We Know You'll Love: Indoor Kid by Out There

February 9, 2022·33 min·2 clips

Sarah realizes she doesn't have to bust a fire or follow anyone's rules outdoors — the only thing she has to buy into is herself.

Gail begins by giving the floor to Out There. She frames Sarah's story as part of a season about things people thought they knew, which sends the episode toward old assumptions and ideas people eventually outgrow. Sarah enters wilderness therapy while dealing with depression. The program promises transformation, but the excerpt keeps that promise uncomfortable, especially when ruggedness starts to sound like both the goal and the test. At first, Sarah hates it. A staff member says she cannot eat hot food unless she makes fire with a bow, drill, and rock. She fails, so dinner is cold beans. Even the missing hot sauce lands as one more small loss in a day full of rules. Then she walks out of camp. After that, safety restrictions tighten around her: less freedom, sleep beside staff, monitored movement, and bathroom trips escorted by two staff members. The details are blunt. They show how care and control can start to look uncomfortably alike inside a program meant to help. Eventually, Sarah gets off safety. Hiking starts to feel less awful, and that small opening changes the rest of the program for her. She does not turn it into a neat recovery story. She notices how these programs can ask people to believe in the philosophy before the philosophy seems to work. Packing her tarp and sleeping bag within a count of ten, finishing oatmeal, and scrubbing a cup with dirt start to matter in ways that feel both strange and real. Gail keeps the handoff warm and curious, then points listeners toward Sarah's work, Out There's archives, and a book Sarah recommends for parents considering wilderness programs.

As heard by us

A wilderness-therapy story about resistance, buy-in, and the harder path to change.

Sarah Dealy's Indoor Kid follows a young woman through depression and wilderness therapy, and its strength comes from staying with how change can feel both promised and uncertain.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

A good pick when you want wilderness therapy questioned from the inside.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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