Unfilteredme’s Weblog

Insist on yourself; never imitate

Fish Out of Water

I am a fish out of water and I feel like I always will be. I am American by citizenship, yet I have no place to really call my own. I wrote a post earlier called “What is There to Show?” and I feel like that right now. I don’t talk much about my life, because I’ve always been a secretive person and a lot of times people think that I’m bragging when I’m merely stating the facts. I’ve never felt like anyone has ever really been able to understand me even those who have known me for years. Anyway…

My father was a diplomat. My high school years were wonderful. In the course of my high school years, I met two former presidents of the US and many other distinguished visitors. I have a picture of my father shaking hands with one of those presidents in my living room. Upstairs, I have an Elle magazine with my picture in it. Many of my high school friends are children of ambassadors, ceos, and other positions of authority. Well…so what? I don’t think that any of those things are important or make me better than anyone else. In fact, I rarely open up to people about my background, because I don’t want them to get the wrong idea. But, it is a part of my past and therefore it will always be part of my identity.

During my high school years, I was a fish out of water. I don’t mean that in the sense that I didn’t have any friends, but I was always a little different from my friends and peers. I don’t know how my father got the position at the embassy and I will probably never know. He was a military man, without a college degree, working in a career field that one would not normally associate with diplomatics. Nonetheless, we got a phone call one night (not how things are normally done) and within 4-5 months, we moved from this TINY town in the US to one of the biggest countries in the world. It was like a fairy tale.

This move was a huge culture shock. I was used to riding in a beater car, going to school with gang member, in a town with less than 75000 people. All of a sudden, I ended up moving to the ritziest part of one of the biggest cities in the world. I was a fish out of water.

All of that was great and everything…blah blah blah. I excelled in academics and I had so many huge goals. I wanted to change the world. Well…after coming home from my new job today…I came home, cried, and asked myself what there is to show.

I don’t feel like I need money, cars, or any of that to make me happy. In fact, I don’t know what it is that can make me happy. On one hand, I feel like a lot of people expect so much of me. On the other hand, I feel like there are people who don’t expect anything at all from me and assume that I am worthless. (For example, I remember checking out an autobiography at the library once and the librarian told me that I would probably have a difficult time with comprehending it. I was furious! She took one look at me and assumed that I was stupid!)

I just don’t know what the point is. Days like today, I feel like life is so pointless. I will work hard for the rest of my life and die. I can’t see the point.

Of course, I don’t want to feel this way. However, it is so difficult. I feel so drained after 3 days of working and pretending to be chipper and attentive.

I am so drained.

I thrive on change. Yet, I don’t know how to deal with it. Every 2-5 years, I experience huge changes and I always have. I don’t know what it’s like to settle in one place. I don’t know what it’s like NOT to have a hometown. I feel like I am always guarding myself and hiding pieces of myself from others. I don’t feel like I can be myself and it’s becoming more difficult for me.

I feel like I can’t speak with my friends from high school, because they don’t understand what it’s like to live the lifestyle that I do now. Maybe…I am just assuming that they won’t understand. Who am I kidding? I don’t even understand.

I don’t understand this American lifestyle. Yet, if I go anywhere else, I will always be an expatriate. I don’t fit in and it’s difficult.

I feel so hopeless right now. I have too much on my mind to make this post meld into something coherent. I don’t even remember what my point was when I initially started writing.

I am a fish out of water. I feel like nobody understands. I am depressed. I don’t understand why I live. I don’t understand my purpose. *Sigh*…..

September 27, 2007 - Posted by | alone, apprehension, biracial, blasian, christianity, confusion, depression, distance, dying, faith, family, fear, guilt, happiness, happy, hope, hurt, identity, insomnia, jobs, joy, jubilance, jubilant, life, memory, military, military life, military spouse, missing, moving, moving on, people, quiet, searching, suicide, want, wonder, working, worry

3 Comments »

  1. Maybe it’s time to forget about the past, accept it, accept that you can’t change it, appreciate it, and move on. Wake up tomorrow as though you are a new born, without any emotional luggage. Just start anew. It’s harder than it sounds I know, but life is a struggle we need to keep struggling with.

