Checking in with y'all (& myself)
Warning: This is a super honest, wordy post. If you read it, please know that I appreciate the emotional labor it may require from you. I'll throw more pictures and anecdotes up on here after this. I even have some photos of my new host dog.
I'm great at dropping just enough photos and stories at once to satisfy curiosity and then retreat back into myself, I think. With 2.5 months down and 9 to go, I figure it's about time to be a bit more honest.
A large part of me wants to apologize for my openness, a characteristic I am very proud of. But a few days ago was World Mental Health Day, and since then I have felt drawn to do this for myself and for the people who are concerned about me.
Pretty much every person that I've met since college, plus some family and close friends, knows that I have struggled with depression for a few years now -- they know this because I talk about it openly. In all honesty, this has been my greatest concern (as well as that of my family & doctors, I believe) regarding living a year abroad. I've been on Zoloft and a regular dose of therapy for more than a year at this point, one of only reasons I could go back to college last fall and then to Germany this time around. Recovery is never a linear process, but I'm getting there.
Everyone knows I disappear for periods of time when I'm struggling, unreachable to anyone outside of one or two people. To the people who continue to reach out and tell me the things they accomplish or struggle with when I disappear because they know I still want to be connected and will hold space for them as soon as I can: You are amazing. I am immensely blessed and grateful. I can never show you just what it means to me, but I will be there on the other side of this, right there next to you. You know who you are.
Even when I'm only a few hours away at college, October has always been the hardest time to not be home. For as long as I can remember, October has always been my favorite month, and not just because of my birthday. (I mean, when your backyard looks like this^, how can it not be?) I'm truly grateful that Germany experiences the full range of seasons that we get in Ohio, especially up north in Berlin. October to me is family time, the smell of our woods, dogs chasing leaves, golden hour drives, and the most memorable high school football games.
This year's transition has been different, but not just because I'm in Germany.
Starting this past weekend, my high school alma mater experienced the sudden, crushing loss of two teachers in just three days, right before the start of Homecoming week, a time for celebration and pride. The Newbury community has always been strong, so I know that the families of these valued educators will be taken care of and enveloped by love and support.
Victories: A beautiful expression of the unique small-community bonds that we choose to forge with one another, a testament to the commitment and determination of public school educators like Mr. Michael & Ms. Connolly.
The last month has been a hard-fought battle for mental health. Lately I've been the most depressed and removed from my life that I've been in a while. Having been driven indoors by severe heat exhaustion for the latter half of the summer, I was hit rather early by seasonal depression, which compounds the problems I already wrestle with on a daily basis. Living abroad is also (unfortunately) no good excuse for avoiding American news -- especially in an election year. It's immensely difficult to hold space for myself and the pain of other survivors while reading the news as of late. It would be so much easier, I know, to escape from it over here ... if I didn't have younger sisters and wasn't coming back at the end of the year. Escaping isn't the solution, but I can choose who to keep in my life; the past two weeks have slapped me in the face with choices I will have to make when I have the strength to do so.
Victories: Developing the courage to draw boundaries for myself, discovering new resources and activists to help challenge harmful norms, Samantha Bee's response to the Kavanaugh hearings was the only thing on the internet that made me feel a little bit better this week.
I continue to struggle with the self-confidence issues I face regarding my language abilities. At times I am able to speak clearly, rapidly, and sometimes with jokes thrown in. Other times, words come out that do not have a goal or belong to any language I know. The brain is a complicated organ, I say as I smack my forehead repeatedly on the table. I'm trying to push through it with my (patient) new host family, though; my Czech host mom and I are learning articles and prepositions together while the German men of the family correct us constantly -- kindly, but constantly.
Victories: I now know that "knife" is das Messer and not der Messer (even if I want to fight someone about that), read 7 German books of varying lengths/difficulties since my arrival, hit a 33-day streak with my Anki vocab review app.
Confusing intercultural interactions with foreigners continues to have some of the worst effects on me. It's a daily effort to remind myself that:
- Germans only offer something if they really mean it -- you don't have to ask twice for everything (generally speaking, of course).
- Germany isn't in a technological dark age, even if it really feels like it sometimes.
- politics is an impersonal subject here.
- it's das Messer, ya dummy.
- I deserve to be here! Imposter syndrome is real!!!
- my German could be much, much worse.
Regardless:
Victories: Strangers don't switch into English with me anymore because it seems like I can handle myself in German, my tendency to be upfront about my feelings & experiences has positively effected my relationships with foreigners, (most days) I am capable of discussing nuances of cultural differences and critically analyzing my own culture in my second language.
I'll be honest, listing a few victories for each of my biggest struggles has really helped me reframe my mindset. It's easy to just call my partner in the evenings and together work through the range of emotions (or complete lack thereof) I experience on any given day, checking in with myself without truly holding space for my achievements. So thank you for walking beside me in this.
Thank you also to my friends and family who support me through this always. You see me and tell me so, and sometimes when I feel grayscale and hollow in a technicolor world, that's all I need to hear. Take care of yourselves and the ones you love. We'll be there for you when we can.