I have a love/hate relationship with night sailing. When the moon is full and there aren’t many clouds, it’s simply lovely. But when I can’t see anything, I get very nervous about it. I guess that’s pretty normal. Maybe everyone feels a little anxious about sailing at night. We’ve done a few overnight passages and for the most part, they’ve been fine, even enjoyable.

This is what we were doing before that night sail.

On the way home from Barkley Sound this summer, we did an overnight passage as there isn’t really any good place to stop between Barkley Sound and Neah Bay. We didn’t want to cross into the U.S. and were heading toward the Gulf Islands for a few days. So we decided to just go for it and sail all night. It wasn’t our first overnight passage and it’s a good thing because it was really dark out there. The cloud cover made me very glad to have working radar on Galapagos.

Our first overnight was aboard our Cal 34, Moonrise, and our son Andrew was also aboard. We were, as usual on the last day of a summer cruise, at the south end of San Juan Island just as the sun was going down. I believe we’d spent too much time whale watching, not really being ready to go home. (That always seems to happen to us on our cruises in the summer. We seem to wait until the very last minute to leave the islands.)

Andrew at the helm. Don’t you love the flying laundry on the back stay, and the scrub brush and bucket? Oh, those were the days! Circa 2009

If you aren’t familiar with our waters, the south end of San Juan Island has no protected anchorages of any kind. The western shore is hundreds of feet deep, right up to the rocks. The southern shore, while anchoring depth, is completely exposed to the strait with its high winds and swells. We had the choice of going around Cattle Point at a bad time with wind and tide (no thanks) or crossing at night. We decided to go for it.

It was a great crossing! We had about 20 knots of wind on the beam, really big swells on the aft starboard quarter, and we were screaming along with a double-reefed main and a shortened headsail  surfing down the face of the waves. It was actually pretty sweet, even though hand steering was required the entire time. It was intense.  Moonrise was in her element and, frankly, so were we.

To prepare for that crossing, even as relative newbies, we knew we had to have a protocol and rules and that everyone had to follow them. As the mom, who is equal to the captain when it comes to safety when a kid is on board, my rule was two people in the cockpit, jacklines and harnesses deployed at all times. No one leaves the cockpit. We agreed to two hour watches. Everyone did their jobs and we just had a ripping time.

A man happy with his adventure.

You knew, of course, that something would probably go wrong. And of course it did, and of course it was the engine. We were almost across and turned on the engine to help push us through the wicked current around Pt. Wilson so we could have a straight shot into the anchorage. Our plan was to get through the current, drop the sails after we rounded the point, and anchor for the night. We were hoping the wind, which was coming in from the Pacific Ocean, would die down as we rounded the point.

Halfway through the current the engine made a loud grinding noise, and died. It would not start up again. Let me tell you, when it’s night, and the wind is up and you are close to the coast, that’s not the time you want to troubleshoot the engine.

Taking stock of the situation, we agreed we’d just sail into the anchorage, one person would drop the hook, and another would backwind the sail to set the anchor.  We were wrong about the wind. It was actually worse as we rounded the point. But regardless, we put away the headsail and sailed in with the wind behind us, one person on the bow keeping a lookout for boats at anchor without anchor lights. There are always people who fail to put up anchor lights and there is a special place in boater’s heck for them.

Here’s Ruffles (Thanks, alert reader Dave Calhoun). I believe this male orca is no longer with us. We are so glad we got to see him.

We got lucky, avoided the dark boats, dropped the hook and set it and all fell into our bunks for a long sleep. The next morning, that engine started like it had never seen any problems at all. We still don’t know why it failed. That mystery remains unsolved.

I hope all of our night sails go as well as the ones we’ve had so far. Really, sailing at night is just lovely. My biggest anxiety is not being able to see other boats, like fishing boats, especially once we head south.

Got any suggestions for making night sailing safer?

This post is part of the A to Z Challange. To read from the beginning, go here.

Like so many things in this life, how to treat your anxiety is not a black and white issue. There are no easy answers as anxiety exists on so many levels. It exists in the brain and body, as I’ve mentioned over and over, it exists in our belief systems, and I believe it exists on the level of spirit as well. For some people, it is mild and doesn’t interfere much with their daily lives. For others it is severe to the point that their life revolves around it.  If you have very bad anxiety, attacking it from many directions will give you a better result than if you just sit around wishing it would go away. That never works, I can tell you. You need a large bag of tools to deal with pervasive anxiety.

One of my favorite photos from last summer. You’d never know that later that day I’d be having a panic meltdown. Medication? Yes, please. Thanks.

I went on medication to treat mine, and, of course, I do continuous work on myself and my belief systems. It was a relief when I finally realized that I needed medication to help my brain calm down. It works beautifully for me, and for that I am grateful. I’m fairly certain that after about a year I’ll be able to go off of it and be fine like I always was before.  I probably should have made the decision sooner.

