We’re in the desert and there’s not a single soul in sight, save for a bird or two soaring overhead. The horizon stretches out for miles in every direction around us – a heat-distorted canvas of yellows and red against an enveloping blue sky. It is silent – pin-drop silent – like we’re the only ones left in the whole world. We take pictures – smiling, Instagram-worthy shots of the road stretching out ahead of us, and of a novelty thermostat we picked up at a gas station, to show the folks back home in rainy Wales just how hot it gets in Death Valley. Then we get back in the car and I burst into tears. My sister immediately asks me if I’m alright, and I am. I really am.
Like one in four people worldwide, I have mental health problems. Depression, anxiety, occasional panic attacks. It’s no picnic and I manage it, but I’ll admit it’s put the kibosh on a lot of things in my life, including, for a long time, traveling.
In my pre-teen dairies there are long lists of all the countries I wanted to visit – a wanderlust ignited by a childhood spent abroad. I imagined sitting atop the cliffs of Santorini, looking out across the sparkling azure sea, or getting lost under the neon lights of bustling Tokyo. A world of possibilities and adventure for grown up me. But then one day the chemicals in my brain went rogue, and my fantasies became exactly that – a fantasy, because travel often involves stepping outside your comfort zone in a way that many people with mental illness simply can’t entertain. They’re too busy just trying to get through a regular day.
I felt strangled by the invisible ‘what ifs’. What if my depression smothered me in lethargy while I was away? What if I had a panic attack on an airplane? What if my anxiety rendered me useless in a critical situation? It felt safer to remain cocooned in my comfort zone.
I watched as friends took off for far-flung gap years, and then later, well-earned holidays in tropical climates. I managed to visit a few European cities within a few hours’ flying time – Amsterdam, Barcelona, Paris, Venice – but I was constantly on edge and never fully present, with the days leading up to the trip fraught with anxiety and dread. Travel had become an exercise in endurance – not enjoyment – and as I began making peace with the fact that I’d probably never see the world as I’d always wanted to, I got pretty good at convincing myself I wasn’t missing out on anything.
So when my globetrotting sister suggested an epic road trip around Canada and the US – via Iceland, no less – I laughed. Yeah, right, I thought to myself. Like I could do that. But she persisted, and my initial dismissiveness turned into cautious curiosity. Could I do that? The more I thought about it – the adventure, the landscape, the exhilaration of breaking free from the cocoon – the more the icy grip of ‘what if it all goes wrong?’ melted into a ‘but what if it all goes right?’ Then one night, after too many glasses of wine, I flung my credit card at her. If not now, then when? I couldn’t accept ‘never’ as an answer any longer.
The months leading up to the trip were hard. I’d veer wildly from optimistic excitement to dread-laden nausea. Some nights I’d stay up late with maps and guidebooks, happily making plans with a full and eager heart, while on others I’d cry with sheer anxiety, desperately searching for ways I could call the whole thing off. And I’ll admit I felt very alone in my despair, because after all, I was about to take the trip of a lifetime – a trip that many people could only dream of – so complaining about it seemed crass. ‘Besides’, some would say, with the helpful smiles of those telling a person with depression to try yoga or drink more water, ‘travel is good for the soul!’
As irritating and clichéd the phrase is, though, travel is good for the soul, even if it’s only retrospectively. Yes, there were moments on the trip where those dreaded feelings of fear and panic would gently scratch at the corners of my consciousness, and I’d be counting the number of days until I got home. There were nights spent in ramshackle mountain lodges, shrouded in suffocating darkness with only my overactive brain for company, and mornings gripped by low-level anxiety at the thought of the day’s activities ahead. There were afternoons when the distance between myself and my safe cocoon felt overwhelming.
But the weight of those few moments was nothing compared to the joy and sheer elation that came with every other. The exhilaration of standing beside the ferocious Gullfoss Waterfall in Iceland, the peacefulness of kayaking across the sun-dappled Merced River in Yosemite, the heart-stopping excitement of winning (and then losing) big bucks in Vegas. The people I met, the food I ate, the heat, the smells, the ecstatic disbelief that I was finally doing the thing I’d been afraid for so long to do. That joyful moment of self-realisation in the middle of the Californian desert. All vivid technicolour memories that I draw on every single day, reminding myself that yes, I have a mental illness, but it doesn’t have me, and that the world is still out there, waiting.
Practical tips for travelling with mental illness
- Talk to your doctor before you go and make sure you have everything you need in terms of medication and prescriptions. My doctor prescribes a sedative to help me relax when I’m flying. I don’t always take it but it’s reassuring to know it’s there.
- Pack your coping tools. Just because you’re out of your comfort zone doesn’t mean you have to do away with comfort altogether. Lavender oil, coloring books, meditation apps, fidget toys – whatever works for you, put it in your carry-on.
- Splurge on the travel insurance. Traveling with mental illness involves a lot of ‘what ifs’, so having a comprehensive policy that’ll take care of any eventuality can help alleviate some of the anxiety.
- Build your support network. Tell your traveling companions and the loved ones staying behind about your concerns and how they can help you. Knowing there are people looking out for you means you won’t be stuck in your own head with your worries the whole time.
- Take it easy. You can make your trip whatever you want it to be, but it’s easy for traveling to play havoc with your routine. Late nights, long days, unfamiliar food and alcohol are all part of the fun of exploring the world, but schedule in some downtime so you can recalibrate.
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