Perseverance

What do you do when your all is not good enough?

I have been in South Korea for nearly six months now.
I wish I had some horror story to explain away why I feel so unhappy. But the truth of the matter is, everything that’s wrong with me is more about ME than it is the country.

Which brings up the notion of running away from my problems.

I said that I would not do that.

I was insistent that this move was not about that.

However, here I am facing the reality that it seems to be exactly what is happening here.

I promise I am trying to address it. I have fought tirelessly to prevent it from being the truth.

But every time my brain attempts to think about what I am doing with my life I get sucked into a paradox.

Homesickness and lack of companionship make me want to run home to my mommy but the unresolved issues I needed a breather from lie in wait for me, just eager to threaten my sanity all over again. Which is exactly what prompted this move in the first place. So do I stay or do I go?

If I stay too long without properly dealing with my current state of depression, that could have disastrous results. If I leave prematurely then this all may turn out to have been for naught.

Living in a country that hardly acknowledges the severity of untreated depression and mental illness, let alone offering resources for coping, doesn’t help.
While I am so pleased that I have not met the ugly face of racial-prejudice that many have accused the locals of committing during my time here, that fact alone offers little solace.

The truth is, I am unhappy.

Living here has opened my eyes to how socially awkward I am.

Living here has forced me to acknowledge that my passive-aggressive tendencies are dangerously self-inhibitive.

Life abroad has forced me to admit that bipolar disorder is more about having a clinical mood disorder than it is just about “being moody”.

Living in South Korea has opened my eyes to the division, subtle acts of competitiveness and innate distrust towards one another that plagues the women of my race. (Not to say that we are the only group of people suffering from crippling cynicism.)

Living in isolation far away from the many distractions I once so easily preoccupied myself with has exposed to me my most shameful insecurities. Inadequacy.

Unworthiness.

Weakness.

Dire loneliness.

My soul has a gaping hole of something missing.

A deep-seated need.

A sense of purpose begging to be fulfilled.
Notwithstanding, lack of fulfillment.

I try to combat the despondency with daily affirmations.

But as the weeks roll on with no sign of this letting up anytime soon, I have grown more afraid that I may give up hope.

It has taken so much brain power, personal effort and emotional energy to keep the demons at bay. The truth is I am running.

As fast as I can.

For my life!

So when I open up to someone and try to explain (because they asked) how I dissociate as an instinctual method of coping with a less than favorable situation and the response is a cheerful “oh I do that too” or “everyone fantasizes from time to time” I get annoyed. If only psychiatric dissociation was as cute and cuddly as a daydream ‘from time to time’. True as it may be that daydreams do occur, when you LIVE the daydream for hours, days even weeks on end, one must beg inquiry to something more than fantasy.

When coworkers whom awkwardly let out nervous laughter force attempts at lighthearted banter; extend hurried and most times uncomfortable invitations to a Friday night group dinner just to say they did; or compliment me for the tenth time in 3 days on the same scarf that I’ve worn all winter (for the sake of having something to open with before getting to the point of their visit to my classroom), do not understand why I have no interest in small talk during planning periods and chalk it up to me being rude, I feel obligated to explain that my lack of interest is not due to what you may secretly perceive to be an intimidating or angry black woman. Perhaps I am so focused on doing the best job that I have been flown all the way from the United States to do because truthfully it is the only reason get out of bed. I cannot help that I am depleted of all energy and have none to spare on participating in the formalities of feigning genuine interest in someone who I otherwise have no commonalities with and was a total stranger to only weeks ago. I cannot help that, as a black woman who has no choice but to find creative things to do with her hair so that her appearance is deemed workplace appropriate, I get irritated by comments like “I am so jealous that your hair can do that” and “I wish I was as brave as you to wear my hair like that” whenever I install a fresh set of braids or twists [or even put a bow on my head]. What the fuck am I supposed to say to something I’m not even sure was intended to be a compliment as much as it was an unassuming display of social ignorance!?
I often feel misunderstood.
Feeling misunderstood fuels my depression.
It is ammunition with which the voices in my head convince me I’m not good enough.

When I experience the disappointment associated with another failed attempt at “kinship” as a result of differences I cannot seem to effectively explain, I feel disheartened. Not only does this unearth an issue in my community that I tried to remain blind to, insisting I was neither part of the imposing or affected party; it also triggers the identity crisis that I, since adolescence, have grappled with regarding how I feel about being a black woman.
In the face of centuries of enslavement and oppression, at the precipice of the fight for freedom, why can’t we seem to get along and love one another more fiercely?
With confliction overcome by conviction, brokenhearted and with tears welled in my eyes, I proclaim that I love you to the black woman in the mirror staring back at me! I love you and the many sisters and brothers who look like you too.

When I think about how my life’s dream has been nothing more than to be a humanitarian, to give back to the world that I reap so much from and question whether or not I will be allowed to simply because of the way I present or the person my heart chooses to love, I feel distressed. When I think about the lack of support for black LGBT people and those trying to survive with mental illnesses, especially from our own families and communities, I ask myself if the impossible can be done.
I feel distressed because I wonder, can I be an advocate for all groups and areas of need that I believe in? Can I promote activism for equality and fair treatment of persons effected by whatever causes I feel connected to without pervasive intrusion on my personal life?

Too often I ask myself, “Why should I even bother?”

When the uttermost painful part of this spiritual molting process seems too much to bear I nearly cave in.

Nevertheless with an aching bend in my back, knees that wobble and ankles threaten to give out, I hold my head as high as it will go and press onward.

But what if my all really isn’t good enough? What shall I do then?

Die trying I suppose…

P.
-danie-