Depression Nearly Took His Life—Then His Bike Saved Him
The night was black and the fog was low on Michael Espinosa’s pre-dawn ride to Richmond, Virginia, which made for oddly beautiful yet eerie conditions.
He had risen at 1 a.m., left his home in Norfolk an hour later, and by 3 a.m., he entered the mouth of the Virginia Capital Trail in Jamestown on his Kestrel Talon. As he moved silently along the Route 5 Corridor on that early October morning, he may as well have been pedaling in a planetarium. All the stars were on top of him.
It was an impulsive ride. Just hours prior, Espinosa had cheered on a friend in a half marathon and felt inspiration strike. He had dabbled in triathlons and badly missed racing-the competition and culture, sure, but mostly the euphoria of finishing. He wanted to do something like that for himself.
So the 24-year-old cleared his schedule for a Century, a feat he had completed on the same path back in the spring. But then he heard a voice in his head: “Sure, you could do 100 miles … or you could do 140.”
It was a cruel dare, but it certainly beat the other voices he used to hear. Over the last year, he had slowly learned not to surrender to such thoughts, which crept in unannounced and often overstayed their welcome. This was a healthy challenge he could accept.
And that’s how Espinosa found himself riding 70 miles to Richmond and 70 miles back, listening to his eclectic Spotify playlist-some ’90s Europop here, some Gaslight Anthem there-as the day broke and the fatigue set in. The homestretch felt impossibly heavy, even on his highest gear, but he survived. When he finished, he mustered the only few words he could manage: Thank God this is over.
The grueling ultra-distance ride was in the rearview, thank God, but so, too, was Espinosa’s trying year. Twelve months earlier, he had driven himself to the hospital after considering suicide. Now, he had crushed a momentous accomplishment from the saddle of his bike, the tool that helped him overcome his severe depression.
Look how much you’ve changed in one year, he said to himself after mile 140. Look what you can do now.
Back in 2012, Espinosa wanted to get the hell out of Orlando. After all those years, the streets all looked the same to him, and there was no one left that he liked. He had his mother and two brothers, but they had and always would be there. Dad had long skipped town and disappeared. Espinosa was starting to feel like a ghost himself.
“At some point growing up, I legitimately began to live as though there was a blanket between me and other people,” he said. “I was far away from everyone else, even in a crowded room. I was excruciatingly lonely.”
Male teens, however, aren’t in any rush to talk about their feelings. Especially the dark ones. And so Espinosa sat with his depression, even if he couldn’t quite call it that yet, until he could make a clean break at 18. In the meantime, the only thing that helped was his cheap Mongoose mountain bike.
He hadn’t been riding for long when his mom brought home her new cyclist boyfriend. Espinosa may have been sad, but he was still 16, and 16-year-olds have irrational confidence in spades. So he challenged the guy to a bike race: 30 miles, far more than he’d ever logged in one trek.
“Sure as sh--, three miles down the road, I was hurting,” Espinosa said of his first real ride. It didn’t help that he was in a T-shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes on a 50-degree day. “It took me 4.5 hours, and my fingers ended up freezing to my handlebars,” he admitted. “But I still felt that rush of endorphins, like I was taken to another place. I just fell in love right then and there.”
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He soon upgraded to a Windsor Wellington 4.o, upped his distances, and entered a few triathlons. The faster he pedaled, the more he felt at peace. But as graduation dawned, so did the Navy, in which he had recently enlisted. He’d need to report to basic training in Illinois. He’d need to give up his bike.
For a while, Espinosa kept his brain busy in the Navy. As an aircrewman, his challenging work afforded him the opportunity to keep his depression at bay. He flew MH-53E helicopters and operated mine-hunting sensors on missions to places like Korea. Though he didn’t have time to ride, he took all his angst, pain, and loneliness and channeled it into his job. “By the end of most days,” he said, “I was simply too tired to care about any of that other stuff.”
But a few years into his Navy stint, upon settling at Naval Station Norfolk, the feelings of dread and despair that Espinosa had largely managed to fight off began to roar back.
