Summiting the Bishorn: A Brief Foray into Mountaineering

This is a recap of the time I convinced Doms (aka my Adopted Swiss Uncle) to take me mountaineering up the Bishorn, a 4000m peak in the shadow of the much-loftier Weisshorn. This 2-day trek was my first foray into mountaineering.

Summiting my first 4000m peak!

Cool background fact of this mountain: it has two peaks, one just 20m higher than the other. In May 1884, a woman was the first to summit the mountain to the lower peak. Just three months later, in August 1884, a man summited the peak 20m higher, thereby making him "the first to summit." Apparently it took three months for men to decide that, no, women should not be the first to summit a mountain.

For the entire week leading up to the endeavor, my adopted Swiss uncle becomes my nagging adopted Swiss father. He drafts and re-drafts lists of essential equipment vs. optional, vetoes my hiking leggings so I buy mountain pants from Decathlon, runs over the plan + map multiple times, and repeatedly tells me to go to bed early in preparation. Ironically, despite the planning, we don't actually reserve the cabin in time. Both Friday and Saturday nights are fully booked, so we book Sunday night and I take the following Monday off from work.

Saturday night (the night before), he spends the night at his sister's house and I'll meet him in the morning. He looks up the exact train I need to take the following morning and write it down beside the packing list he leaves for me:

The detailed packing list and train time, prepared by my doting Adopted Swiss Uncle 

I was pretty excited to be carrying along an axe.

A final goodnight text from Doms, my well-prepared Adopted Swiss Uncle

SUNDAY: Zinal to Cabane de Tracuit.

Sunday morning, I catch the 9h13 train to meet Doms in Sierre, before hopping on the bus to Zinal, our starting point. 

Arriving in Zinal, it takes a few minutes to find the right path heading up toward the cabin but once on it, we set off. We hike together for an hour or so before accepting the long-established fact that my Adopted Swiss Uncle has very long legs and is very in-shape, so he will just be forever ahead of me. Trudging on alone, I have faith that he will wait if the trail ever becomes confusing (he usually does).

Once the cabin is in view, he stops waiting altogether. Fair enough; there's no more risk of getting lost.

I arrive at the Cabane de Tracuit nearly an hour after Doms. He's already checked in and shows me where the sleeping room is to dump our stuff. For those unfamiliar with Swiss "cabanes," they are essentially hostels built way up in the mountains. Everyone eats together and sleeps in the same room; you just have to bring your own sheets.

At the cabin. The back of Doms' spoon is pointing to our location.

MONDAY: Cabane de Tracuit to the Bishorn summit! (And also back down to Zinal)

At 5am, there is shuffling around the entire sleeping room of the cabin as people begin to wake up. Almost everyone will be making this same trek up the glacier. Downstairs, everyone is helping themselves to the breakfast offered by the cabin: bread, cheese, sandwich meat, fruit, muesli, milk, and yogurt. There is also a small coffee bar.

Before crossing the glacier, everyone attaches a pair of crampons, picks that dig into the ice so as not to slip, to the bottom of their boots. Most mountaineering boots nowadays have a small ledge on the heel to attach the crampons to. As mine were ordinary hikers with no heel ledge, I ended up having to use Doms' father's ancient crampons made before heel ledges were common. We get a few chuckles while putting them on.

Figuring out which crampons will work for my weebly non-mountain boots

Both wearing harnesses, Doms and I are attached by a rope. This is in case one of us falls in a crevasse, the other can stop the fall.

Crossing the glacier. Doms is on the rope ahead of me.

As we are only two people (typically you want at least three), we have to keep the rope quite long and taught between us, just in case of us falls in.

Weaving between these crevasses dropping hundreds of metres into icy nothingness.

Tightening the rope. You can see the crevasses behind him.

There are quite a few moments where Doms stops either to adjust something on the rope (usually tightening it) or wait for the group ahead of us to move a little further on. When that happens, I have the chance to slip out my phone to take a photo.

5am view from the glacier!

The final 200m or so is a significantly steeper section than anywhere else, and also where the altitude finally hits. While the weight of the equipment and physical labour seemed easily manageable at the start of the hike, it's now extremely difficult when even the act of breathing feels like it's making me sick. The last 25-50m, I'm completely nauseous. With pretty much zero high-altitude hiking experience, every step feels like I'm going to puke myself to death before reaching anywhere near the peak. When Doms tells me to 'just go slowly', at whatever pace I can muster, my footsteps become barely footsteps at all, each foot just barely pushing further than the last. (Later, Doms told me this was the point he was most worried I wouldn't make it).

We finally make it to the top before lunch.

We made it to the top!

