When I landed in Turkmenistan in the fall of 2010, I was met with the same challenges as the other Peace Corps volunteers: learning the language, navigating the strange customs and dealing with digestive issues from the change in diet. But I had an additional challenge: a medical history of depression. I had been diagnosed ten years earlier and had gone on and off anti-depressants a few times. During the Peace Corps application process, I quickly learned that depression still carries a stigma, and it is still widely misunderstood.
I had been off medication for three years, but I still had to submit two essays on my history of depression and how I planned to manage it while abroad. When I was asked to submit a third essay, doing Peace Corps became more than just a personal goal; it became almost a crusade to prove that people with depression can handle the hardships of volunteering abroad.
I was a little out of place because, at age 31, I was older than all but one of the volunteers in my group. Elizabeth* was a generation older than me, and we connected almost immediately. At first we were excited to be in a new place, starting the adventure of a lifetime. Soon, though, we learned that our country of service was different from others in terms of how their government worked with us. A few of us with teaching experience, including Elizabeth, myself, and another volunteer, Nick, were supposed to serve as teacher trainers, working with university students majoring in education. But a month into our training, the Turkmen government announced they would not be placing volunteers in universities. That meant we were given assignments at elementary/secondary schools instead. This was a disappointment, because our skills and experience were not being fully utilized, but I decided to try to make it work, partly because I had the support network of Elizabeth and Nick. But then Elizabeth decided to leave. One support gone.
Nick and I had developed a strong friendship during training. We could talk about seemingly everything, and we soon started secretly dating to avoid the rumor mill. When we were given our permanent site assignments, I was disappointed that I’d be in a different region of the country from Nick. But we still stayed in contact regularly.
Meanwhile, I was struggling with life at site. My host family was manipulative and controlling. Work wasn’t much better. The preferred method of discipline among Turkmen teachers is screaming and sometimes hitting the students. My efforts to teach them better methodology seemed futile, and the students were apathetic about learning. I left work each day with a headache and wondered what good I could really do there. Still, I had Nick to vent to, and he had me. Together along with two other volunteers, James and Sean, we produced a monthly volunteer paper. After a time, I moved in with a new host family that I loved, and started teaching clubs after school to students who were dedicated. I was just starting to get a grip on my disappointment and turn things around.
Then I got the call from Nick telling me that some trouble at his site had prompted the Turkmen government to contact the Peace Corps, and that our country director was considering having him leave. The trouble was a simple misunderstanding that wouldn’t have been an issue in any other country, and the fact that it had blown up into possible expulsion for Nick left a very bad taste in many of our mouths. He said he would find out the director’s decision in a week. This didn’t just upset me; it affected me physically. During that week, my stomach always felt like it had turned to stone, and it made me perpetually queasy. I couldn’t eat. I barely slept. When I walked to work, I felt like I was being watched, like some terrible monster was perched somewhere waiting to swoop down and attack me. One day another volunteer called me, outraged by the news about Nick. As he talked, my body started shaking uncontrollably. I had never experienced that, and I wondered if I might be having a seizure. I said what I could to get him off the phone and laid on my bed and cried.
I remember vividly the day Nick called to tell me he was leaving. I was in my room with the door closed. When he told me, I slid off the bed into a crumpled heap on the floor and couldn’t speak for several minutes. I was sobbing too hard.
I thought about leaving every day. It was bad enough I wasn’t doing the work I had signed up for, but now my main source of emotional support was being taken away. Nick and I tried to make it work long-distance. I even visited him on vacation. I had once thought that after the Peace Corps we might have continued our lives together, but ultimately the move doomed us. And the fact that a third party’s decision infringed on our chances made me blisteringly angry.
I wish I could articulate just how angry. Adding that to depression made daily life particularly difficult. I don’t make important decisions when I’m emotional, so I determined not to decide about leaving until I had calmed down. It took months. In the interim, I continued to work every day and not show the turmoil running below the surface. My students, my host family, and most of the other volunteers had no idea the shape I was in. They didn’t know that I cried each night and fought back tears on my walks to and from work, or that I thought about walking out into traffic. This wasn’t new; I recognized the familiar symptoms of depression.
