“Mama, Isa laughs with everything inside her.”

-My host sister in my second homestay

Being abroad here for the past few months has reminded me how important laughter is. It expresses joy, and it’s also a release. The beautiful pieces of this immersive program have pushed and pulled me in a lot of different ways, and the adjustment to this new place has taken a fair amount of mental and emotional energy. It’s energy I’m more than willing to spend, but it still takes a toll. That doesn’t make me any less in love with this experience. It’s a normal thing. Given my own process here and things happening back on my campus back home, I’ve been thinking a lot about emotional work and mental health. This post is about some of that.

My anxiety has definitely been escalated this semester. I’ve been dealing with anxiety for a long time, so this isn’t something that happened just because I went abroad. It’s just presenting in new ways. Socially, I worry more about how people see me than I have in a long time. I get overly nervous about truly small things I hadn’t before. I’ve noticed myself stuttering more as I overthink the next thing I want to say. Anxiety has always bogged me down with questions, too. Here, they look like this: Am I doing enough? Will I fit it in all that I want to do? Am I staying open enough? Do I have enough time left? Am I enough?

It’s been easy to feel undeserving.  Particularly as a white guest received with incredible warmth in a place where white privilege is more evident than anywhere I’ve ever been. How is any “thank you” enough?

My social and political transformation themed program has studied the ins and outs of the country, and there’s a lot of hurt and struggle here. We are hyper-critical of a lot of things with so much corruption, inequality, poverty, unemployment… the list goes on. It’s heavy stuff! That focus on the negatives can easily take a toll on your mental energy. And at the end of the day, I’m here to observe, immerse, analyze, and then… leave. Is my presence here helping anyone other than myself?

The answer to those questions most of the time, in all honesty, is probably no. But while these questions are fueled by some anxiety, I think they’re bad things to think about. I’m going to leave here wanting more, wanting to have done more for others and for myself. I think that’s probably the point of being here, though. To make me hungry for that, to make me orient my priorities differently and want to find real connections with the people and places I come across, wherever I am.

These past months have also helped me learn a lot about myself, and put a lot of me under a microscope. That’s what happens when you’re in a new place, I think. And more questions come:

Who are you without the places you frequent, the people who ground you?

Without what’s familiar, are you familiar?

Who am I, what’s my substance?

I suppose this is hard to explain out of the context I’m in. Basically. my sense of self is all I have of what “home” is or means. So, that kind of makes you think about what your sense of self even is in the first place.

All these questions are ripping bits of me open, pushing open growing spaces inside me that I need to focus on more. I won’t have the answers to fill them by the time I leave. Instead, I’ll get on a plane and land in the US and feel empty- not just because I’ll be missing my home of the past three and a half months, but because those spaces aren’t full yet. And before, I didn’t know they weren’t.

So…what do I do with all that?

Well, I’m not exactly sure. I think doing my best to sit with those questions when I’m not feeling panicked, because they are worthwhile parts of my reflection about the past few months. Diving head first into my interviews for my research has helped me feel more connected to the people and the city. I’m listening to my longing to be outside and see parks and the beautiful nature that’s surrounding Durban (6 hour hike coming up this Sunday, woot woot). I’m journaling a lot. Laughing a lot, too, and with “everything inside me” as often as I can. I’m mentally prepping myself for my transition back to life in the U.S. and thinking a lot about how best to do that. And most of all, I’m trying to practice patience with myself and my mental health, knowing that the intensity of this experience is a beautiful thing and that I can do better to take care of myself through it.

Here’s some advice in case any of you are thinking about study abroad:

-If you live with mental health struggles and use any medication or therapy, make a plan before you go. In countries like South Africa, medication is different, prescriptions are different, the doctor you’d see is different. It’s likely you won’t have access to therapy, especially if you’re doing an immersive program like mine that moves you in and out of different communities. Mental health resources in my rural homestay community, for example, simply don’t exist. There, you have what your family has: a local traditional healer who speaks with ancestors to prescribe remedies. And if you are in a place that does have that resource, it won’t be your therapist who knows you. So, just be ready. Get your meds together in advance, do your research about how things work in the country you’re going to, and lock who is in your support system.

-You aren’t an ungrateful piece of shit if you feel sad or depressed. I learned this one the hard way. Sometimes I’d have a negative thought and give myself a mental slap on the wrist, like “what I wrong with you, do you know how lucky you are to be here??” As with any mental health struggle, pushing it under the rug doesn’t help. And especially when you have so much adjustment going on, it’s better to let things out so

-The instagram-version picture-perfect study abroad experience doesn’t exist. Most of the time, we only share about the amazing things. Social media filters out the chaos of study abroad and makes everything seem like a dream! The picture-perfect-ness is perpetuated by a ton of photos of people’s wine glasses and meals in Europe, the , these blog posts even! They don’t show the gritty things—phones getting stolen, losing your glasses, getting lost, getting sick, etc. (All that is from personal experience, btw) Just know, if you fall apart, you won’t be the only one.  

-Do what you need. There’s a lot of pressure to see stuff, always be on the go, and do as much as you can within the 3 or 4 months that you have abroad. That’s exciting! But sometimes, you really just need a day to lay in bed and rest. And that’s really okay. Yes, push yourself to do as much as you can and take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Just don’t do it at your own risk.

This blog has really given me incentive to reflect and has held me accountable for doing that, and doing it as often as possible. Sometimes it has stressed me out, I’ll be honest. I’m a goal setter—so getting these posts done was often another thing on my to-do list causing me to ask the “am I doing enough?” questions. But I’m grateful for it, because I’ll have the posts to look back on when I want to remember the important things about my semester. I think these posts have been an exercise in listening to myself and taking the time to sit with important thoughts and questions. As this semester is winding down, I just want to say: thanks for listening. 🙂

-Isa