So let’s talk for a minute about medications because there is so much fear and apprehension about this stuff. People really get confused and have strong opinions, sometimes without having much information to back them up. Please realize I am not a doctor and I don’t play one on TV. I am a psychotherapist with 27 years of experience doing assessment and treatment, and referring people to medical providers who can prescribe medication for mental health issues. These opinions are my own, based on my professional experience.

There are two kinds of medications that are commonly prescribed for anxiety. One is the anti-anxiety medications, tranquilizers actually, like Xanax. I’m not going to focus much on Xanax and other Benzodiazipines except to say that they are excellent in the short term for acute cases, but are highly addictive. They are central nervous system depressants and using them with alcohol is dangerous. If you want more information about how they work, here’s a  good article. These medications are not a good solution for long term treatment of anxiety.

Mike is using a lead line to check depth because I thought the water was too shallow. Turns out, this time I was right.

The other is the SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) anti-depressant category, which also treats anxiety. Depression and anxiety are best friends and frequently walk around together holding hands and sharing the same neurotransmitters. Many, if not most, people who have chronic anxiety also have depression. It’s only a matter of which problem rears its ugly head the most.

After so many years in the mental health business, I am disheartened that we continue to have a serious problem in our country with a belief system about mental health. People continue to be ashamed to say they are on an anti-depressants, as though that means there is something immoral or unethical about them, as though they suffer from bad character development of some kind. It’s okay to say you’re on high blood pressure medications, or antibiotics, or that you take something for pain. We’re not ashamed of taking those things. But suddenly, if it’s mental health medication, there’s an issue.

I can’t tell you how discouraged I get as a clinician when a client who is clearly suffering from a profound anxiety disorder, suffering every moment of every day, tells me that they “don’t believe in medication.”.   It’s disheartening because I know that they are going to suffer for a much longer time than necessary, it’s going to be next to impossible for them to follow through with any of the things I’m going to suggest to them, and that they are going to get discouraged that therapy isn’t the magic bullet they thought it would be.   If you are someone who ‘doesn’t believe’ in medication for anxiety and depression, then please consider your belief system carefully. Why, exactly,  don’t you ‘believe’ in it?

Take a careful look past the aft deck. That’s VERY shallow water covering mud right there. We were just that close to touching bottom. Thanks, Amy.

In my experience the answer to that is usually twofold. First and foremost, the person thinks they should be able to handle it themselves. This is fine for mild cases. Certainly changes in diet, such as how much caffeine you drink, and changes in exercise habits can do wonders for mild anxiety. Even supplements, which I may talk about later, would be a good choice if you want a natural approach. I’ve recommended certain coping skills in this series of posts. And by all means please get a physical exam that includes blood work for thyroid functions, adrenal functions, and other hormone levels.

However, for people who have severe anxiety that truly interferes with their daily functioning, and that is not caused by another medical condition, medication is a good solution and can make the difference between being able to cope and learn new tools and making little progress. In those cases, the combination of psychotherapy and medication is the best bet for creating lasting changes.

Recent research has revealed that the amygdala in anxious people actually has less plasticity than in people who do not suffer from anxiety. This means that once it records an emotional event, it is less likely to be able to differentiate in the future between a neutral event and one that triggers the emotional event. This is a measurable thing using actual science that I am not making up. I think it is important to remember that we are dealing with a physical organ here; one that shows differences in structure between people with anxiety and those without.

Best fun ever. I want to feel like this all the time. At the Owlery in Scotland.

The second reason is lack of education and information. Somehow many people continue to associate anti-depressants with illicit ‘drugs’. I mean, like ‘uppers and downers’. They continue to call medicines like Prozac and Zoloft ‘happy pills’.  And this could not be further from the truth. These medications do not ‘make you feel happy’. When they work correctly, they make depressed and anxious people feel normal. There’s a big difference.  People aren’t out there getting high on Prozac and Zoloft.

I have a little educational talk, complete with bad drawings that I do on the fly, that I give people who really do need medication but don’t understand how it works and are at least open to information.  Instead of giving you that talk, I’ve found a video that does a better job.

A final point I’d like to make is that many of the folks I’ve talked to who won’t entertain the idea of using medicine to treat their disorder actually are self-medicating at an alarming rate with alcohol, or pot in the wrong form. (Actually, pot in the right form can be a very good anti-anxiety medication for some people.) So, what they are telling me, really, is that using alcohol all the time or smoking pot every day is more acceptable to them than taking a pill. Unfortunately, in the long run, self-medicating with alcohol can make anxiety worse. And it definitely makes depression worse.

I hope that if you are a fellow anxiety sufferer this post gives you food for thought about using medication as one of your tools for treatment. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that medication is going to completely ‘fix it’.  It’s not likely to be the only tool you will need.  Does it help everyone? No.  Does it come with risks? Almost certainly, but so does continuing to have high anxiety. Might you have side effects? Of course you might, but you might not.  Do you still have to do your own personal work in conjunction with medication? Well, it does work better that way. Will you have to take it for the rest of your life? I don’t know. That depends on your history and on your particular set of circumstances. Like any other kind of medication or treatment, there is a cost/benefit analysis that must take place in the decision making process.

