Solo Travel: Check-In Time for your Brain

One of the biggest challenges of mental illness or depression is having a point of reference.

Everyone will ask: How do you feel?

How in the Hell do you know? How can you tell if the meds are having an effect and more importantly, how do you know if the effect is an improvement?

You can't unless you really know yourself to begin with and in my case…I really didn't. The compass governing my own needs was a little askew.

Over the years, the importance that I had placed on my career and my partner chiseled away at my own self-worth. It was as though the only way I could feel accomplishment was through the feedback of others like my boss or my husband.

This led to a complete disconnect between my perception of what was going on and what was really going on. Even though my attitude was cocky and self-assured, there was constant worry that I would be "found-out" as incompetent if my work had errors.

In my marriage, the friendship was strong but the conjugal bond was not and I sought approval from yet another source to bolster that feeling of acceptance. Inevitably, something had to give. We separated amicably but it destroyed me.

In that scramble to re-format my life, I isolated myself from all of my closest friends. I chose to take a new, higher-paying job with more responsibility and that only drained me more. All my time was spent at work trying to beat the learning curve into submission. The unrealistic candidate-interview promises I had made were always weighing on my mind. I thought I could be better than any employee ever seen…and I sabotaged myself every step of the way by never allowing myself time to rest.

After one year, exhaustion set in. Insomnia caused by some hormonal imbalance stirred the pot and lord only knows which chicken brooded the anxiety or which egg hatched into the major depression.

Why have I chosen to put all that personal crap on a travel blog? Because for me, the way out of the depression was to be kind to myself and to live in the moment. 

All of the psychology gurus in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy suggest ways of getting there. Many of their treatments pre-suppose a familiarity with self that I just didn't have but one technique that I did know made me "at one with myself" was traveling alone.

Obviously, this won't work for everyone and this is not medical advice, it's just me sharing my experience. Here is the framework.

In every day life we are surrounded by people with expectations. We strive to please them and to delight them and feel that they deserve our full attention. We compromise all the time in order to make things run more smoothly.

Take all of that away

Toss your alarm clock. Eat exactly what you want without consulting another human being for their opinion. Do not feel any kind of obligation. Have the freedom to be wrong without the fear of disappointing somebody else. Change your mind. Change it again and see that doing so has little to no impact.

Be in the moment

You might never have the chance to visit this place again. While you are HERE, don't be THERE and don't be THEN and don't be TOMORROW, be taking in your surroundings mindfully. It's easier to do this in a strange place, but the real trick is learning to do it every day. Practice.

Get to know your heretofore neglected self

So if you're on a trip, (assuming you've caught your plane/train/bus and don't have any more time-sensitive constraints) you wake up and it is just you. Open your eyes. There is no one beside you to laugh at your bed-head or cringe at your morning-breath. Roll over and sleep some more…if you feel like it. Get some breakfast…if you feel like it. Look out the window and see what there is to see…if you feel like it.

You get to know what you feel like pretty quickly because you are NEVER worrying about what somebody else might want. 

Those little weird little hobbies that you might have can be fully enjoyed. Go spend hours scouring antique shops for doll-house furniture. Visit that museum of doilies. Take a ride on a miniature replica of an 1880s steam train. 

Be kind to yourself

As you travel and discover these places you choose what to do and generally, you don't spend a lot of time doing things that don't interest you. Conversely, don't fall into the trap of feeling guilty that you AREN'T doing something. Sometimes a body is tired. It's okay if you decide to stay in the hotel watching Being John Malkovitch for the sixth time. It's okay even if you're in Bangkok. The night market will still be there tomorrow.

Get over your anxiety by feeling some anxiety

The other thing you can and should do when traveling is GET LOST. Feel the scary feeling and get over it. Isn't that what Exposure Therapy is all about? If you are alone, it actually feels really good to have that sensation of finding your way back. If you're with someone, the lost feeling is often supplanted by the worry that you've inconvenienced or even put the other person at risk. The sense of self-accomplishment at navigating to your destination is muted by the relief that the other person won't be mad at you.

It goes without saying that you should take normal safety precautions. Going down dark alleys wearing tons of flashy jewellery is crazy, not therapeutic. 

Get out of your environment

Learn other cultures. It is surprising how deeply we believe that the way we do things in our home country is the only or the best way. When you travel outside of your own sphere and discover the practices and values of the rest of the world it is very effective at re-orienting your broken head from its wrong-thinking.

I guess the last thing I want to mention is that you will get some resistance from the people in your inner circle that care for you. They worry too. Talk to them and explain that escaping in travel is not necessarily escaping your problems or escaping reality. If you reassure them that you will stay in touch, that you will seek help if things get rough and that you have a wish to come home at the end of the trip, you'll have a better chance of convincing them.