The original “Climb” in free verse style was composed as a distress tolerance instruction sheet of sorts. The photo is of my La Sportiva Katanas and my Krieg tribal warrior shield design chalk bag. I printed this out on photo paper after I was finished putting the words with the photo that I had taken at the old bouldering gym, laminated the photos, and used them as bookmarks so that I always had one with me, because I always had a book with me. I carried one with me to go through slowly, line-by-line along with the photo, so that I could calm myself down from PTSD symptoms when I needed to. It worked well enough to get me to the climbing gym, which resulted in my primary distress tolerance and emotion regulation skill of climbing. I’m not kidding when I say that climbing has saved my life!!! “Focus on the next hold…and climb,” is a quote from my psychiatrist, Dr. Mark Nicholson, to whom I will be forever grateful for suggesting climbing as a distress tolerance skill, among other things.
CLIMBING 4 THE REST OF US 