The Mountain / Obscured Paths

Content Warning:   Themes of long‑term exclusion, systemic harm, burnout, emotional distress, and hostile professional environments.

The Question

Why am I even doing this?

Why do I persist on this path when they keep trying to push me off the cliff? The path is so precarious, loose rocks and crumbling ground. Each step feels like a risk. Hard to find a trusted place to settle foot or rest a weary leg.

And why now? When I am struggling to recover my health at work when I’m undertaking such a healing personal journey. Forging a new path through the weeds to better habits, stronger boundaries, a healthier relationship to myself.

Am I stubborn? Am I Delusional? Am I just Mad? Is there ever such a thing as “just mad” if you are a woman and have been subjected to what I’ve been subjected to for 20 years?

I see t-shirts advertised online with the slogan “fuelled by rage” on them. And I wonder if that is me. Using the rage at being constantly pushed aside, pushed off the edge, told to move out of the way, giving way to others, being climbed over, to fuel my mission. To not let this happen to those women following me up the mountain.

Maybe I do this for the same reason some people do yoga. Because punching people is frowned upon.

Purpose

But genuinely that is only part of it. I do want to help others to give them better tools and stronger boundaries. To let them benefit from me, From those like me, and the collective in a way that I never could. To show them a path – or maybe create a path – which is less overrun by those who would push you over.

I both create the path and stand guard over it. That is not to say I will be gatekeeping. All are welcome. If they abide by the rules and don’t bring the old behaviours with them. That is also not to say that the path will be smooth or easy. I expect it will still be steep and rocky and rough. Especially for me. The path is always roughest for those forging the way.

But in time I will find others who are also finding their own paths. Or allies to help me shape the path I have set out to forge. I have some already. I do not walk alone. I am supported by a base camp crew who cheer me on and who send supplies when I tire or grow weary. They are the powerhouse. The hidden secret to success. No woman is an island, no mountaineer a solo climber – or at least not those who live to tell the tale!

The Abyss

My last fall from the mountain was a terrifying what if moment. Teetering on the brink. Arms flailing. Staring into the abyss once more. But that moment opened a clarity in me. Unlocked something and allowed what had been building to flow forth.

Maybe that is why now. Why I keep going.

Even through the tedium of building a website. So administrative. All the frustration of waiting for the next step. I fear closing the gate again. I fear stopping the flow. Nor do I want to stop the flow.

This feels right. Like I have finally found the purpose I have sought for so long. All the false starts and dead end canyons. All the slips into dangerous rapids. This is right. Now is the time I need to listen to the universe. Follow this new path to big skies new vistas.

Like this path has been incubating within me all these years.

Those Who Lifted Me

Built by the bullying and the frustration and all the no’s and all the contrived misunderstandings and all the lies people tell themselves to justify their treatment of me. Built of my determination to keep being who I am in the face of that. To do right by me. To do right by those who have seen me on the path and acknowledged who I am. Lifted me even. Offered me an arm in times of crisis or fatigue.

This is the time. This is when I pay it forward.

Translating their kindness into action for others. I hope they know who they are when I write about them. I hope they recognise that my life has not just been shaped by people I do not want to become. Those people will never know who they are — they are blind. But I hope those who I have looked at and seen vision, see themselves in my vision of them too.

Onwards

I will stumble. Maybe will fall. It may have to be finished by others. But I will keep forging this path. Because if I don’t I see only dead ends in all of our futures. And that is not something I can see and stand idly by.

Onwards! No tour groups. Only those willing to participate in the effort and carry some of the burden are welcome. No passengers. Even if you can only carry a tiny stone off the way that is enough. It will help. In such a way ancient people cleared great fields and Victorians raised hills into mountains.

Basecamp One

The funny thing is I’ve been climbing on this mountain for 20 years.

I started at the bottom thinking I could see the road ahead. The path was clear. A natural progression of stages layout for me by someone else. A map pinned for all to review and follow. Like one of those corporate career diagrams they push as part of their big lies.

