From loss to wanderlust: how grief, divorce and depression inspired me to solo travel
Every journey has a beginning
Before starting Rediscovering Emily, my life was on a very different path. A path very much based on what society would deem acceptable for a young woman living in the 21st century. I was married and and had a full time job in an industry I had my heart set on since leaving university. I had responsibilities: a mortgage, bills, my own car, a savings account. I was very much in that eat/work/sleep/repeat way of life. I had accepted that the term 'adulting' was in fact my reality. I got excited by the thought of buying house plants, throws and kitchen appliances. I relished staying in on a Saturday night, curled up on the sofa with my husband, watching a good movie or binge watching the latest Netflix series. I was comfortable, content and happy. I never strayed from the norm.
But when 2019 arrived, everything changed. The path I was comfortably on careered off in a direction I never expected. On 30th January 2019 my dad suddenly passed away. He was just 63 years old. It ripped our family apart and I was heartbroken. It was too soon to say goodbye. And the goodbyes would keep on coming. Just a few weeks after my dad's funeral, my marriage would start to break down. This too was unexpected and a total shock. My husband had been part of my life for over eight years and I had expected him to be part of my life forever. The marriage irrevocably broke down and we officially separated just before our third year wedding anniversary.
Living with grief and depression
I soon found myself living back at home with my mum and I felt completely lost. I had lost my independence. I had lost the love of my life, my best friend. I had lost my beloved dad, my protector. I blamed and hated myself for all of it. I felt that I had failed as a wife, as a woman and as a daughter. I was so ashamed about getting divorced that I kept it from my closest friends. The overwhelming feeling of loss became all consuming and this significantly impacted my mental health. I was diagnosed with depression and prescribed medication. I started to receive psychotherapy sessions in order to help try and process everything that had happened to me in such a short space of time. I did start to get back some sense of reason with the help of therapy, but in truth, depression had started to take its toll. I became very unwell. I had started feeling suicidal and engaged in self harm without anyone knowing. I was so fixated on soldiering on and trying get back to normal that I neglected myself completely. I would return to work because I didn’t want to let my colleagues down. I told my family I was coping because I didn’t want to be a burden. Every day I was projecting a false persona and doing my best to hide the cracks. Some even said it was nice to see the old Emily back. But I wasn't back at all. My old self, together with my old life, had gone. Nothing was normal anymore. I had truly fallen down the rabbit hole and I believed my life had no meaning. There really was a fine between giving up and seeing how much more I could take.
My first time solo travelling
My 31st birthday was fast approaching and quite frankly I wasn’t in a celebratory mood. I kept thinking how much had changed in a year. I had spent my 30th birthday in New York with my husband. I loved that birthday trip and I made a promise to myself that I would always travel somewhere new for my birthday moving forward. I didn’t want the events of 2019 to make me break my promise. I had never solo travelled before. The thought had never crossed my mind, mainly because there was always someone to travel with. It was as far out of my comfort zone as I could get, but everything was different now. Grief changes you. Divorce changes you. I had to prove to myself that I could go it alone. For the first time in my life, I didn’t care about what could go wrong. I didn’t care about fear or what other people thought of me. I very much had this “Fuck it” / “What’s the worst that can happen?” attitude. And so I started researching for city breaks in Europe ideal for solo female travellers. Time and time again Amsterdam kept coming up. And the more I researched Amsterdam, the more I liked what it had to offer. Before I knew it, I had booked a four-day solo trip and for the first time in months, I felt that I had something to look forward to. I needed this trip. I needed the mental space. I needed to discover who this new Emily was on my own terms. And that’s exactly what happened. I got my first taste of independence and I loved it. I felt free to be unequivocally me. I liked who I was when I solo travelled. I could do what I wanted, when I wanted, without compromise. Sure I had moments where I wobbled. I had moments of doubt. I had moments where the pain of grief and divorce caught up with me. But I still loved my time away in spite of all that. All I kept thinking was “Why haven’t I solo travelled sooner?
Reaching mental health crisis
When I returned from Amsterdam, a divorce petition was waiting for me. Divorce was never in the script, nor was it something I wanted. I wanted to give my marriage a chance. But when I discovered in the most painful of circumstances that my husband had been seeing someone else, I had no choice. Days after making this discovery, I completely broke down. I had finally had enough of what life was throwing me and I couldn’t take anymore. I didn’t want to live another day in pain and I wanted to end it. I made a plan to end my life. When I broke down in front of my mum, she took me straight to A&E where I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. I am not ashamed to admit that I couldn’t cope. I’m not ashamed to admit that I reached crisis. Through the support of NHS Acute Mental Health services and iTalk therapy, I got the help I needed and started on road to recovery. In time I would soon start to see a life that was worth living, and look upon my future with hope instead of despair.
Solo travel brought me back from the brink
Solo travel it turns out would be my remedy. It would be my way of finding myself and navigating my way through loss. Two months after reaching crisis, I would take my second solo trip to Dubrovnik in Croatia. This trip ignited a spark of hope from within that would outshine all of those dark moments I had gone through. I would meet solo travellers from all over the world who didn’t know my story. To them I was just Emily from the UK, exploring the world as they were. It turns out there is a whole world out there waiting for me to discover. Solo travel helped me to realise that my new life could be anything I wanted it to be. Solo travel helped me to reconnect with myself in a way that I never believed was possible. And so I decided to embark on a self-discovery journey around the world. I’m not sure where my new path in life will take me, but I know I am on my way.
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