Mis-fit

[M.]

I feel a bit of an outsider these days (I mean it's just a  it more pronounced these days)

I get angry because people around me not only complain about the most superficial stuff (when in fact none of their childrne died of a simple diarreha today) but becasue they seem unable to see and value what they have, in material terms as in affective, emotional. They are somehow in a state of continuous dissatisfaction with life, while blind to their blessings. Drives me crazy.

Like this very close family member who just bought a nice town house some months ago (luxury many cant afford), and each time she speaks about it it is to comments ils "flaws", never any good aspect to her life there, and continually comments on how she would like this or that other house. Today we got in an argument, I left the scene. I just felt there was not just no will not listen to me, but no will to see the good side of life. And this angered me greatly.

Complaining, wishing for other (unnattainable or just plan inexistent) things/lives, ideas...) as well as simple consumption and accumulation, seem to be the ways of dealing with the outside world around me. People badly want things they dont need while they seem momentarily happy and fulfilled when purchasing items, whatever item. Then they want something else, or something "more, better" (Im in Europe right now, in a reasonably big city).

Might seem a stupid thing, this house stuff, but today it was the sparkle that ignited my anger, moreover becasue this person is inmy family and we really do not have the same values and priorities in life. I though, "well you would need to spend some time in a IDP camp in the middle of darfur, or around people paralysed in wheelchairs who cant wipe their ass. for F+++ sake!" I was very, very angry at this dissatisfaction and at the refusal to value what she had.

Normally, when I hear people debating for hours about the right kind of cutlery to buy Im just annoyed. This time, I was genuinely very angry/fed up, becasue it seemed to me almost a choice this perosn made of chosing to be a complainer. Choosing dissatisfaction, when she has it all for god's sake!

but beyond this....:Is it me? Am I strange? has humanitarian work made me unfit for life outside of extreme contexts?

Is is all right to "measure" up the world and our place in it, our desires and sorrows, with the measuring tape of extreme suffering, lacks and violence?

Has the work and life in these places of violence (whatever kind and scope) let me handicapped, unsuitable,  for "nornality" in the "western world"? I see so much futility around. The whole society functioning seems ot be built around futile endeavours. I dont' know how ot relate to that.

How can my values be so different than those of my close family? Why I get so angry at the dissatisfation of others?

:-(

[R.]

Hey M thanks for your response. I think - and this is a whole different post that employers should be encouraged to be more supportive and to encourage people to take the best care of themselves they can. best advice I was ever given was to treat myself as an independent contractor working for organisations and not to expect organisational loyalty from the orgs I worked for. sad but true. I just watched a few of my colleagues work themselves completely into the ground as well and they seem to be heading rapidly for burnout.
Anyway, yes I was in cambodia. There are shooting ranges both there just out of PP and in vietnam as a tourist attraction :( good luck on your travels. you might find things seem brighter living out here
cheers R

[M.]

R, thanks for your comment.... My employers have not been there at all, you make me smile.Thye didnt even know I was living in the garage to save them funds. But I prefer not to go thorugh this again as it's quite hard and I have turned that page.  Humanitarian sector squeezes you like a lemon then throws you away. No one cares. There are other people ready to agree to be squeezed. I left some time ago, this was just one of the reasons. but its very hard to leave completely this sector. you become unemployable on most of other "normal" sectors. not only 'cos your experience doesnt "fit", but also the kind of person they believe you are. and maybe they are right, actually. The person I have become cannot deal with certain complains or nonsense anymore. Are you in Cambodia? whats this shooting thing? Im gonna be living in SE asia as of january, for a while to live differently and look for other ways in "aid" actually , not gonna be back to the field unless Im short of cash (yessss I have become that kind of person...). Please feel free to send me a message and share!:-) thanks for your support.

[R.]

HI M

I just came accross your post. It's not you. I , and my friends get this too. I get supermarket confusion and annoyed at people and in my country when I am home I have to remind myself that poverty is relative. We have a strong welfare system and when home I work in community orgs where a lot of clients are in receipt of govt benefits, public housing etc and clients AND staff have a giant sense of entitlement which to be frank really annoys me.

