Transcript
Chris Hill: This episode includes brief references to thoughts of suicide. Please use discretion.
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Vedia Barnett: Good morning. I'm Vedia. I am a Sierra Club employee with the Military Outdoors Campaign.
Chris Hill: It's 8:30 a.m. on a warm April day in Georgia, and Vedia Barnett is in her element.
Vedia Barnett: My role today is just to keep you safe, keep you on the trail, answer any questions if you have them.
Chris Hill: She's the senior campaign representative for the Sierra Club's Military Outdoors campaign, and today she's leading a hike for military veterans.
Vedia Barnett: Awesome. Well, we're gonna do the yellow trail today. It's gorgeous. It goes by the water — pack in, pack out. We do leave no trace principles.
Chris Hill: Vedia has this natural magnetism and joy to her that makes you want to follow her into the woods,
Vedia Barnett: So if there's no last minute questions, we're gonna go ahead and get started on our hike.
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Chris Hill: But the joy she shares with the group today hasn't always come easy to her.
Vedia Barnett: I definitely remember the depression. Like, that was — it was crushing. Just lying in bed, just crying and crying. I can't even say hopelessness. It just — I have no idea how to describe it.
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Chris Hill: I'm Chris Hill, Chief Conservation Officer at the Sierra Club. In today's episode, we're following Vedia's journey from a crushing period of depression to healing and happiness in the outdoors. And we're taking a closer look at the connection between mental health and time spent in nature.
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Chris Hill: Let's take it outside.
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Chris Hill: Today's hike is a moderate three miles in Georgia's Sweetwater Creek State Park, a sprawling urban park just outside of Atlanta. There are only a few hikers in the group. But once heart rates rise and the trail head is left in the distance, walls come down and people start getting to know each other.
Vedia Barnett: And Sharon, you said you're an army vet?
Sharon Block: Yes.
Vedia Barnett: Okay, where did you serve?
Sharon Block: Virginia, Kansas, Washington, Panama, Germany, Alaska.
Chris Hill: Vedia is a vet herself having served in the Air Force in the ‘90s.
Vedia Barnett: I had just had my daughter. I was 20, and my uncle was a Navy recruiter. Both my parents are Marines and I didn't know what I wanted to do. I had this new baby, and so my uncle, he said, “Hey, the military would be a great place for you to start. You'll get money for school. You'll have basically what they call three hots and a cot,” which is three meals a day and somewhere to stay. And so for me, that was the best decision I could have made.
Chris Hill: Vedia was stationed at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas and worked as a medical technician in the hospital.
Vedia Barnett: So I worked labor and delivery. The hospital that I worked at had an ICU, actually, for pregnant women. So I did experience a lot of maternal death, infant death. So that directly impacted my psyche and all of that, but I enjoyed being in the military. I really enjoyed it, but that portion of my job was — it wasn't the best.
Chris Hill: Vedia developed PTSD after leaving the military. But she still considers herself lucky that she had a support system during her transition back to civilian life.
Vedia Barnett: Because my uncle was a recruiter and I had an uncle who was in the Army, they both kind of helped me transition out. I actually went to a local hospital and I worked labor and delivery there for a couple of years.
Chris Hill: Vedia and the other vets on today's hike bond over this aspect of military service. That even 20 plus years later, there isn't much improvement in the harsh transition out.
Vedia Barnett: I just witnessed my daughter go through it. There's really not a lot of support. All her training was virtual. She's sitting on Zoom, and then once the camera's off, it's like, “Okay, you're out.”
Sharon Block: And they say that they are working on that, but I still haven't seen anything I'm impressed with yet.
Vedia Barnett: No, it's not different than when I got out in the ‘90s.
Chris Hill: Many vets feel isolated from their communities when they get out of the military. That’s where hikes like the one Vedia is leading today, can come in — to fill in the gaps.
Vedia Barnett: Like, you have people going into the military at 18 years old, you know, navigating a warship. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, you're not gonna get that in the civilian world. But I do think once you come out, some people lose a sense of purpose. So I think being outdoors, one of the things that we do is we tell people, if you enjoyed this hike, we would love to have you become a leader. So then that way, now they're getting that sense of purpose once they take the training, and now they're leading others, because the goal is to get everybody outdoors.
Chris Hill: But seeking out community with other veterans means you first have to identify as a veteran, which can take time for some people
Vedia Barnett: And then if you have veterans that experience military sexual trauma, then those veterans don't even want to be affiliated with anything military. So they need more support, too. Most women veterans don't even identify as veterans until 10 years or more after getting out of the military.
Sharon Block: Yeah, I can agree with that.
Chris Hill: Vedia says this lack of self-identification is one of the many barriers that keep vets from seeking out the services available to them.
