Backpackin'

                                                                                                                       Billy Joel
                                                                                                                       You May Be Right


Which may be a good thing. After all, Winston Churchill was mentally ill. Yet he led England through World War II from very near defeat to victory. He had bipolar disorder, like Tintin, suffered mania and depressions he called his Black Dog. Yet some historians think his disease may actually have helped him, and therefore his country and the world.

"Had he been a stable and equable man, he could never have inspired the nation. In 1940, when all the odds were against Britain, a leader of sober judgment might well have concluded that we were finished," wrote psychiatrist and historian Anthony  Storr  in Black Dog, Kafka's Mice, and Other Phenomena of the Human Mind.

J.P. Morgan, the American financier, had bipolar disorder. As does Ted Turner, the founder of CNN.  And so, too, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, country-western singer Charlie Pride, martial artist/actor  Jean-Claude Van Damme, the great composer  Ludwig van Beethoven, the great writer  Charles Dickens, the great scientist Isaac Newton, the great artist Vincent van Gogh, humorist Art Buchwald, director  Francis Ford Coppola,  actors and actresses Ned Beatty, Patty Duke, Carrie Fisher, Linda Hamilton, Vivian Leigh, Kristy McNichol, Burgess Meredith,  Margot Kidder, former presidential adviser Robert Boorstin, dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey, former Green bay Packers defensive end Lionel Aldridge, professional golfer Ron Daly, classical pianist John Gibson, Pearl Jam drummer Jack Irons, feminist writer Kate Millett, former Boston Red Socks player and sportscaster Jimmy Piersall, singer/musician James Taylor, and on and on.

And that’s just bipolar disorder. General George S. Patton suffered clinical depression, singer Carly Simon has social phobia, astronaut Buzz Aldrin depression, Pink Floyd member Syd Barrett schizophrenia, Ray Charles depression, Dick Cavet depression, Toronto Maple Leafs forward Shayne Corson panic attacks, Charles Darwin panic disorder, Princess Diana bulimia nervosa, and so on.

But we don’t tend to think of them when we think of “mentally ill.” Even I fall into this, and I am also mentally ill (alcohol dependence, PTSD, anxiety disorder) and used to work as a counselor. When most of us think “mentally ill” we think of some dangerous, delusional person we need to stay away from.

They exist, of course, even on the trails we backpack. I ran into one, an actively delusional schizophrenic, on my first trip on the AT. But there is a difference. There are the untreated mentally ill and the treated mentally ill, like Tintin, those who know they have an illness and take responsibility for it and get the help they need. Many don’t get to be the latter because there is still so much shame attached to being mentally ill that it is too frightening to ask for help, for oneself or a loved one who needs it.

When former First Lady Betty Ford went public about her addiction and recovery, it sparked the great upsurge in recovery all over America in the 1980s and 1990s. Being an addict became much less a matter of shame and much more a matter of health. Many myths about addiction died, at least for most people, especially those working in health care.

Tintin hopes his thru-hike will help do something similar for the mentally ill.

And he’s going for himself, too. 

Tintin has begun an organization called Change Through Challenge. He has learned in his own recovery that facing challenge in his outdoors adventures, including those helping others, can be healing, and that facing basic challenges, like long distance hiking, in basic settings, like the mountains and the forests, is not only healthy in general, but confronts and defeats the shame-based, crippling mental illness-feeding negative beliefs that can keep people sick.

My wife, Mudpie, another crazy one, says I am never as happy, as self-confident, serene and smiling, as when I’m in the woods. I love it. I feel more connected to life and to God there. It seems all my therapy, all my endeavor to heal and grow, coalesces there. It’s a kind of spiritual thing, for me, and I like to think I’m in good company.

Jesus went into the wilderness to fast and pray. The Buddha left the city and sat under a tree to gain enlightenment. John the Baptist went to work in the wilderness. The great Jewish mystic, the Bal Shem Tov, developed his relationship with God in the forest. Monks of many faiths retreated to the wilderness to be hermits or found communities.

And Meriwether Lewis, of Lewis and Clark fame – talk about a long distance hike – was also believed to be mentally ill. Tintin told me Lewis is one of his heroes, and he has become one of mine, too.

Winton Porter, author of Just Passin’ Thru and owner of the AT-straddling Mountain Crossings outfitters in Georgia, knows about this deep, from growing up in the mountains and from long experience with other hikers. He wrote:

 Tintin's AT trail journal will appear on this site regularly .

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