I could start ranting here but I won't. You are not alone, it's not you and I totally hear you on the cumulative stress.

I'm on holidays at the moment in SE Asia and here I get annoyed at people on holidays who complain.. all the time. Plus out here I was with some people doing the tourist thing for the day but I didn't realise that we were going to a shooting range. for tourists. in an country where there was a genocide. I didn't cope with that one at all . for one, the concept , two I've just come out of an unstable area. so I am taking a few days to process how I feel before I shout at someone with righteous indignation. or something.

And take care of yourself  when you go back in the field.your employer will mostly NOT assist with this very much, cheers

r

[M.]

thank you guys!

J, I indeed read that post of yours long ago when I got to know your former blog. It addresses the issues, yes :-). you are wiser than me for sure!

Breanna,

thanks for you comments. just to note that it is not my intention to judge how people live here. its the rfusal to be happy that kills me. I dont want to change them or stress them with humanitarian stories. long ago I noticed tey were not really interested and they were just wating that I "settle" down both physically and mentally. And that is not going to happen So we just drift away. Its life. Its all right. Eahc person must live in line with their pwn values.

Note, they judge me without problem. Im the "strange" one because I always want something "else". Becasue I don't want the same things (property, settling down just for the sake of it or for fear, stop travelling). Its ok. I just got distanced form these relationships. its sad though because I dont want to get distanced form some of these people-I kinda love them.

What bothers me most is the unwillingness to appreciate what people have. Reactions include "but I have the right to dream, dont I?" when I confront the complain. Its a lost argument. But Im a passionate person and I have trouble keeping cold blood (I work on that). BTW, I have done meditation and some yoga. and changed some things in life (saying no to certain aspects). it helps yes. but still.

Im not only talking about it in relation to starving children or raped women having fled their villages and having lost all family members. There are people here too who have a tough life. like people in wheel chairs without movements from their neck down. or trapped in some orpheline disease. or about to die of cancer. you name it. I mean lets be hapoy,a little bit, too. We can walk? we can see the sun? should be enough.

Thats why I was saying maybe its me. Because I am very sensitive to all this suffering (not only in africa) and I guess I have not developed a healthy way in which to cope with it. Humanitarian aid seemd at the time as the right "place" to be, as a person, a citizen, as a moral entity evolving in an immoral world.

It might be a good "place" but it's unconfortable (the sysyphus aspect of it being just one). I am, mentally, situated in a schizofrenic space, the abyss between all and nothing, between rights assured and complete lacks/violations. From this space I am in the world, I see and judge the world.

I have experienced the yogurt aisle syndrome when back form Darfur. Maybe not as physically as you, its true. But still. I have also experienced being afraid in the street for no reason just after coming back. Maybe a very kind PTS although I had no specific traumatic experience , no acute one.it was I guess more of a cumulative stress.

In a way it has been healthy (I know I dont need those fake choices so I feel freer) but mostly it is not liberating. I am surrounded by a society model that does not cater for the real needs of the individual. At the same time, as I walk in the streets of europe, without stepping into mines or being shot, I think about them. the poeple. the staff ("my" staff ;-) ). When I buy something I think about what it took for it to be there on that shelf. THe process, and what's behind. I can't see carpet shops without thinking about the slave kids in nepali sweatshops making them. It's exhausting. Im blocked in front of the aisles. I don't want to buy anything. I feel an outsider. I write, and try to find ways to engge otherwise in the world (stuff such as poellitical guerrillas-gardening for instance). But still.

Im not back from a difficult mission recently. last one "in the field" was 4 years ago. the most marking was 7 years ago. it seems like yesterday. I went travelling, and exploring other ways of life. I engaged into "nornal" work (that was really bad, I had ot quit).

I left the humanitarian work becasue I gave too much to it and did not take care of myself (nor did my lovely employers) so I was was not ok in the end.