Stigma Isn't Just Silence - It's What We Choose Not to See

CW: self-harm and substance use

There's this whole trend of "breaking the stigma" around mental health, but sometimes I wonder what stigma people think they're talking about. Everyone talks about and promotes mental health; social media feeds, large organizations and businesses, small organizations and businesses. People loooove talking about mental health and mental wellbeing on social media or at corporate wellness days. So what is this "stigma" that the endless media barrage is trying to break? What happens when mental illness doesn't look tidy or inspirational? 

This piece is a reflection on the contradictions we live with, the ways we respond (or don't) to each other's pain, and the stories we hide when mental health stops being marketable.

Don't get me wrong: "ending the stigma" around mental health is a nice trend, kind of like when reusable water bottles were super trendy. I'm all for it. But what does the stigma actually look like? Sure, there's the occasional jerk who rolls their eyes or belittles it, but most people aren't like that.

How much of the stigma is internal? Because really, nobody thinks about our personal mental health more than ourselves. It's not really other people's business anyway.

I started self-harming when I was 12 and continued through my mid-20s. I started by pinching in visible places but, after realizing nobody was "coming to the rescue" and it wasn't worth bothering people anyway, slowly moved to cutting in less visible places. I knew it was a lousy coping mechanism (everyone does), but it's one that works for its intended purpose. No mental health expert I've ever mentioned this to has ever been that interested in the cutting itself because it isn't suicidal; they want to address the underlying issues. So why did I develop such a strong urge to hide them? Other than the default "it makes others uncomfortable to see them," I feel like my answer to the stigma question is tied up with it.

To be frank, I don't actually care much about my cutting either. Without it, I would have just replaced it with something else to cope, probably something even less healthy. A few years ago, a close friend of mine was a heavy substance user while her home life was breaking down. I tried to be there for her, sitting with her and bringing food and water, but it was difficult. While at her lowest, she said to me "Don't you dare judge me - I'm not the one digging a blade into my own skin. It's the same fucking thing." She was right - it is the same fucking thing. The substances and the cutting aren't the real problem until they are out of control.

So the question still remains: why hide the coping mechanism? Why are people ashamed of their cutting or their addictions if everyone is jumping on the "mental health" bandwagon? Would people be as supportive if they were face-to-face with the ugly face of low mental health? 

It's one thing to say "mental health matters." But would you lay awake beside your friend at 5am, listening the cackling sound of the crack pipe as it's scarring her lips? Would you stand beside her as she screamed at you, staring helplessly into her gaunt, pasty, hollow face and wild eyes? Would you bring food to eat with her (not just give her) as her body shriveled to skin and bones? Could you look at the scars on my waist without cringing? Could you have a conversation with me about them without delivering pity and piety? Could you see that she and I are just the same?

Why did I hide it? It wasn't about others judging me negatively - frankly, I'd said worse things to myself.

I think there are 3 important differentiations here regarding the stigma of self-harm in particular: (1) cutting as a child, (2) cutting as an adult, and (3) the relationship between self-harm and suicide.

(1) What Cutting Teaches a Child About Being Taken Seriously

I'm not a pediatrician; just someone who self-harmed from Grade 8 into her mid-20s, and had loads of time to reflect back. This one makes me the most upset actually because, looking back, so many things could and should have happened. Because the responsibility here is different from in adults, the stigma here is fucking enraging while also the most noticeable.

I had a prof in undergrad who mentioned society's pre-occupation with mocking, devaluing, and de-legitimizing adolescent girls. At the time I kind of laughed to myself; "Okay but that was also the time I adored Edward Cullen - pretty sure the mocking's valid." Undergrad was when I was still internalizing the devaluing of little girls. It is so socially acceptable to shit on adolescent girls: the vapid chick flicks and romance movies, the fashion tastes, the music they listen to, the books they read, the hobbies the chose. Everything. And the fact that it's so socially acceptable to mock is disgusting because it gets internalized. Little girls are mocked and devalued mercilessly for the things the find important by people they see as important. So no fucking wonder when they stop trusting their own perceptions of what is important.

On top of all this utter nonsense stigmatizing young girls, it is incredibly common for people to have the audacity to write off NSSI in young girls as mere petty attention-seeking just because it is visible. These people can, once again, fuck right off with that perspective. Even if it were for attention, why do you think a child might be looking for this kind of attention to begin with?? Jesus fucking Christ. These adults are the ones complicit in both creating the problem and now dismissing the problem they created. Here is a quotation from Dr Muehlenkamp, licensed clinical psychologist: "Do not assume that self-injury is always undertaken for attention-seeking, which is another common myth. The most common reason is emotional regulation, when people are trying to cope with overwhelming distress or self-punishment, which has its origins in self-hatred... [occasionally, people] try to get others to understand the seriousness of their distress as an outward sign to communicate how much pain they are in" with key risk factors being shitty communication skills, negative thoughts/feelings, hostility and criticism at home. In essence: We devalue little girls, blame them for internalizing that devaluation, and then have the gall to confirm their lack of value by writing them off as attention-seeking. We're talking about children; why are grown-ass adults perpetuating this awful way of thinking?

