I grew up in northeast Georgia, where climbing a tree in our yard revealed the foothills of the mountains. Digging in the yard turned up Georgia red clay that made gardening tough and stained clothes. My mom would joke that we lived within a few hours’ drive of both the beach and the mountains. I loved camping near the North Carolina border: walking to the general store at dawn, watching fog drift over the pond where my siblings and I swam, and listening to bird calls in the forest. On my first trip to Tybee Island, we used a book my mom gave us to identify birds. At night, flashlights revealed crabs scuttling into the ocean. The marshes by Fort Pulaski seemed otherworldly; I remember a sign with a humpback whale on it, and as a child, I imagined whales in the marshes and wanted to find them. Many of my favorite childhood memories involve time in nature. As an adult, seeking solace in natural landscapes helped heal wounds and brought me back to those places, though my troubled mind always followed. Only after finding peace within myself could I truly enjoy the beauty that had always surrounded me.
I was lucky to live so close to an economic hub, which gave me opportunities many others in the south wouldn’t have. Even though the museums in Atlanta are not to the same caliber as the ones in New York City or Washington DC, as those who are from the Northeast are quick to point out, I loved frequenting the Atlanta History Center, The Children’s Museum, and Fernbank Museum, amongst many others, as a child. They held wonder and broadened my horizons. I could marvel at dinosaur bones. Even when I was inside, I could explore the natural world. Even after I went to public school and had less free time to spend outside, I would go for long walks in my neighborhood when the weather was nice. Sometimes I would pray, and other times I would hope that the fresh air would help put the disorganized thoughts that seemed to trail me everywhere into order. There was always some relief, but it was never permanent. Whenever I returned home, to my bedroom and my pile of problems inside, the respite was over, and I didn’t know how to return to the peace I had found out in the sunshine and the clear mind I had while looking up at the blue sky.
When it was time to select a place for higher learning, I wanted to escape. I hadn’t liked who I’d been in high school. I longed to get lost, to become someone entirely new. The anxieties and fresh depression from the end of high school were heavy, and I wished to leave them behind. High school had been a safe haven: friends, teachers, and home life offered shelter from the storms of intense emotions and uncertainty that came with being a teenager. When I remember driving down to Milledgeville to tour GCSU and seeing the serene pastures race by the car window as I pondered what the next four years would have in store. The promise of small class sizes, a rural setting, and the allure of becoming someone led me to enroll in the fall of 2014. I’ve written extensively about my mental health struggles and how they came to the forefront in college. The irony that I’ve only meditated on recently is that Milledgeville was known for being home to the state mental asylum, and I ended up with worse mental health than when I arrived.
The state mental hospital was closed in 2010, four years before I arrived, but it was discussed by faculty and students as if it were a living, breathing part of the community. I heard stories of haunted houses that had been conducted at the closed-down facility, and years later, someone else mentioned in passing that in Georgia, if your neighbor went missing, often they would turn up later at the asylum, having been spirited away in the night for treatment of some mysterious mental illness. While many were taken there to seek treatment, often against their will, I sought refuge from struggles I didn’t fully understand, and when I look back at my four years in Milledgeville, I think of them as my lost girl years. The lost boys of Peter Pan live without many rules and wander aimlessly from one activity to another, looking for purpose, is how I always read their plight. The lack of belonging and purpose in their journeys seemed to be the biggest problems. I wandered through religious groups, wondered if I had picked the right major ( I have a few ideas of what would have been a better fit now at the age of 30), failed to understand how to make meaningful friendships, and when life became too much, shut myself in my bedroom with my cat.
I still spent time outside. I started volunteering at an animal shelter to help me spend time outside, the same animal shelter I got my beloved cat Willow from, but I needed more relief than it could provide me. The despair and anxiety had grown deeper at that time. Looking back, spending time outside was an important tool in my coping tool kit, but it could not bear the weight of what was an ill mind in need of the correct medication. After finding the correct medication and gaining an accurate diagnosis, what I refer to as my lost years came to an end. As I came out of an overmedicated haze, I started to spend more time outside as I had as a teenager. At first, it was because my mother dragged me out for long walks that she jokingly called ‘forced fun’. After the first few months, she stopped accompanying me. I started going to different local and state parks by myself for walks. Sometimes I would just sit and listen to the birds. I couldn’t describe it at the time, but I was trying to find the version of myself that had existed before the mental illness.
I knew there had been a time when I hadn’t been consumed with all of the negative emotions that had brought me to the point of wanting to die, and I wanted to find the person who had enjoyed living. I knew that person had enjoyed being outside, and I thought if I spent enough time in nature, I would find reasons to enjoy being alive. This is a very simplistic version of why I spent time outside and strips away the therapy, medication, and social support I was receiving, which were also vital. I kept returning to the natural landscapes that had been part of my childhood because I knew, as a child, I had looked forward to the future, and I hoped that being in nature would help me look forward to it again. This time, with the appropriate medication, social support, and lifestyle modifications, I began to make a full recovery. Over my lifetime, I have heard various opinions on the efficacy and ethics of antidepressants and psychotropic drugs. I cannot speak to everyone’s experiences, but I do want to speak to mine. Finding the right medication was pivotal in my recovery and healing. It was also only one of the tools I’ve used. I also spend time outside exercising and meditating. A connection with the natural world has brought me so much peace, and I’m so glad I’m alive to enjoy it.
Living on the Spectrum 
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