Just joined us in this A to Z Blog Challenge on Anxiety? Want to read from the beginning? Go here.

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We are in the fifth year of our 5 year plan. These last months have been months of what I am calling “hurry up and wait” time. We are at the threshold of leaving an old way of life behind, but have not yet made the leap. We are living in the liminal space, the space between. It can be very frustrating, this time of waiting and not making much headway. This is giving me lots of time to practice just being in the here and now, rather than always thinking of the future.

We know the comings and goings of the birds and their seasons in our yard.

Being present in the here and now is a skill that should be developed by anyone that has anxiety because anxious people are always looking at the ‘what if’, and the ‘what will happen when’ rather than allowing themselves to be fully present in the moment. They miss a lot that way. They also increase their level of worry by doing that. We all know that worrying is pretty much a useless way to spend time and energy, and yet we do it.

I am trying to stay firmly rooted in the present, living each day realizing that I have no idea how all of these plans-in-the-making will come together, trusting that they will, somehow.  I accept that we really have very little control over how things pan out. We make our plans, we do our part by putting one foot in front of the other day after day, and we see how those plans begin to take shape as we live our way into them. But the details of that? They are a mystery until they emerge in the present moment.

Take our house, for instance.  If there is one big thing that makes me anxious about moving forward in our plans, it’s what to do with the house. I know I’ve written about it before. That’s because it is literally almost always somewhere in my conscious awareness. When I think about signing our house away to someone else, and then not owning it anymore, I wish I could say I feel a sense of freedom and relief. But I really feel like this: 

To me, it feels counter-intuitive that at the stage of life we are in, after years of working to create a comfortable home, we would just sell it and never come back. After all, we do not know our future plans. We do not know if we’ll be sailing for a year or two years, or whatever. What if something happens and we have to come home, as so many cruisers do? We would have no place to come back to.

Mike is much less worried about this than I am. He feels like we can buy another house if we want it. I wonder exactly how we would do that, considering we are unlikely to get enough from the sale of our house to pay for another home. A down payment, yes, but to pay for one outright, no. He would have to find another job, houses here are expensive. I can’t help but think about where we will live in our old age. Still on a boat? Unlikely. Anyway, I get pretty spun up on this subject, but frankly, not as much as I used to. I am coming to accept that I just do not know what will happen with the house and if we have to sell, then I will try to be at peace about it. Still, this would be a really long post if I wrote all the things I think.

My morning coffee place.

The questions the anxious mind comes up with have no answers in the now. They are only questions that create more worry. The answers lie somewhere in the future and will make themselves known when the time comes.  So when I start going down the dark hole of perseverating on a future I cannot see, I have a mantra to help me stop and come down to earth. Maybe you need one, too. Mine is that I just say, “You are fine today, right here and now. All is well right now in this place.”  That helps remind me that I may as well not dwell on the future. Just do today’s work and the future will emerge soon enough.

If you, too, have a brain that likes to get into the worrying cycle, here are a few tricks that can help.

1.  Give your mind something else to do. Give yourself something to think about that is positive. A mind left to its own devices is like a toddler left unattended in the kitchen. No good can come of it.
2. Breathe deeply and focus on your physical surroundings. Take note of what is registering with all of your senses, focusing first on sight, then sound, smell, taste, touch, then hearing. Bring yourself firmly into your body awareness.
3. Use your best ‘firm and directive’ parent voice inside your head. Say, “STOP! STOP NOW! THAT’S ENOUGH!”. Then re-direct yourself to a different topic. Remember the mind is like an errant toddler. Telling it once will not be enough.
4. Ask yourself what’s the worst, realistic thing that can happen. Make a plan for dealing with that.
5. Write. Just write or type it out with word vomit. Just get all the words out of your body.
6. Talk out loud about it, even if you are alone (especially if you are alone). Sometimes hearing the words out loud will help put things in perspective. You might find yourself realizing how ridiculous your mind sounds, even to you.
7. Learn to meditate. 

In case you are wondering, our rental idea for the house is not working out. It was the wrong idea, apparently. I have no regrets about trying it. We’ve lost nothing in the trying, and we are enjoying the fruits of our labors clearing out the house.

Our son would like to live in the house with his girlfriend and another young couple. We would love that so much! It would be a great place for him to launch his adult life and career from. If he finds a GIS job in the Tacoma area, that’s what will happen. Know any good entry level GIS jobs for a young man with a Bachelor’s in Archaeology/Geology and a certification in GIS? He graduates from that program in June.

What are your biggest challenges in staying in the present? We’d love to hear from you in the comments section.

Just joined me in the A to Z Challenge? You can read from the letter A here, then hit ‘next’ to keep going.