Only a couple months after Nick’s departure, Sean had to leave for his own safety. The incident that led to his departure was a reminder to us of the rampant xenophobia and racism in Turkmenistan. He and I had been in the same training group and I loved seeing him when we went to the capital. I was guaranteed a hug and a smile, and now that was gone.
I did my best to redirect my attention to other people and things. James was like a work husband to me. He lived not far from my site, so we saw each other each weekend when he’d come into town. Even before Nick left, working on the paper with James was often a highlight of my week, and after Nick left, James was the volunteer I felt closest to. We’d meet for lunch, crack jokes, and discuss our work. About four months after Nick left, James told me he was leaving for reasons beyond his control. There were safety problems at his site, and Peace Corps would not be able to reassign him within the country. When he came to my site for the last time, we had our usual lunch. When I said goodbye to him, I waited until I walked away before crying behind my sunglasses. After that, I kind of gave up on having good volunteer pals. I was friendly, but I remained guarded.
I was about half way through my service, but I still thought about leaving. I felt trapped. If I left, I wouldn’t get any of the benefits Peace Corps offers its returned volunteers and would come home to a poor economy with no job prospects. If I stayed, I’d feel the absence of who wasn’t there, and I’d still feel like a child having to report my whereabouts to government officials. I’d still be carefully censoring what I said at the school and on my blog because we were being monitored by the KNB (the Turkmen KGB). I’d be wondering what the next blow from the Turkmen government would be.
I made the difficult decision to stay, which meant I had to figure out how to make life there enjoyable. I started by making sure work was pleasant and fulfilling. I avoided the classrooms of screaming teachers altogether, filling my schedule with alternative work that I found fulfilling. I created two English language resources for Turkmen teachers. I devoted much of my time to creating and teaching my own classes after school to students who chose to be there. I reveled in walks home with them. I started discussing the human rights violations I witnessed and gave honest answers when students asked why their government didn’t want Peace Corps there. I began saying what I wanted in my blog, deciding the catharsis was worth the risk of the government’s kicking me out. I went running every day, ignoring the stares I got from Turkmen who had never witnessed a female running for exercise. Most rewarding of all was spending more time with my host cousin, Maya, who is fearless and optimistic and the person I miss most now that I’m back in the States.
I don’t want to give the impression that once I started making these changes, my depression magically went away. I still had my moments. (And I still do.) But it was easier to manage, and those moments became less frequent. By the end of my service, my overall attitude of life in Peace Corps had changed. I now associated it with the relationships I’d built with my host family and students. I was grateful for the opportunity to experience a wildly different culture on the other side of the world. While I’m still unhappy with the situations surrounding Nick’s, Sean’s, and James’s departures, I’m glad I know them (and others)– and I wouldn’t if I hadn’t joined Peace Corps.
Some might think hardship like this is caused by events. On the surface, it is. But your brain functions differently when you’re depressed. Events evoke different thoughts than when you’re not depressed. You might cry about things you wouldn’t normally cry about; you might despair over situations that you would normally confront as character-building obstacles. That’s why I talk about depression: so people understand that it’s a medical condition like any other. If you suffer from it, it doesn’t mean you’re weak, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person (or a bad Christian), it doesn’t mean you’ll be limited in what you can achieve in life, and above all, it is not a cause for shame.
Depression is treatable. If you are struggling, please know that you are not alone, you are not broken beyond repair, and you are not a failure. Seek help. You can start with your general practitioner or call the suicide hotline at 1-800-273-8255; they can point you in the right direction. Your doctor will work with you to find treatment that works. It may take a few tries. Don’t give up. You may need to see a therapist, you may need medication, or you may need a combination of the two. While you may not be able to see it when you’re immersed in the demon darkness, things do get better; they really do.
*All names have been changed for privacy.