I sometimes dream about it, think what they will be doing. Look at them from google earth. Nothing has changed in that place since 7 years. Still insecurity and fear and rapes and impossibility to go back to burn villages or to start a new life. Still dependency from humanitarian ngos. still water trucking, NFI and all the shit. everyday. What do humans become in those conditions? And Im here alive and I can go to the park to feed the ducks without being shot then get an expresso in a terrace.

I was refering to my sorrows and desires actually. I cant really help but measuring them against what I saw and experienced in Africa. I dont know how to change that. I guess its called guilt and I have to have it checked?

I have learned some of the things you mention. I avoid generally any breakdown but it still distances me from people. For I have become different. Or this work has exacerbated my difference. Which feels lonely, somehow.

So thank very much you guys for being there are sharing your thoughts!

[Breanna R]

Hey M,

I think many of us can relate to what you're talking about.  So in answer to your question "Is it me? Am I strange?", the answer is no - it's not just you, and your reactions to being back in Europe, and especially to that horrible culture we have of complaining about our lives (argh!) are not strange.

I can only speak from personal experience, but I think that just as we have to learn to adjust to life in extreme situations, we also have to learn to adjust to life on the other extreme (the extreme of comfort, complacency, and good quality of life).  It takes time, and sometimes it takes hard work.

You ask another really good question: "Is is all right to "measure" up the world and our place in it, our desires and sorrows, with the measuring tape of extreme suffering, lacks and violence?"

Personally, I think the answer is "no". It's not fair to judge the people back home based on conditions they have never experienced, suffering and violence they have never known. Maybe over time, you can share  your experiences and bring them a new perspective, but you can't expect them to change because of what you have experienced.  As a wise friend said to me once during a similar conversation, "the worst day of a person's life might not be as bad as someone else's, but it's still the worst day of that person's life".

Of course, we know that logically, but it's a whole different story to put it into practice. As aid workers we sometimes live through some pretty extreme things - and it's fair that we have to process those experiences and to be affected by them, but we also have to be careful not to take it out too much on our families and friends. At some point, we have to realise that we are affected, stressed and maybe even traumatised by our experiences in extreme situations. This often manifests months or even years after the events themselves.  When this happens it's a normal, healthy thing but it means that we have to look to ourselves for the answers. When we have huge emotional reactions to 'everyday' things, this can be a sign that it's time to address how our experiences have affected us. (Otherwise we end up being that depressed, cynical person who is too affected to have any kind of good relationship in the world...)

I remember having a melt-down in the milk aisle of a supermarket - there were so many choices and couples were arguing over which carton to buy, and people were complaining that their favourite brand wasn't there - and I totally lost it. I literally started hyperventilating and shaking, and I had to go outside and wait for my friend in the parking lot. I realised then that I was not as "OK" as I thought. I had to learn to cope with what I was experiencing. I had to learn to stop pushing away my friends and family, and instead how to express to them that I still cared about them and their well-being, but right now I couldn't engage in their discussion about the new traffic light or whatnot. They had to learn to let me express what I was feeling without backing away, or changing the subject, or feeling guilty for "not helping". I learned how to manipulate conversations away from things that triggered me (like your family member's pessimism) and onto safe ground. I learned a bit about meditation and calming breathing techniques, and I even did a few therapy sessions designed to help me deal with anxiety.

That's not to say that there isn't a lot wrong with the world and with Western society. But at the end of it, I realised that I needed to change the way I was reacting to it.  There wasn't anything "wrong" or "abnormal" about how I was reacting, but it wasn't fun and I didn't want to keep living that way.

That was just my experience, but I find that in the aid world, we spend a lot of time talking about how to do our jobs, but not a lot of time talking about how to go back home. For what it's worth, you are definitely not alone in what you are feeling and experiencing.

[J.]

This one's for you, M. 

http://aidsource.ning.com/profiles/blogs/of-missionaries-and-misfits