RV Life - Back Issues

Trying to Escape

I was shocked when he told me. The news cut a hole in the cloudless morning sky. My friend, the happiest guy I knew, had struggled with depression. There were once very dark times, he confided. How quickly his mood used to sink; bouts with anxiety and sadness used to leave him almost unable to function. In his darkest hours, he obsessed over hopping on a plane and never coming back. And to think, this was the guy with the biggest smile in the room, the beautiful wife and newborn child, thriving career, and all that.

Despite the stigma and fear associated with mental illness, he eventually sought the aid of a therapist, who helped him explore his motives for despair and isolate the triggers that sent him reeling. The combination of therapy and medication gave him his life back. The hardest news for me to hear was how he kept his struggles locked in virtual secret. That is, until he told me on that near perfect September morning and changed my life.

I found the talk particularly revealing, for I too had experienced days where I had teetered on the proverbial edge. Times of stress and uncertainty sometimes created periods of sleeplessness, tension, and physical ailments in me. Oh, and the worry, my steady companion, sometimes even during the best of times. My apologies to Tom Cruise, but a bike ride and a multivitamin never remedied my condition. As we talked, my mind scrolled through all the times I had dreamed of chucking it all and starting over, the chronic dissatisfaction I had lived with since college, and the doomsday thinking when times got rough. While I didn’t believe this kind of reaction was necessarily normal, I remained steadfast in the belief that I could somehow just avoid it altogether through diversions and such. It was like I was on the lam from myself, which, frankly, ain’t easy to do.

Seeing Symptoms
My friend’s confession started me reading up on depression and its symptoms. As much as I protested, I couldn’t deny how many of the problems associated with depression were applicable to me. You see, it was as much the stigma of the disease, as much as the fear of it, that kept me in a holding pattern instead of addressing it all those years. However, to hear my friend actually, well, talk about it, as someone who had been there and back, gave me the courage to act. Still, I thought if you weren’t crying yourself to sleep at night, you were probably OK. But as I found, depression manifests in different ways—sadness, fear, anger, or, most interesting to me in terms of this particular column, erratic behavior. The latter usually resulted from a sufferer’s attempt to “self-medicate” in the form of drinking, drug abuse, binge eating, having affairs, excessive spending, gambling, and impulsive, irrational acts of fancy. I could relate, since controlling my impulses used to be a full-time job in itself. That is, until I got some help, a fact I gladly share if it helps anyone who needs it to do the same.

The whole issue got me thinking about the many RVers I know, and their various motivations. There is no question that for many the freedom and autonomy of RV travel is an absolute godsend. I’ve seen marriages resurrected and ho-hum lives transformed. Just look at the smile on their faces.

But there are those whose rationale for becoming RVers simply baffles me. When pressed, their reasoning for dropping the big dollars for a new recreational vehicle can seem vague, rash, even, well, desperate. Were they trying to “get away from it all” or trying to escape something? The distinction is huge. I mean, who hasn’t thought about ditching life’s grinds in favor of a shiny motorhome? It sure is a compelling daydream when times get tough. This leave-it-all-behind fantasy is arguably the most recurrent in the haggard American work force, probably ranking second only to the one involving Angelina Jolie and that vat of Cool Whip. Sadly, some folks believe that traveling by RV and leaving their world behind will just fix everything.

No Cure-All
When my parents decided that full-timing was the answer to their elusive happiness, a sense of sad bewilderment swept over the family. How could we overlook the fact they had never RVed before? Their spontaneous new lifestyle decision led to a pitiful cross-country folly, near financial ruin, and years spent trying to reclaim the house and possessions impulsively sold to make the doomed dream a reality. It was here where I learned that some problems have a way of following you wherever you go.

Does the decision to join the RV circuit full-time mean you’re somehow depressed? Absolutely not. Perish the thought. However, denial, as they say, isn’t just a river in Egypt. Those souls trying to manage and soothe the rough edges of their lives—the sad, the depressed, the fearful—often endeavor to avoid the problems that put them there. And sometimes that means doing something impulsive, such as deciding to live in an RV full time with no previous RVing experience. As we all know, these kinds of rash decisions rarely work out very well, which is why I urge anyone entering the RV full-time fold to do so slowly and purposely. Take an honest accounting of your reasons, just to be clear. And for those who are trying to run from trouble, realize help is always available.