The Next step
So last week I sat myself on an airplane with Chris and left for Madeira. I needed a break and the only thing I’ve wanted to see since summer was mountains.
At the very top of Madeira you have Pico Ruivo, standing tall at 1862 meters. To hike from Pico Ruivo you can either start from the northern part of the island and do an easier hike up to the top, me and Chris chose the route that goes from the third highest peak, Pico do Arieiro (1818 meters), through the mountain passes and then squiggles all the way up to the top. This is by far the most beautiful place I’ve visited so far, breathtaking landscape with high peaks and deep valleys. At the same time that I was experiencing euphoria walking between these massive stones, the mountain beat the shit out of me, I got to experience vertigo, and it felt like my heart was going to burst out of my chest trying to reach the top. One thing that struck me and Chris on the way to Pico Ruivo was that the descent was really steep in the the beginning and that it would result in that we would have to climb to peaks in one day. We passed through these small man made caves, followed these paths carved into the mountain and walked up these really sketchy stairs.
After about 3hrs of walking, climbing and sweating we finally reached the highest point on Madeira and also my first successful ascent. And even though the road to Pico Ruivo is 95% man-made and quite easy (you just follow the path), I felt really proud of myself I and a great sense of accomplishment.
For me the only time I really feel like I live in the moment is when I do these kind of things. Experiencing something I’ve never seen, feeling euphoric and suffering through pain, which leads to a big grin on my face and this amazing feeling of vitality.
I can’t really pinpoint when my depression started, but when I look back at the years that have past I can see all the different parts in my way of living that led up to the grey part of my life that later evolved into the darkness I experienced a few months ago. And one of the things I realized whilst trying to cope with the vertigo, pain and other feelings between the mountains was that I have closed myself off when it comes to people. I’ve been so afraid of getting hurt or people not liking me that I just stopped trying to get to know people. Instead I hid in my apartment, playing computer games and neglecting friends invitations to parties, coffee, whatever it could have been, it even went so far that I stopped picking up the phone for a while and then I told myself that no one liked me and wanted to hang out. And there’s a bunch of reasons why I ended up isolating myself from the outside world, but the one thing that I’ve always felt is that I don’t fit in, and that not fitting in was a problem. Because when you don’t fit in, no one will like you, love you and want to be a part in your life. But after two and a half month of constantly dissecting my thought and way of life, I realized that I don’t want to fit in, I just want to make the most of my time and make sure I stay focused on the things I dream about and make sure to go on adventures.
And also talk to people.
I wrote a post on my depression just before I left for Madeira:
https://medium.com/@imradicult/i-live-with-depression-e1a33ca02898#.6o1l90lrv
I also post pictures here:
https://www.instagram.com/imradicult/
And I try to vlog about life here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/Spookie20