On his morning commutes to work, foreboding thoughts consumed him. “I couldn’t stop thinking that something bad was going to happen,” he said. At social gatherings, friendly conversations triggered intense panic attacks. The rest of the time, he sat alone, wanting to die.
Still, he brushed off each depressive episode and told himself he was fine. Besides, his calendar was too full to seek help. First it was a stint at Fleet Week New York that took precedence; then, another mission in Korea. Meanwhile, he was drinking heavily and taking shady pre-workout supplements with the same frequency. The combination made him feel “amped up, far away, and weird.”
Something had to give. And on a late October day in 2017, it did. While driving back from a friend’s demolition derby, he felt another wave of worry crashing. The night called for a Halloween party at a buddy’s place, but the voice inside Espinosa’s head told him not to bother. “In my mind, nobody there actually wanted to see me. None of my friends cared about me. They just felt sorry for me.”
As soon as he entered his tiny studio apartment, he slammed the door, slinked down into the floor, and started to sob. That voice was getting louder. You need to die, it said.
Espinosa scanned his kitchen for the knives. Any of them could’ve done the job. “I was just in so much ruthless pain that I’d do anything to make it go away,” he said.
But then, that deafening voice suddenly muffled to a hush, and a louder one emerged. Holy sh--, the new one said. This isn’t you.
In a flash, Espinosa came to his senses, called a friend to confess his intentions, and got back in the car at 11 p.m. to drive to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. The dam had broken. “The mess,” as he now refers to his depression, “had finally come out.”
He was discharged at 4 a.m., no longer deemed a threat to himself. Later that morning, it was time to deal with the mess. He immediately called his supervisors and told them about his struggles; they understood, but took him out of the air indefinitely. While the decision stung, Espinosa accepted it.
“Whenever I flew, it was like I left my worries on the ground,” he said. “To lose that piece of me was a scary thought, but I had to get better.”
Espinosa’s treatment plan was two-fold: therapy and antidepressants. The first part was a game-changer. “Over the course of several months, I really learned how to monitor myself and manage my symptoms,” he said. “I know to recognize that whenever those negative thoughts come in, they aren’t me.”
The second part was less successful. Wellbutrin made him feel too fuzzy-“like I was 10 feet behind myself,” Espinosa said-while Zoloft made him feel nothing at all. But that blankness beat the blues, so he stuck with it until it came time to slowly wean off. At the first sign of a normal emotion, however, he made the decision to quit cold turkey, which went against his doctor’s recommendation. He hasn’t popped a pill since.
It turns out a third treatment method-the same one that lifted his mood back in high school-worked best. Espinosa hadn’t exactly given up cycling; he occasionally fit in quick rides when he could. But it wasn’t until this past spring that he threw himself into the sport again.
In May, the guy who once hastily raced his mom’s boyfriend for 30 miles decided to make an equally grand return to cycling. After setting out for 30 on the Virginia Capital Trail, he decided in the moment to shoot for 60 instead. Once he hit 60, he figured he might as well make it 100-an unplanned century. “I immediately found that same euphoric high,” he said.
Espinosa has since competed in several time trials across Virginia, trained with the USO HRCV Outdoor Adventure Team, built in daily speed work at Naval Station Norfolk, and crossed off the early-morning 140-miler a few weeks ago. He’d like to do a solo 200 before he leaves for another Korea trip in January.
As he has ramped up his rides, Espinosa hasn’t experienced any depressive symptoms on the road. “Depression is like a little rain cloud that follows you around,” he said. “Sometimes it’s light, but sometimes it rains heavy. What I’ve realized is when I’m cycling, I can run away from that cloud.”
Espinosa isn’t cleared to fly yet; his Navy contract runs through 2019, and he hopes he can get off the ground soon. But triumphantly riding his Talon is the next best thing for his soul to manning an MH-53E chopper.
“When I’m on my bike, I feel like I’m flying over the concrete,” he said. “The bike is an extension of my body … and I’m just going.”
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