Healing My Adrenaline Addiction

Reclaiming My Rhythm: Day 15 of My Cycle

For years, I lived for the high.

The summit after a hard climb. The drop into a steep line of fresh powder. The speed of mountain biking down the trail, my tires skimming over roots and rocks, my breath syncing with the terrain. I told myself it was about freedom, challenge, connection to nature. And it was, partially.

But underneath, there was something else I didn't want to face.

In retrospect, I can see how much of that hunger was driven by a deep, unprocessed urgency; an attempt to outrun my own body. Or maybe to override it. I was chasing intensity not just for joy, but to survive. I didn’t know how to slow down without feeling like I was unraveling.

My nervous system was constantly bracing; hooked on the sharpness of adrenaline, the drive of cortisol. I found safety in the edge because I didn’t know how to feel safe in stillness. It’s only recently that I’ve started to understand how much this pattern, this constant chasing, contributed to the breakdown of my body.

I’ve had seizures. I’ve collapsed into states of complete exhaustion. My hormones have been all over the place. My skin has cried out through eczema flare-ups. I’ve watched my cycle become irregular, my digestion falter, and my emotions run wild. For a long time, I blamed myself. Now I see it more clearly: my body wasn’t failing me; it was screaming for me to stop.

I haven’t rock climbed or skied in about a year now. That sentence still feels strange to write. There was a time when those things felt like my identity. But I’ve been listening more deeply to my body lately, and what it’s asking for isn’t another summit, it’s rest.

Instead of long runs or climbing sessions, I’m walking. Slowly. I’m running shorter distances, 1 to 3 miles, just to feel my lungs move, not to push beyond my edge. I’ve returned to yoga in a gentler way, not for performance but to feel myself soften. I’m sleeping more than I ever have in my adult life. I’m doing less. I’m not scheduling every moment. And I’m noticing that in the quiet, something sacred is happening: my body is processing.

All the years of pushing… all the intensity I used as a stand-in for intimacy, for grief, for safety… it’s all being metabolized now, slowly and imperfectly. I feel like I’m in a long exhale after years of holding my breath.

There’s science behind this too. I’ve learned about the HPA axis, the system that links the brain and the adrenal glands to regulate our stress response. Years of living in fight-or-flight can leave this system burned out and confused, flooding our bodies with cortisol and adrenaline long after the danger has passed. It can disrupt our menstrual cycles, tank progesterone levels, shut down ovulation, and leave us emotionally erratic and physically inflamed.

I used to think I was just sensitive or dramatic for the way my body reacted to stress. Now I understand, this is the body's intelligence. This is the body protecting itself the only way it knows how.

So here I am now, not chasing peaks but learning how to live in the valley. Learning how to hold myself when things feel slow, ordinary, even boring. Letting my nervous system relearn what it means to feel safe. Letting my hormones recalibrate. Letting rest become not a punishment or a failure, but a form of repair.

There’s still a part of me that misses the thrill. And I want to return to mountain adventure in a more mindful way someday. But I’ve come to understand that true aliveness doesn’t only live in the adrenaline, it lives in presence. In slowness. In being with what is, rather than running from what was.

I’m still healing, and I know that healing is a lifelong journey. I’m learning to love this version of myself, the one who doesn’t need to prove anything to be worthy of care.

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I Don’t Climb Anymore

I used to live for the edge.
The grip of sharp granite in my hand,
the rush of cold air before a ski drop,
the burn in my thighs as I pushed past fear.
I thought that meant I was alive.

But I was running
from the ache I didn’t want to name,
from the memories buried in my body,
from the stillness that felt like drowning.

My body tried to keep up
until it couldn’t.

There were signs:
nights I couldn’t sleep from the buzzing inside my skin,
mornings I woke to itching and confusion,
seizures like earthquakes that cracked my illusion of control.

I kept climbing
until my nervous system collapsed.

And then, nothing.

No trails.
No fresh powder.
No more mountains to climb.

Just the quiet.
The bed I couldn’t leave.
The grief that waited patiently in my chest for years.

Now, I walk
barefoot, sometimes,
slow, like I’m learning how to be in my own body again.

I run short distances,
enough to feel my lungs expand,
but not enough to chase the ghost of who I thought I had to be.

I sleep.
I do less.
I soften.

And in the stillness,
my body is teaching me how to come home.

I’m learning
that survival isn’t the same as aliveness.
That presence is braver than adrenaline.
And that I never had to earn rest.

Brighton Ski Resort, Utah, 2022.