Farm Call Confessions

October 1, 2022

All I could do was freeze in anxiety. It was opening day of the Virginia bow season, but there was something eerily wrong as I climbed into the treestand. It was 7 months since my hospitalization and my darkest valley known as depression, but once you stare into the abyss, you are never the same.

I don't remember exactly what triggered this particular anxiety attack, but I remember how awful it was. I was frozen in fear of the past and the possibility of looking into the abyss again. Its silence is deafening with a feeling that's numbing. You see nothing, you hear nothing, you feel nothing - absolutely nothing. You are consumed by it like a pinecone in a fire, but instead of burning or pain, you feel uncomfortably nothing. You become afraid, but you're so frozen in fear you can't do anything else except just ride it out.

"God please help me," I whimpered.

Suddenly, a mature doe appeared in front of me at 25 yards, feeding on acorns. It broke the tension and thrust me out of the darkness and into the real world. I stared at her through the scope on my crossbow until a voice whispered, "Let her go. She has done more good than she will ever know." As I watched her disappear into the woods, I felt a deep calm come over me as I felt the warmth of the sunrise materialize over the mountains. I was pulled out of the abyss once again.