I made it to basecamp one with relatively few issues. I was too far down the mountain for those ahead to care. Basecamp one was nothing. Everyone makes it to basecamp one.

First Storm

But then a storm rolled in. The storm of financial crash and poor management by untrained people who panicked further up the mountain. Deciding that the best way to ensure they could keep their progress was to sacrifice those at basecamp one.

Forcing them to turn back. Find another mountain. Find another path.

Or not. They did not care.

When the storm passed. We dug out our tents to discover our colleagues gone. Tents empty. Forced out or decided the storm was too harsh to continue. Supplies were damaged and resources were slim.

It was tough at base camp one for a while there. But those ahead told us that if we could just make it to basecamp two or three it would be better.

So off I set.

Only to be told that the path was not for those like me. I belonged in basecamp one. They were only letting certain people further up the path. Better luck next time.

There was no next time. The road was close to me. I would never access that path.

Not your Mountain

I sat at the foot of the mountain and wept for the path not taken. Not even not taken but refused. Close to me by dint of who I was by birth. Deemed too different and not the right sort of person.

I knew that in part this was because I failed to befriend those at basecamps two and three. I was not part of their cricket team, I did not share my smokes with them, I was not “open for business”. Nor was I willing to be someone I was not for their comfort or the comfort of those around me.

My camp mates had found me threatening and reported that I was a disturbance to the camp family and should be reprimanded. I was apparently too keen to point out their failure to keep camp. Unacceptable to the herd. Other. And this is why those ahead refused me as a walker on their path.

A Fresh Mountain?

So I thought a new path. The other side of the mountain.

Little did I know I was still on the path meant for me.

I just didn’t know what that path was. That it had even existed. That it was meant for me. Or where it would lead. Walking up the mountain in a fog. Blindly seeking a summit which may or may not exist.

So off I went starting from the bottom again.

Carrying all my own supplies and all my own gear. I met others along the way who gave me gear or advice. Things I would need for the path ahead. Unexpected benefactors.

But I also found that it was not one path but a braid of tracks through dense woodland.

There were wolves and bandits and still there were steep cliffs and those who would look to kick you off them. I was forced onto a side path or new track many times by wolves or bandits who blocked the way. But occasionally there was a sherpa or an experienced guide on the tracks where bandits were limited. They kept them at bay and for a while I was rested, sheltered, and made progress with them by my side to support and guide me.

Building my strength for the next hard climb. The next bandit looking to kick me off the path.

Not a Smooth Path

But there were still camps. One, two, three, onwards. And there were those at camp who had no strength or skill to climb higher. If you arrive too weak to fight them they would throw you out of camp and force you to try to find another path, another camp. Or they tried to keep you there, telling you, whispering, insidious, that you also lacked the strength and skill to go on.

I tried not to listen. Sometimes I succeeded.

They were so angry.

I knew I had the strength and the skill. I have the strength and the skill. My guides taught me well. Not the ways of the mountain people but the ways of the mountain itself.

The New Path / Becoming the Guide

So here I am forging my own path. My own track.

Founding my own camps one, two, three, summit. I am become a sherpa, a guide.

I help. I build the skills of others. I point the ways to avoid bandits and wolves, the unskilled and the bitter trapped at lower levels. I am a park ranger for my tracks. The wolves and bandits are not welcome and will be ejected. Eliminated.

Not the Summit

And this is why I do it.

Even though I am tired and I’m still climbing myself.

Clearing the path as I go. Stone by stone. Wolf’s den by wolf’s den.

But I line the paths with white stones and lamps. Easy to see even in the thick trees and fog.

I still don’t know where the summit is but I have faith that I will reach my summit one day. I want to help others reach theirs. It may not be the one they share with me but I hope we can wave at each other once we have reached them and sit above the fog line admiring the forest. But never forgetting it is still wild but others traversing it need guides and support.