Into The Woods.

This weekend Eric and I traveled to a place in the mountains with no cell phone service. I kept thinking about Cold Case files andLaw and Order as we went farther up the mountain. With no cell phone service you could easily be stranded on the mountainside, or worse. “You are the girl who survived 2 months in the woods” I told myself, “Where did she go?”

I remember it like it was yesterday. I bolted off the plane right before the doors shut, heard my dad sprinting behind me with our bags. I knew I had just made things harder for myself, but I had to try to get out of it or I’d never forgive myself.

Just days earlier my mom had broken down and told me they were sending me to a wilderness camp to get help. I immediately googled this camp, scouting it out, forming my own opinions. I knew I didn’t want to go there, but I didn’t want to disappoint my parents, so I tried really hard to accept their decision. That is until I stepped onto the plane to Atlanta Georgia with my dad. It all the sudden hit me that I was digging my own grave, and I just ran.

Once back in the airport my dad called a bunch of people on the phone, no doubt asking for advice on what to do with his out-of-control daughter. I was angry at him and at myself, so I told him that I would only go home with my mom. She arrived at the airport an hour later, she looked tired and sad, and I immediately felt the burden of guilt settle onto my shoulders.

When we neared our street, I became panicked that there would be someone waiting at our house to take me away. I leaned over in my seat and grabbed the steering wheel at the last moment spinning us into oncoming traffic. I could have killed us both.

Back at home I was inconsolable. I knew my parents had hired escorts to take me to this wilderness camp. These escorts are specifically for out-of-control children, to transport them to get help when parents can’t. I knew they were coming, and even though I had ultimately chosen that, I was terrified.

I remember my mom holding me in her lap like a baby, singing to me and speaking to me in soft tones. “you know I love you so much”, she would say to me. I knew she did, but I was so scared I couldn’t calm myself down. As the day faded to evening, the pain of the unknown grew overwhelming. I remember banging my head on the bathroom mirror over and over, anything to numb my pain. I saw my sister watching me from her bedroom, her sweet eyes so scared and confused. I wanted to tell her that I couldn’t help it, that everything was spinning out of control, but I didn’t.

When they finally came, I was sitting up in my bed waiting. There was a manly looking woman and a man with a beard. They seemed nice enough. She strip searched me before putting me in the car. I was too angry to say anything to me parents, we just drove away, tears falling down my cheeks. This was it.

At the airport I was obedient and polite. They even left me alone while they went to the bathroom. I prided myself on being better than their other “clients”. I slept on the plane and when I woke up,  we were there.

It was a hot and sticky April day in Georgia. We rented a car from the airport and drove for a long time into what I would soon know to be the Blue Ridge Mountains. When we pulled up to an old ranch style house, I somehow knew we had arrived. I got out, hesitant to leave the escorts as they had come to feel somewhat safe to me. They waved goodbye and were gone.

An older mountain looking gentleman led me into a small room where a woman was waiting with my new gear. There was a pair of hiking boots, 3 yellow t-shirts that were way too big, a few pairs of underwear, 2 sports bras, and a pair of pants that unzipped to shorts. In the corner was a huge pack which held my food for the next 2 weeks, 2 filled water bottles, a sleeping bag, 2 small tarps, a pad of paper, a pen, and a thin foam mat to put under my sleeping bag.

I was strip searched again before i dressed in my new clothes. I was then led into a van with the same wilderness gentleman who I had met before. He took me to a fast food place and urged me to eat, but I wasn’t even a little hungry. I would soon regret that I had turned down that meal. But for the moment, I was tired, scared, and desperately lonely.

As we drove farther up the mountain my panic thickened, and when at last we got out of the van and began to hike, I was sobbing violently again, tripping over roots and rocks as the tears clouded my eye sight.

We reached the camp site where 10 other girls were making camp for the night. When they saw me they immediately made fun of my tears and puffy eyes, calling me all sorts of horrible names. I ignored them as a camp leader who looked like Pocahontas led me to my area of camp. “You can’t talk to anyone for 3 days”, she told me, “It’s part of your initiation”.

Someone brought me dinner, but I threw it into the bushes in disgust. It felt like the end of the world, but I had no idea yet what I had gotten myself into.

to be continued….

this picture is from the end of wilderness (2 months later), my parents got to camp with me for a night.