Vedia Barnett: I think the first time I really realized I was a veteran was, my parents were going to, like, Golden Corral on Veterans Day for a free meal. And my dad's like, “Are you going?” I'm like, “For what?” He's like, “Because it's for veterans.” And that was the first time it clicked. Like, “Wow, I'm a veteran.” So with me coming on with the Sierra Club, my boss, I told him that's something that's really important to me is making sure that we feature — focus on women veterans, too. Because when people think of veterans, they don't think “me,” they're thinking, “Vietnam War combat veteran,” “somebody's grandpa,” but they don't think women, and women serve, too.
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Chris Hill: Since getting out of the military, Vedia has never stopped serving. She worked as a classroom teacher, organized a chapter of Black Girls Run, volunteered with the Girl Scouts, and always worked to help other vets access the services they're entitled to.
Vedia Barnett: So I've always been kind of a person to get out and motivate people. If I see a need, I'm just gonna fill it. I mean, that's just my inner thing.
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Chris Hill: In 2019, Vedia was working as a teacher when her life of giving back was interrupted.
Vedia Barnett: it was at the beginning of the school year. I was teaching at a high school, and the kids were just different. That's all I'm gonna say. Kids today are just a little different. And I felt like I was fighting more for their education than they were, so it caused me a lot of anxiety. It triggered a couple of PTSD episodes where I couldn't even go to work. I was feeling sick at work, dizziness, this, that, and the other. The kids one day wound up calling the school nurse. She wound up coming to get me. They sent me home. My principal at the time was just like, “Hey, get checked out. Don't worry about coming back. We'll get a substitute teacher.” And the very next day from what my husband shared with me, I was asking about peanut butter and jelly, and then he said I stopped talking and the next thing he knew I was just on the ground. And that was that.
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Chris Hill: Vedia had experienced a stroke. And her once active life came to a screeching halt.
Vedia Barnett: Because I was out and doing things in my community — I was a volunteer involved in so many things — it was like once I got sick, all that was gone. So my community was gone. And I think it was weird for people because they didn't know how to, because at that time I had a stutter. Walking was difficult for me, memory was difficult for me. Just even going from one room to the next, I would have to wind up taking a nap, all those things on my recovery. And so I lost a lot of community, I would say. And so that was really hard for me. People that I thought were gonna come and check on me, and things of that nature just disappear. And so that really put me in a deep depression, and my husband still had to go to work, my kids still had to get up and go to school and all of that. So I'm sitting in the house by myself for hours on end. So, yeah, it was really tough.
Chris Hill: Veda's recovery was slow. Her depression worsened the longer she stayed isolated at home.
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Vedia Barnett: I was tired of being still stuttering, still having the vertigo, not remembering anything. And I just was thinking about my previous life, having been active, athletic. At that point in my life, I was suicidal. So thankfully, I remembered that I had a magnet for this veteran crisis line on my refrigerator.
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Vedia Barnett: One of the counselors on there asked me, “What is something that brings me joy?” And I told her I used to run marathons, all of that. And so she said, “Well, can you get outdoors?” And I said, “Yeah, I can.” I had my son take me outdoors on our deck, and just being outside, feeling the sun on my skin, hearing the birds, it was a game changer for me.
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Chris Hill: With the support of her family, Vedia was able to make time outside part of her routine again. While she wasn't running marathons, she slowly found herself and her strength again.
Vedia Barnett: So my husband would hold my hand or my arm and because we would walk our neighborhood anyway. We would do four miles prior to me having a stroke. And so it was just a simple, “Let's walk to the mailbox and walk back,” which maybe was a couple hundred feet down the driveway and back. And then it was, “Let's see if we can walk to Miss So-and-So's house,” three houses down and then walk back with him holding me up, or my son would do the same. I remember the first time I did a half a mile, which is like a circle around our street, and I could not believe it. And I was like, “Okay, I'm going to get back up to walking our four miles.”
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Vedia Barnett: So it took me several months to do that. I walked with walking sticks, holding onto my husband, but I was determined to get back, literally get back on my feet.
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Chris Hill: Vedia credits the outdoors with her recovery. And science tells us that it may be more than sunshine and exercise that helped her feel better.
Joanna Betman Schaefer: There are a couple of different theories that help us to understand why human beings would be more calm in nature.
Chris Hill: This is Dr. Joanna Betman Schafer, professor of social work at the University of Utah and licensed clinical social worker.
Joanna Betman Schaefer: Some of evolutionary theory suggests that human beings have a better ability to regulate their own emotions. That our bodies are better adapted to natural environments as opposed to urban ones, and that our body can really calm and re-regulate itself in natural environments.
Chris Hill: Dr. Schaefer is an expert in wilderness therapy. For the past few years, she's been working with us at Sierra Club to evaluate our peer-led wilderness trips with the Military Outdoors Campaign.
Joanna Betman Schaefer: I'm particularly interested in how being in nature and being in wilderness impacts people's mental health. And so working with the Sierra Club to look at the veterans that they've trained to lead other veterans in their home communities on trips that can range from just an afternoon to days long, could be a walk in a park or could be a river rafting expedition through the wilderness.
