By Train: Step One

Apologies for the image quality. I have not been taking my camera out so this was taken my crappy phone and besides that its not a place I like taking a camera ever since one day being stopped and questioned by police. As I said in my last post its not a place I want to hang about and risk looking suspicious- I didn't mind before being stopped.

Anyway step one in my eight step graduated exposure. I did know there was a 90% chance of getting here so I am not jumping up and down patting myself on the back for doing so. Step 1 takes me to a path that goes under a railway bridge and through out into proper woodland by a river- which stinks. It also forks off here to this little woodland path that leads to the train station. Its not a great image as I said and neither does it convey the atmosphere here.

Personally, and it probably is only me, I find it very claustrophobic there. Creepy even. Although I am doing this in the day you would not know it going in- coming out you do see the light at the end of the tunnel. Here the trees are so dense and from either side the reach out to each other holding hands and very little light penetrates the roof of branches. As you walk through- as I have in the past and will do again soon- there is an eerie silence mostly because sound is also kept out but also there is not much to make a noise down this part anyway unless a train is coming or going from the station. But in the silence there are little movements not seen my the eye and only heard. Birds and other wildlife. I haven't seen any wildlife down here but I know its there, I hear them.

Its easy to see why this way is not frequently used. I would imagine most lonely travellers and commuters arriving at the station at night leave by the main exit at the other side which is brightly lit and leading on to a main road through lots of housing. Down here there is nothing but the dark still creepy silence.

Today though that was not a problem. I got down here and so as not to just turn back or hang about I dipped my toe so to speak into the entrance of the path where I could wait a few seconds out of view. Then I legged it back home. Its a start.

But already I see another big problem and its something I should have talked about in the last post. I am not dealing solely with anxiety. Were that the case thing would certainly be much more straight forward. In fact I would go as far as to say with what I have learned I could quite possibly get on the road to recovery quite quickly. But its not just anxiety. I don't arrive at this point feeling physically fine but mentally apprehensive, again if that was the case I could definitely deal with this better. I arrive instead heavily fatigued. I arrive struggling to get a regular breath and feeling like I do not have the energy to go on. And here is an important point about this. My thoughts are not cast forward to where I need to go next. My thoughts are 100% consumed with the road travelled and worried about making it back home. Each step forward is a step further away.

This is more so the case with this graduated. The reason being is that I am walking downhill all the way there. Getting back is harder. Getting to that point of breathlessness downhill then from that state having to go uphill again is the bit I really find hard. I see the worry constantly churned out as I walk down there. This year I have been mapping all my walks and it has really helped. Have a look below at the walk this morning:

The map there show the route down to the train line. The next stage is to follow the rail line into the station. At this scale it looks so easy but for me it is not. The reason for posting this is the graph underneath showing elevation. The green X on the graph corresponds to the green point on the map. I basically walk from the bottom of the map down to the green spot. As you can see on the elevation chart it starts off level but then starts to go downhill. From that point I have an incline to walk up and this is what makes it harder- for me. Also noticable on that graph is how I pickup speed on the way back. That is something I have to work on. That is escaping. The only other point of note is that you will notice the green X is not halfway along the chart. This is because after doing the exposure I always try to walk some more- this time sort of South East. The reason for his is to prove to myself that even though I feel so physically shattered by the time I get to my destination that I feel I cannot go on that in actual fact I could have gone on. I hope over time that starts to sink in and allows me to push on.

Enough though of statistics and charts. I got to step 1 as planned and because I cannot wait there what I plan to do next is start edging bit by bit towards step 2. I am hoping I can do that this week but only time will tell. That is of course if there are no unforeseen circumstances but that is rarely the case.