have had to fight with my mental health. I was having full on panic attacks, multiple times a day. I remember calling my sister telling her I thought I was having a complete nervous breakdown. Panic attacks are not new to me, I have dealt with them since I dated Richard. (Long story short: Richard = ex boyfriend who was extremely emotionally abusive, held a knife to my throat and continued to stalk me for months after I left.) But my panic attacks are pretty manageable with medication, music, or my husband quizzing me on all things The Office or Hanson. These level of attacks I have only seen 2 other times in my life. One - after I left Richard. Two - after my uncle passed away very unexpectedly.

After going to therapy it came to light that the most recent attacks were actually triggered by undealt trauma from the following 2 above. (Who knew?) While I was pretty open with people about these attacks - I wasn’t super open about where my depression was. It was bad. I don’t know how else to put it. It was bad. I can say what I held onto what a trip coming up with other Team RWB State Coordinators. I don’t struggle with what one would think are typical suicidal ideations, what I struggle with is a genuine ambivalence to living a lot of the time and an extreme guilt for that feeling because of how blessed I am in my life. (My family, my job, my husband, my niece and nephew = insanely blessed.) This ambivalence hit a level that after never having any desire to do so, I decided it was time to Skydive while in Utah. I mean - if the parachute didn’t open at least there was a pretty view. If not I would probably have a pretty rad time. Which I did, regardless of how out of character skydiving was for me. It was the coolest experience of my life and I initially thought that feeling, of being fully alive and flying through the air is what jump started my feeling better.

But it wasn’t the jump. Those 5 days in Utah, other than jumping out of a plane, were spent with my tribe. And I was doing hard things with them. We were developing as leaders, and sweating together by getting out on mountains or explorinf the city on bikes. I spent time with people I have met through Team RWB. I got to go to dinner with Teota. I met Teota in Boise years ago at a Team RWB GORUCK Camp. I was able to spend time with Andrew again while he showed me his city. Andrew and I met, gosh I don’t even know the first time. Maybe in Colorado Springs at the COS Marathon, or it could have been in Seattle for an Eagle Leader Academy. I was able to meet Marcy and see Kevin Henry again and finally meet my queen of the North, Chris Oliver . And of course meeting the rest of the State Coordinators while in this beautiful, beautiful city. Having Mike Erwin take time to Zoom in and chat with us. And seeing Kris Lord who is my Area Director, former fellow - fellow, and one of my all time favorite human beings, brought this instant calm into my life. Maybe its her Cali demeanor - but I think just knowing that I was surrounded by her and a group of people who didn’t care where I was at in my life, who didn’t care how hard that damn mountain was to climb, how many tears I cried, how we were all in Salt Lake with one mission: to figure out how to improve the lives of veterans and of our communities through health and wellness. It reminded me of my purpose.

This trip was not a cure all for my panic attacks (ask Chris, Kevin, and Erica as they watched me almost break down right before I left) nor was it an instant cure for the ambivalence I feel. But as Sebastian Junger says, “Human beings need three basic things in order to be content: they need to feel competent at what they do; they need to feel authentic in their lives; and they need to feel connected to others. These values are considered "intrinsic" to human happiness and far outweigh "extrinsic" values such as beauty, money and status.” This trip allowed for me to feel competent in what I was doing, authentic in my life, and most importantly extremely connected to others.

There is something about being around these red shirts, there is genuine Eagle Fire that breathes in the people that wear them. I have struggled with depression my entire time I have been involved in this organization and I know without a doubt, the work we do, the experiences that I have had, the stories I have heard/been able to share, and the people I now call my family are a huge, huge part of why I am still here.

Team Red, White & Blue #teamrwb #mentalhealth #veterans #suicideprevention #teamredwhiteandblue #wellness #health