The following is a brief account of the writer’s struggles with mental health, how nature immersion played a major role in addressing his struggles and a link to an Outside Magazine article titled “Science’s Newest Miracle Drug is Free.”

“A grassroots movement of physicians are prescribing time outdoors as the best possible cure for a growing list of ailments. Can they really convince big health care that free medicine is the way of the future?” - (“Science’s Newest Miracle Drug is Free,” Aaron Reuben, Outside Magazine, 2019)

Can they convince big health care? Probably not. There are not enough insurance reimbursement dollars for prescribing a hike in the mountains or time in a kayak. But are they correct in believing in the healing power of nature? Yes. Yes they are. And I am living proof that nature truly heals. Not in a symbolic or metaphoric way, but in a real, tangible and magnificent way.

By 2018 I was back living in New Hampshire after a dreadful, short, and, simply put, pathetic time living in Florida. The disastrous “Sarasota Experiment,” as I now call it, was not doomed from the beginning because of anything having to do with the location. It had everything to do with my suffering mental health. By the time I got to Florida I was entering my ninth year as a practicing corporate attorney and my eighth year of significant substance abuse. I also was mired with sporadic anxiety attacks, debilitating depression, and an exponentially growing apathy toward my own life akin to a frog sitting in increasingly hot water and never jumping out. And although my eating disorder and passive suicidal thoughts were behind me, their departure from the ranks of my mental health crisis were due to my overwhelming indifference towards anything meaningful, and not due to any efforts I had made to work on those issues.

The anxiety was bad. Although I was no longer going to the emergency room because I was sure that I was having a heart attack, the attacks would virtually, if not literally, paralyze my body while sending my rabbit-hole exploring mind into overdrive.

The depression was worse. I couldn’t retrieve my mail, let alone open it. Waking up to no texts or missed calls was eclipsed in self-loathing only by waking up to literally any texts or missed calls and the panic and perceived pressure associated with having to respond. If God came down and told me that there was a pill on my nightstand that, if I took it, would cure all my problems, I likely wouldn’t have had the motivation to take it. And speaking of pills, I was on all of them. Well, “on” is a generous term. Rather, I was prescribed all of them and was too depressed or drunk to ever take them consistently.

And speaking of “drunk,” I was all of the time. But gone were the days of simply drinking after work. I needed alcohol in me at all times to stave off the withdrawals and the fear of suffering another round of withdrawal-induced seizures I had experienced in the past. Also gone were the days of drinking only vodka or whiskey. Listerine, after all, resulted in a different kind of drunk when the normal kind of drunk was no longer sufficient to effectively remove me from reality. A reality that I could not stand to bear.

Back to 2018. I was at my parents’ house. I was drunk by virtually any standards but in my view, maintaining functionality. I felt slow. Hot. And my father approached me in the kitchen and asked me what was going on. He wanted to know precisely what was happening to me. He acknowledged my drinking was certainly an issue but, beyond that, I had lost much more than my sobriety somewhere along the way. I lost who I was. I had lost everything that mattered. I responded by saying that I had no self-worth, no self-confidence, and no self-value. He was visibly taken aback. And although those realities had become so embedded in my own mind that they just rolled off my tongue as if I was reciting the alphabet, his physical response took me aback. At one point in my life I had been the high school valedictorian, a dean’s list student at a prestigious college, top of my law school class, and had an impressive office at the most highly regarded law firm in Boston but now I had no self-worth, no self-confidence, and had no self-value. You see, every hour of my life had made sense to me given the previous hour. One thing leads to another and you lose track of how you got to where you are. But the sight of my father sinking back as if he’d been shot in the stomach made me realize how far I had fallen.

From there the answer was relatively clear – It was back to rehab for me. My first rehab stint, although, not a complete waste of time by any means, did not stick. With the help of a tremendous family friend I ultimately landed in North Carolina at a wilderness treatment facility.

Forty hours after arriving I was medically cleared to go into the woods, where I would spend thirty-seven of the next forty-five days and nights backpacking, meditating, camping, and learning who I was. And two days into my time in the woods my facility therapist approached me to discuss medication options, as he had been told by everyone in my circle that medication seemed to be the only possible way to combat what was going on with my mental health. He said to me, though, that he did not know what to prescribe me because, in fact, there was nothing to prescribe, nothing to treat. He was right. Two days into the woods and my depression had evaporated. My anxiety had vanished. My self-loathing had completely dissipated. I literally had done nothing other than enter the woods with an open mind, the willingness to be engulfed by nature, and the hope to heal. On that day, and for the next forty-one days in Pisgah National Forest, I continued to heal and grow. There were small steps that I did not fully understand until much further down the road. And there were large steps that could not be denied in the moment that they occurred. The most meaningful coming in the form of a true physical release of shame and guilt, a sensation that I felt literally, not figuratively, through my back and shoulder and release into the night sky above me.

Don’t get me wrong, there was more work done than simply entering the woods. But that was the first step. That was the most important step. And while my guides and friends in the woods helped me a tremendous amount, there is no doubt in my mind that nature not only facilitated but initiated the growth. But to say that I have no doubt does not do my certainty justice. When I say I have no doubt about nature’s role in my healing it is more like me saying that I have no doubt that 1 + 1 = 2. It just is. And nature just is.

Some things are subjectively beneficial – going to the gym, reading your favorite author, painting, etc. But others are objectively cathartic. True not because they benefit us and we like them, but true in and of themselves. Nature is objectively cathartic.

I encourage you to read this article. It speaks in technical and concrete terms to a subject that I can only write anecdotally about. And I encourage you to explore nature not just for exercise or fresh air (although those are certainly worthwhile endeavors by themselves), but for its inherent healing ability. Take it from me, it is a real thing. As real as the mountains are high.

If you are interested in reading the article refered to in this post, it is available here.

Connor Boyle is a Board member of Chasing Jade Horizons and a long time New Hampshire resident. He earned his BA from Bates College and his Juris Doctorate from North Eastern University School of Law. Following a nine-year career working as a corporate attorney, Connor, after a period of personal exploration and growth, transitioned to working in and with the recovery and mental health community. Connor focuses on wilderness emersion as part of his and others growth, introspection, and catharsis process. He is an avid hiker and fitness enthusiast.