Having a Mental Breakdown While Traveling
One woman’s experience with battling depression on the road.
I’m sitting in the bedroom with tears in my eyes. I can hear my husband on the phone with his mother through the porch door. His voice is strained. I’d barely left the villa for the past week, let alone gotten any new clients for my business. The words “I’m a failure” play on repeat in my head. My husband finishes his call and comes back inside. “I’m getting us a ticket back to the US. You clearly can’t handle being here anymore. We’re leaving Bali.”
I started my online design business in October of 2017. I already had a reputation as a great designer, and within a few months I’d rocketed from zero to surpassing my corporate salary.
Everything was great. I had a steady income, I loved my clients, and I had set myself up to be able to work from anywhere. I convinced my husband to start traveling around the world full time with me. He wasn’t a fan of the idea at first, but he could tell I was determined to go.
We left San Diego for Singapore on January 28th, 2018.
The Butterfly Garden at Changi International Airport
The one condition my husband had for traveling was that our first destination was somewhere we had a safety net. I’d lived in Singapore for a few months in college, so I already knew the city well and had a lot of friends there.
I convinced both of us that everything would be fine.
And on paper, everything was fine. We’d spend a few months in Singapore, a month in Thailand, then head to Bali to see what the fuss there was all about. We’d be saving money every step of the way, and my clients were totally on board with me changing time zones.
We sold all our belongings except what would fit in 4 suitcases, and we left.
Traveling never goes exactly to plan, but I don’t think anyone could have anticipated I’d have a full on mental breakdown while on the road.
Looking back, the signs first started in Singapore. I remember being incredibly indecisive about basic choices. Trying to pick out what wanted for dinner was excruciating. Considering Singapore has some of the best food in the world and their culture revolves around it, that wasn’t exactly easy to deal with.
I had to force myself to explore the city as well. I told myself at the time that I’d already been there, so I just wasn’t as interested. I used my work as an excuse. I had to get new clients for when my current projects ran out. I couldn’t afford to go exploring.
Now that I’m a lifestyle and business coach I an see that I only made things worse my not taking time to explore. The easiest way to kill a business is to shut yourself in and do nothing but work on that business. No exploring meant no learning, no growing, and definitely no fun.
By the time we reached Thailand I was starting to panic. I’d had several clients need to pull out of their contracts due to extreme circumstances. One of them was served divorce papers just before we were going to start working together. I wasn’t about to force this poor woman to go through with a project when her entire life had just been turned upside-down.
One of my best friends from college is Thai, and the whole point of going there was to visit her and her family who I adore. They own a resort, and they let us stay there for free in exchange for me building a website for them.
One of the few days I could drag myself to the beach in Thailand.
My friend’s mother was the first person aside from my husband to notice something was wrong with me. She teaches buddhist meditation and sensed that I was starting to crumble. She even went as far as to give me a private lesson on meditation in hopes of helping me.
Having that support system made Thailand bearable. I at least made it to the beach most days, and my mental decline almost stabilized.
And then we left for Bali.
Bali is a strange place. Most people know that it’s a go-to destination for anyone on a spiritual journey. What they don’t tell you is that Bali has a way of taking whatever you’re dealing with below the surface and bringing it to the forefront.
I barely saw any of Bali beyond our little neighborhood. The only time I left the villa was to get food or because our amazing hosts dragged me out with them. I did meet up with an online friends twice, and both times I pretended I was on top of the world.
I spent most of my time in Bali sitting on the porch of this villa.
I convinced myself that I was ok. Traveling was my idea. There’s no possible way that I wasn’t happy when I was “living the dream” right?
My breakdown had nothing to do with my business, and it had nothing to do with the stress of traveling. Those were just the trigger to bring up deeper issues.
My parents had divorced when I was 12. I spent most of my childhood raising my two younger sisters since my mom moved out and my father worked odd hours. And I hadn’t dealt with the mental fallout from that in the decade since.
By the time we hit Bali, every single conversation with my father left me an emotional wreck for a good 24 hours after it ended. At one point my husband straight up yelled at me, pleading for me to just stop talking to my dad until I dealt with the underlying issues. He wanted his wife back.
Literally the only time I made it to the beach in Bali. This was our third day there and I was still on the high of changing cities.
Nothing got through to me. I refused to admit to myself that I was dealing with anything more than a bad case of traveler’s remorse. My husband took the choice out of my hands and made it for me.
After 6 months of full time travel, we landed back in the United States.
My ridiculously steadfast husband gave me a month to try and sort myself out. I was forced to recognized that I was deeply depressed when we left Bali, but I was too proud to consider getting real help.
After a month of no real change (I left the house maybe 4 times in that entire month), he again took the choice out of my hands.
It took me six months of hard work to beat my depression.
When we left Bali I was at total rock bottom.
I was unable to work, had no new client contracts lined up, was constantly picking fights with my husband, and I was convinced I was the biggest failure ever. My dreams of running a business while traveling the world were over in my mind.
Today I am a successful lifestyle and business coach, and I get to use that awful experience to help my clients lead better lives.Here’s what I learned from the worst year ever:
- Starting your own business will always bring up any unresolved mental issues you have. Travel can do the same but in my case it was the stress of travel that made things more extreme.
- Listen to the people around you when they tell you to get help. If you’re dealing with depression, there is a good chance they really do know better because they can see you without the filter depression puts on your life.
- It’s ok to change what you want as you go. Just like it’s ok to change travel plans when something goes wrong (and something will always go wrong), it’s ok to change your wants and dreams in life too. In my case, I had to come to terms with the reality that I just didn’t want to be a designer anymore and that design had always been as easy out for me. Showing up and owning the fact that I wanted to be a coach took tremendous bravery because of my family background.
- Having the financial ability to bail out of travel probably saved my life. My husband is a super-saver, and he’s the only reason I was able to get help. Without his savings, I have no idea where I would be today.
- Telling people what I was dealing with would have changed the outcome. I wasn’t ever alone when I was traveling. I had full support systems in Singapore and Thailand, and even in Bali I had people around me who constantly asked what was wrong and how they could help. I never let them help me because I refused to be honest with them and myself. Looking back I can see that I’d have been able to keep traveling if I just trusted those around me and used the resources they gave me.
If you ever find yourself struggling on the road, take my story as an example of what not to do. Learn from my mistakes. Travel is one of the best things you can do in your lifetime, and it’s worth the risk.
I’ll be back on the road this year, and this time I’ll be able to fully enjoy it.
