Girl Gone Wild: “My life was full of materialistic objects, but I was empty inside”

It wasn’t until a trip to Ireland that my ex-boyfriend begged me for help. Our relationship broke not long after, so I decided the best place for me was to be home with my family. I asked my doctor for help. She diagnosed me with major depressive disorder and prescribed me antidepressants. It was a big shock to me, even though I had thought about suicide, harmed myself and had uncontrollable crying spells in the months leading up to the date. I had lost interest in my life.

Living back in Ireland, I stayed on antidepressants for a few years, weaning myself off only to find myself a year later in another failed relationship and having the same depressive thoughts as before. I asked for help from a counselor who told me that I was not depressed.

“You’re just sad,” she said. I left the session feeling empty and hopeless. I called my mother in tears. I decided at that point: “You have to save yourself, Melissa!”

I grew up in Summerhill, Co. Meath, on a small country lane where everyone knew each other. As a kid living in schticks, nature and the outdoors was my retreat from everyday boredom. I lived near a short, narrow hiking trail known to us locals as the “Duck Walk” – it ran along a shallow creek before opening into the “backcountry” of Meath made up of overgrown fields full of nettles, brambles, wildflowers and a few acres of earth forest. This is where we played the adventures of childhood.

When I was eight or nine, my sister Erika and I picked up tools from my father’s shed. When I close my eyes tightly, I can still smell the paint cans and white spirits. We cut an overgrown forest path through what I now realize is most likely private land. But we were kids and that was our quest, like Bilbo Baggins’ epic journey to Lonely Mountain to earn his share of the treasure. It was there that, as a teenager, I tried my first cigarette. The outdoors was my playground. My refuge.

As I got older, however, the outdoors seemed to become more and more distant from my life. When I was 16, I told my guidance counselor, “I want to be a choreographer. His answer ? “There’s no money in there… choose something else.” At that point, the first seeds of doubt were sown (“I am not good enough”). When I was 17 I moved to Dublin to study travel and tourism at university. If I couldn’t be a dancer, I would become a flight attendant and travel the world. Dublin was my first experience living in a city. Then London.

After deciding to save myself, I started actively looking for things that I liked to do or that I was curious about to learn more about. I started a photography course in Dublin which I loved. We had to choose a subject to photograph, and after seeing the work of adventure photographer Alex Strohl, I chose the Dublin Mountains Partnership (dublinmountains.fr) – a voluntary organization that organizes free hikes in the Dublin mountains. I also wanted to be an adventure photographer. With a backpack I bought from a charity store for five dollars and my camera in tow, I hit the trails.

Then something unexpected happened. Atop Fairy Castle in the Dublin Mountains, my shoulders dropped, my eyes widened, the corners of my mouth lifted, and I smiled. I was happy. For the first time in years, I felt really happy and at peace. It was my “aha” moment. At that point, I knew I had to make the mountains a part of my life.

I loved photography, but the most important part of the day for me was getting into the outdoors. I wanted more so I took some mountain skills training and remote emergency first aid courses and decided to try hiking and wild camp for the 132k from Wicklow Way.

That’s what first brought me to this stop sign in Glenmalure. At the time, in 2017, I was very inexperienced and had packed way too much material. I left Marlay Park with a monstrous backpack weighing me down – it was so heavy I had to sit on the floor or on a support on something to put on the suspenders. I had a hard time getting up with the bag. My list of kits for this trip included things like a picnic blanket, slippers, newspaper, and a flask of whiskey. Oh, and enough clothes to follow me for a month of hiking, let alone a week. It was ridiculous.

I wanted to hike the Wicklow Way because I felt the need to prove myself as a hiker. As I have experienced, the Irish backpacking community was predominantly an older population and heavily dominated by men. I never really saw someone who looked like me guiding the trails. I had this idea that by doing the Wicklow Way, I could earn my stripes there. But on the second day, I injured my knee and was limping considerably. On the third day I was in a lot of pain, basically dragging my right leg through the Glenmalure valley. And then these huge letters: STOP.

I felt like the universe was screaming and begging me. I couldn’t stop the rising tears as the combination of pain and the reality of having to get off the trail sank in. I called it one day.

On one of my first group hikes, I remember stopping to take some pictures of the surrounding landscape. I was shouted to catch up. I wanted to take a break in nature; they wanted to cross it. It was not the community for me.

A few months after my attempt at Wicklow Way, I started an all-female hiking group called Galz Gone Wild. It wasn’t to help me heal from this failure, but because I saw the impact the backpacking community could have on women, and began to realize that I didn’t need to. prove myself to anyone. If you are hiking I believe you are a hiker. And hikers come in all shapes, sizes, colors, genres, and beliefs. The outdoors don’t discriminate, and I wanted women to know they had a place outside if they wanted to. I had a place outside if I wanted. And I did.

Since its inception, Galz Gone Wild has welcomed all women. They also come from all walks of life: mothers, teachers, students, the unemployed and the self-employed. But they all have one thing in common: they step out of their comfort zone. We start our hikes with an opening circle. It is an invitation to share what you are feeling at that moment. It allows you to be vulnerable but safe. Galz Gone Wild is a community that welcomes you as you are, where you can be heard and held without judgment.

It’s not just hiking. Our group trips have involved surfing, yoga, rock climbing, bushcraft, wild camping, canoeing, swimming, dancing, SUP, kite surfing, cycling, orienteering, zip lining and mountain skills training… to name a few. We have grown from a small group of women to a community trying to create an equitable, inclusive and diverse space. “It allowed me to work on certain issues of confidence in my body,” a member, Sinéad, told me. “To see that my body is there to push me on surfboards and climb mountains. To now see my body as something positive.

But there is still work to be done. The outdoors in Ireland is still an under-represented and inaccessible place for many women – especially for our BIPOC, lesbian, bisexual and trans communities, for women with disabilities, women in recovery and women of height. If these women are not portrayed in this picture of the outdoors, then how will they feel welcome? Since our reopening after the lockdown in June, we’ve seen a more diverse group of women eager to join, to seek new relationships with themselves, with each other and with the outdoors.

In September, four years after leaving the Wicklow Way, I decided to try the 132 mile trail again. But, this time, I did it with three close friends. Sarah, Sinead, and Madeline had been involved in the base of Galz Gone Wild and helped make it what it is today, so it felt fitting.

We started our attempt on a damp and humid morning, this time walking south to north, from Carlow to Marlay Park in Dublin.

On the third day we approached the stop sign that marked my departure from the trail in 2017. Madeline repeatedly hit it with her hiking stick and clapped to signify a border crossed. I had passed the point where I had failed before, and now felt fresh, ready, and fairly unwavering in my confidence. On a dry and sunny Saturday, we entered Marlay Park and crossed the threshold arm in arm. I had finished it. We had finished it, together.

Or, as they say: “We did the trick!

You can find out more about Galz Gone Wild at galzgonewild.com or on Instagram at @galzgonewild