    Write down a list of things you really want to do. A list of things you really love, even if it’s as simple as hearing birds chirping in the morning. Once you have that list, concentrate on all those things you love, surround yourself with it, as simple as it sounds, it makes you appreciate life and love the little things you have in it, not the big things like a car, the little things like being able to drive with your hair in the wind.

    Also remember that you need to pick up your medication. And you can reply to comments left on your blog by the way just in case you didn’t know (I didn’t know either when I first opened my blog), it’s not just for visitors 😀

    Have you ever thought of trying CBT? (Congnitive behavioural therapy), it’s excellent, the therapist gives you tools to try to think positively instead of negatively.

    E-mail me if you want, I really feel that we can help each other.

    Comment by Unique Muslimah | September 28, 2007

  2. Some people seem to know who they are and how they feel at a young age. Some don’t (me). I am constantly learning, growing, and FEELING my way through this life- that was not handed to me. I have to form my own thoughts and opinions. Sometimes, I wish I had a hard core look at things, a black and white picture (if you will) with NO GRAY. I have to sift through the gray because I never learned this as a child. It’s been an up-hill battle but I’ve come so so so far. YOu will too! You will too.

    You are a grown woman now. You don’t have to worry about what anyone expects out of you anymore. You have only to answer to yourself, your husband, and God. Just work at being at peace with your lifestyle – if someone else cannot handle it, then they need to move on.

    I wish we could try to look at it like an adventure. How boring would we be if we knew EXACTLY what our purpose is? Nobody can know EVERYTHING there is to know. I mean, part of the fun has to be trying to figure out who we are, feel, and fit in. I think the biggest part is giving ourselves a break, not being so hard on ourselves. We are only human. There is only one perfect person, that’s God.

    I’m a huge advocate of CBT! It works like magic. We play “old tapes” in our head. Constantly sending ourselves messages about being worthless, etc. We have to correct those messages. My therapist would have me take a notebook and run a line down the center of a page. On the left side, I would write down the BAD messages that I was thinking (thoughts that were harming me, scaring me, torturing me and making me more withdrawn and depressed, anxious, etc.) – then, on the right, I’d write down THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER. Here is a little example of my list just to give you an idea of how it works.

    1. I’m a bad person ———> I’m a great person.
    2. I’m going to hell ———->I’m going to fall into the arms of the Lord when I pass away – he loves me and forgvies me for all of my sins.
    3. I’m a bad friend——–> You are a good friend, you are loving and would help anyone in need
    4. My husband and kids would be better off without me——->My husband and kids need me, nobody could love them the way I do. I am good to them, I love them, I am a good mother and I care for them! They’d never be the same if something happened to me.

    Etc, etc… that’s only one small snippit of a list BUT the key is, when you are feeling down, depressed, scared, etc. YOU HAVE TO GO read your list to cancel out the bad messages and to re-train your brain to think correctly! Many ‘a nights I had to run for my notebook, to sit in the dark and read to ease my troubled mind.

    Comment by Bella | September 28, 2007

  3. I really appreciate the tips you guys have given me! I really do! I will bring this up with my therapist and see if she can help to guide me in the right direction with CBT. I will also try the exercise you did with your notebook, Bella. I didn’t realize that I put myself down so much until I started reading the feedback on my entries. It’s weird. I know that I’m saying negative things, but I don’t realize that I’m doing it. I know it probably doesn’t make any sense. But, I do it so much that I don’t realize that I’m doing it. I say things that are really the voices of other people and instead of looking at the reality, I take it as fact.

    I am so thankful that I get such great feedback from you guys. I really am! Thanks so much!

    Comment by unfliteredme | September 30, 2007


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