Those little girls learn that cutting works. And when they attempt to communicate (cry for help, validation, whatever) fails, the cutting still works. We can be disgusted with it or shut it out as much as we want but the reality remains true: cutting provides a physical release from emotional/psychological pain while reassuring the cutter "this is real. I'm real. What's in my head is real because it's right there on my skin." We can still easily help the ones who cut in visible places, but the kids who hide their scars have already given up on us as adults being willing, able, or even interested in helping. They've accepted they don't deserve help. But the cutting still helps. And yes, this is obviously Adult Anneke reflecting back on Child Anneke. 

(2) Unspoken Rules of Adult Self-Harm

The issue here, I think, is more that people don't know how to react. Because self-harm scars can look like a big flashing "PROBLEMS" sign and it makes people uncomfortable in a culture where people don't like being uncomfortable. Usually (at least my own early adulthood), adults self-harm in less visible places so as not to draw any attention. Perhaps the self-hatred has gone down, but the self-harm still provides an effective coping mechanism in periods of low mental health.

Good, kind, and well-meaning people just don't know how to respond and putting them into that situation is kind of lousy. As a result, the self-harm is usually in places only a close friend might see when living/hanging out in close proximity. This stigma isn't about negative judgements; it's just ignorance and well-meaning discomfort. Which is fine. Just a bit of an annoyance.

So what would "ending the stigma" look like here?

• It's a-okay to ignore self-harm scars. In fact, please do ignore them if I don't know you. To you, it's as relevant as any surgical scar on a stranger's body.
• Even if I do know you, you still don't have to bring it up. Being a friend does not mean you have to take on my emotional burdens. I am not expecting you to.
• If you are a friend and you do want to bring it up, it's also okay to ask. I'm probably also okay to talk about it, but will probably keep at an emotional distance for a while. If I don't want to talk about it, I'll probably say that too. On occasion, I might also lie about them depending on the social situation and what I anticipate your reaction to be. "Just a bike crash" is a convenient go-to. Similar to #2, my emotional burdens were and are not others' responsibility, and I will decide to end/change the conversation topic if I want to.
• Don't. Bloody. Overreact. I swear to God. This is the big one, be it friends, strangers, anyone. At the time I was cutting in early adulthood, I knew it was a problem and, rest assured, I was active on the case. You do not need to stand aghast and burst into sobs and utter devastation about how I could possibly do this to myself. Now I am going to comfort and reassure you. "Oh don't worry, it's probably only temporary" or "Yes of course I'll tell you immediately if it ever happens again" (lol I absolutely will not). The priority is now to make you feel better about this awful horrid thing I am doing. And considering the state I was in at the time, would you really trust someone like me to therapize you? If you can't cope with the answer, don't. This kind of response was 100% the main reason I would lie about the scars to a friend or loved one. Now, after the last scar was added a few years ago and I have a safe level of emotional distance (unless we're talking about the adolescent girls - THAT still pisses me off), I'm significantly less likely to lie about it to anyone. Both because there's no longer the shame of being an "active" cutter and because maybe the topic is important enough that some people should be made uncomfortable.

Actually, quite a few of my close friends at the time I was still cutting knew about it, and I'm glad they did. They're beautiful and kind humans. There are people you can calmly talk with about these things and there are people you cannot.

(3) Why Self-Harm Isn't the Same as Being Suicidal

I won't say there's no link, but I think a lot of people completely misunderstand the link. NSSI is deliberately non-suicidal; I would argue it actually brings a suicidal person away from suicide. Self-harm is a way to cope; suicide is a solution (albeit a bad one obviously). Someone who's decided on a solution has no more need to cope.

Someone who uses NSSI may very well also be suicidal (re: the self-worth stuff). But if they are actively self-harming, the self-harm is to avoid suicide. Self-harm is a way to feel; it's self-validating; it's relieving; it's a reminder that you are alive. In a way, it's a desperate quest for the hope that suicide gives up on. In a weird way, self-harm protects an otherwise suicidal person.

Final Word

With this piece, I'm trying to name what many of us have seen but rarely say: that not all coping mechanisms are tidy, and that awareness without discomfort is just branding. There's no clean ending to this kind of topic, and I'm not offering solutions. But maybe we could stop pretending that talking about mental health means we're done with the hard parts. If we really want to "end the stigma," we have to be willing to sit with discomfort - not fix it, not sanitize it, just sit with it. The reality of mental illness doesn't come in the form of a wellness app or an Instagram post (or in this case, a blog post); it looks like scars, like addiction, like a kid who's stopped asking for help. 

Maybe learning to sit with that is where the actual work begins.