Chris Hill: Dr. Schaefer's results are pretty conclusive. Time spent in nature has therapeutic results, and more time in nature more often has better results.
Joanna Betman Schaefer: So we looked at veterans’ depression, their anxiety, their stress. We looked at post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. We looked at suicidality. And we also looked at substance misuse, so abusing substances. And so what we discovered is that, these things, nearly all of them, improved.
Chris Hill: In this specific study, Dr. Schaefer and her colleagues looked at the longer, more immersive trips that Sierra Club offers to veterans. But in an analysis of over a hundred other studies, she found that shorter trips have a positive impact, as well.
Joanna Betman Schaefer: Nature exposure, even as little as 10 minutes, does have a positive effect on adults’ mental health. Whether we're talking about depression or stress, or we're talking about anxiety. We're seeing positive effects in some cases, really large ones, from the beginning to the end. From pre- to post-nature exposure. Even, again, as little as 10 minutes. And even in urban parks, it doesn't have to be, “I'm going into the wilderness.” It can be, “I'm walking through green space near where I live.”
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Vedia Barnett: I live with PTSD, so if I have a moment — me and my husband call my PTSD moments — I lace up my shoes, go outside for a walk, and it helps me kind of ground and get myself back together.
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Vedia Barnett: I love, in the veteran community, it's like we all take care of each other..
Sharon Block: Absolutely I normally call it sisterhood. Although we have a man with us.
Hiker: Sorry
Vedia Barnett: Sorry's not necessary.
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Chris Hill: In many ways, getting outdoors together and doing hard things as a team compounds the positive effects that time in nature can provide.
Vedia Barnett: I look at it like, we put our lives on the line to protect us for this to be preserved, so I belong here. And so being in this space with other veterans is, it really is kind of like a homecoming, coming together and talking and joking and talking about your service and supporting one another. Typically most people, when you're in the military, you live on base. So you work and live with the people you know. So everyone's together, your children are all, and then once you get out, you're going wherever you're going. Whether it's back to your home state or, you could have been on a ship in California, but you're from Florida, now you're going back to Florida. It's like, “Okay. I'm here by myself, but all my people.” So that sense of, you know, community and camaraderie is really important. And being outdoors doing it, I think it just, it creates a bond.
Chris Hill: Beyond camaraderie, Dr. Shaffer is encouraged by the idea that wilderness therapy can get around the stigma of mental health treatment.
Joanna Betman Schaefer: Lots of studies have found that there's a strong disincentive to seek mental healthcare because no one wants to be described as crazy, and no one wants to jeopardize a promotion, and no one wants to look like the weak link in a unit. And within military culture, speaking really broadly for this enormous system that historically at least, there's been a lot of difficulty in making mental health care something that has support and acceptance.
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Joanna Betman Schaefer: The outcomes of these kinds of nature-based interventions, they look therapeutic, but they're not therapy. There's no therapists, there's no treatment plan, they’re enormously therapeutic. And I think what the data from Outward Bound for veterans shows, as well as the data from Sierra Club, is that these kinds of nature-based interventions that aren't therapy hold real promise and making veterans understand why talking about my feelings with other people might be helpful. And that I maybe don't need to over-regulate and shove everything down. Maybe there are other people like me who experience similar things and that I might feel better if I share with them what I'm feeling.
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Chris Hill: Since recovering from her stroke, Vedia has worked hard to get back to her old self, but this time she's doing things a little differently.
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Vedia Barnett: Once I celebrated my 50th birthday, reality hit me like, “Okay, I'm not guaranteed another 50 years, so what is the next however look like?” And that's how I've lived my life since then. I'm gonna do whatever the hell I wanna do, when I want to, go where I wanna go, experience things I've never experienced before. Taking a kayaking class or paddleboard class, things that I was afraid of before. And then I'm like, “Okay, I see little 10-year-olds in their own kayaks.” So I'm like, “Okay, if they're not afraid, why am I afraid?” And then, now that I work with the Sierra Club and doing the outdoor leaders training, I want other veterans to feel that as well. I don't know what tomorrow holds for me, but I know today I left it all on the floor, and looking forward to what's next tomorrow.
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Chris Hill: Before the end of our hike, we run into another Sierra Club group hiking in the opposite direction.
Field tape: -Hey there! How we doing?
-Are you Vedia?
-I am Vedia! Nice to meet you!
-Group picture.
-I’ll go up the hill and take the picture
-One the count of three: 1, 2, 3
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Chris Hill: If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.
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Chris Hill: This episode was produced by Tina Mullen, edited by Isaac Kestenbaum of Future Projects, and hosted by me, Chris Hill. Ian Brickey is our executive producer. And mixing and sound design is by Peter Lang-Stanton. Special thanks to Lornett Vestal, Sharon Block, and the Sierra Club Military Outdoors team. For more information about mental health resources for veterans, or if you’re interested in joining a Military Outdoors hike in your community, visit the links in our show notes.