Killington, VT —
The next day, Linda dropped me off at the Green Mountain Hostel in Mountainview, VT and we hugged goodbye. I knew it was the last time I would ever see her. I watched her drive away and once she was out of sight I ugly cried because I knew that was my last chance to escape. Watching her drive away felt like being stranded in a forest and watching the search helicopter fly right over your head, oblivious to your screams and cries for help. “TAKE ME WITH YOU,” I sobbed. The whir of the helicopter propeller faded into the distance and my lost heart sank.
I peeled myself off the ground and slung on my pack. It was 30 lbs but felt like someone slipped a sandbag into my pack while I wasn’t looking. I marched painstakingly to the trailhead and got back on trail. It was excruciating. I had been running on E since New York. Linda filled me with food, lemonade, and good spirits but my soul was drained and necrosis felt like it was spreading in my heart. My brain conducted fewer and fewer electrical impulses. My mind was eerily quiet, like the moments before a jump scare in a horror movie. I didn’t feel anything. I was numb. Seeing Linda reminded me of how far I had drifted from who I truly was and my original intentions for hiking the Appalachian Trail. I had no one - not even myself.
This narrative may sound dramatic to someone who has never experienced an abusive relationship but those who have experienced it know exactly what I’m talking about and how this feels.
I walked approximately 200 meters in from the road and I stopped. I wanted to sit down but there was no where to sit so I just stood there like a ghost. My knees started to buckle so I pushed forward. I thought of how I could continue, why I hiked in the first place, reminded myself who I was and that I could do anything I sent my mind to. But I couldn’t. It wasn’t me on that trail. It was the zombie Cory created.
I walked 50 meters more and I stopped. I physically couldn’t walk. I wasn’t tired, just dead. Another hiker passed me and said, “good morning” so I snapped out of it. “Just follow them,” I thought. I walked another 50 meters and I lost sight of the hiker. I stopped again. A single tear rolled down my cheek. Then the tsunami hit.
I threw my pack off and walked over to a small stream and collapsed. I cried. And cried. And cried. I couldn’t do it. I gave everything. I had nothing left. All I could do was cry.
I heard other hikers approaching so I wiped my eyes. They glanced at me in the bushes and I waved. I knew them - Scrapbook, (Amazon) Prime, and GingerBallz. They said, “are you okay?”
“Yeah, just a tough day. Thank you though.”
They hiked on except GingerBallz. He knew something was wrong. I don’t remember what compelled me to tell him I wanted to get off trail but said, “you can’t. You’ve got to pick yourself up. You’ve come too far to turn back now. Dig deeper - I know you can do this. Just walk a little more. Things will get better!” GingerBallz knew what he was talking about. He was ex career military and one of the toughest people I had ever encountered. I admired him (still do, we are friends). He told me everything I tell my students as a coach. He was right, and he was inspiring, but I couldn't take another step. I wasn’t me. I told him to hike on and he saw me slipping away. He said if I needed anything I could text or call him but I wouldn’t. I had no desire to stay.
I sat crying at the stream for an hour. I realized that it wasn't until I stopped moving that I stopped running away from everything that I could feel and the feelings could be released. In stillness, I could begin to heal. I was always running, literally and figuratively. Running to the next thing, running away from problems, running to be the best, running as a distraction, but that motion never allowed for processing feelings. When I stopped running, all the feelings came to the surface. I could no longer run away.
I called my mom. She said, “I think you need to come home.” She was right. So I hiked back to the road and hitched to the Green Mountain Hostel for the night.
I had to get home right away but I didn’t want to leave and disappear on Cory, especially since he was a combat Marine, very intelligent, and extremely volatile so he could likely track me down anywhere and kill me, so I called him to tell him I was going home and tried to conjure a convincing lie as to why.
“I have to leave because you brainwashed me and now I don’t know left from right”
“I have to get off trail because you eviscerated me and now I’m a husk of who I was.”
“I have to go because I lost myself through your manipulation and gas lighting and creation of alternate realities.”
“I have to go rest because you put me through an emotional washing machine and I need time to iron myself out.”
But I didn’t say any of that.
If you don’t know what abusive relationships look or feel like, imagine a cult. We all know the lore of cults and the structures needed to build them - mind control, a charismatic leader, and exploitation. Under the right circumstances, anyone can be manipulated into joining a cult. It is naive to think that your human nature cannot be manipulated and exploited with the right timing and strategic pressure, just as abusive relationships can happen to anybody. Much of the shame around surviving abuse comes from people who explicitly or implicitly victim blame by thinking victims were complicit in their own abuse. This is untrue. Abusers, like cult leaders, often share charismatic, sociopathic tendencies and people in abusive relationships, like cult followers, almost never realize they’re in one because of their insidious nature. If you have never experienced an abusive relationship the only appropriate response to a survivors testimony is to listen and learn. Believe survivors.
When I called Cory and told him I was getting off trail he shamed me but simultaneously turned around immediately and drive back to see me. I told him he didn’t have to do that but he insisted. He said I was his “copilot” and we would figure it out together. Figure what out? I was getting off trail because of him and I wanted to go home. He said he wanted a few days with me before he would drive me to the airport and say goodbye. I hoped he wouldn’t.
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