It's interesting how old memories are sometimes triggered.
Earlier today — because I was unpacking yet another box from my "Clutter Closet" — I found myself remembering some of my old stress responses from a time long gone.
I remember telling a therapist back around 1995 that I was able to monitor my own mental health pretty accurately simply by virtue of checking in with myself to see whether I was feeling inclined to "get away," and — if so — how far I was dreaming of going.
You see, the more screwed up my world felt, the more inclined I felt to just "disappear," change my identity, even change my nationality, and restart life somewhere else.
If I was just dreaming about moving to a different city, I was just moderately stressed.
If I was dreaming about moving to a remote and thinly populated area, far far away, I was considerably more stressed.
If I was thinking about moving to a foreign country, really far away, I was very stressed.
If I was dreaming about moving to the end of the world, we pretty much had "condition red" happening.
Now, I'll interject here that I've never actually resorted to any such move for stress reasons... because I'm also highly cognizant of the fact that "wherever you go, there you are." So it's unlikely things would actually get better.
My last major move was from Austin/Round Rock, Texas to here in Port Townsend, Washington (near Seattle) in 2006, and it was a very deliberate and thoroughly planned move by choice, and not as a result of stress. And I have never regretted that move, even for a second. There were so many reasons that move was a "right decision that it would take an entire post by itself to explain.
Anyway, sifting through my box of old paperwork today reminded me of some of the places I sincerely considered "escaping" to when things would get really shitty. And they would get pretty shitty, pretty often.
Hey, we all have baggage, right?
I'll skip the "moderately stressed" list, because it had numerous options, most of which people would already be familiar with. Boring.
My "Considerably Stressed" list included Petersburg, Alaska, a rather inaccessible but scenically spectacular town of some 3,000 way off the beaten track. I think it called to me because it "felt" like my Nordic roots, and there's a big Scandinavian population there.
Another favorite candidate was Bigfork, Montana, another town of some 4,000 or so, located on Flathead Lake. Aside from being another place with spectacular nature, I guess it held a certain mystique because I knew a girl who lived there, wayyyy back. Nothing ever came of it because she remained attached to her violently abusive husband.
I also considered Orcas Island here in the state of Washington... a 90-minute ferry ride between me and the rest of the world held a certain appeal. Ironically, I can actually see Orcas Island from our local beaches, on a clear day.
My "Very Stressed" list included places both little and large, all having in common that they were in another country and mostly required at least a 12-hour flight to get to, for most people I knew.
The most civilized was probably Cape Town in South Africa... my parents often wintered there during their "chasing summer" era, but it still held an odd appeal to me, perhaps because a couple of my favorite people from my University days returned there after graduation.
Sometimes I also considered Bariloche in Argentina which is a good sized city but hella out of the way of everything. Having spent my teens in Spain, the thought of migrating to a Spanish speaking country never presented much of a hindrance.
San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina Image Source
That and Ushuaia, also in Argentina... on the southern tip of the South American continent. Actually, I tended to vacillate between Ushuaia and Punta Arenas, about 150 miles away in Chile.
Hobart, Tasmania and Queenstown in New Zealand were also high on my list of "escape routes."
I always wanted to visit those parts of the world... Interestingly enough, Queenstown was on my radar long before I moved to Port Townsend, and it's very much like an opposite-side-of-the-globe copy of where I now live... water and sky and islands and fjords and mountains and everywhere you look is a breathtaking view.
Of course, the common thread in all this was "getting AWAY" and what I was typically trying to get away from was my own piss-poor choices of people to be around. Apparently, I had a couple of big neon signs on my forehead that I would alternate between.
One read "If you're really fucked up, I'd love to be your therapist and emotional wet nurse!" and the other read something like "Gullible Banker for Users and Manipulators — Please exploit me!" And yes, that was all on me... I suppose my response was "logical" enough in the sense that if I could just get away from people, I wouldn't have these problems.
And so, "Condition Red" would have taken me to places like the island of Jan Mayen high in the Artic Ocean... a volcanic blip on the map somewhere between the coast of northern Norway and Greenland... inaccessible, inhospitable and largely unpopulated; home to about 30 people at a weather and research station.
The island of Jan Mayen, with the Beerensberg volcano. Source
Another option was Macquarie Island, way out in the South Pacific between Tasmania and Antarctica. Same deal... inaccessible, inhospitable and largely unpopulated.
Of course, the real answer was that the young man who packed away those papers a long time ago needed to heal himself. And that has been quite a journey.
However, that journey was an inwards one, not one that took me to the ends of the Earth, trying to get away from how painful it felt to be around mean natured people.
The old paperwork? It's going into a pile and will be burned soon, on the spring Equinox.
Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!
How about YOU? How have you typically responded to stress? Have you ever wanted to just pack everything and "vanish" so you could start over? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
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Created at 20210312 23:22 PST
0209/1452