Analogy theory

Christine Hauser, from the New York Times, on her article titled “‘Buddy Check on 22!’ Veterans Use Social Media to Fight Suicide” writes about the difficulties veterans face after coming back home and how social media influence in the task of keeping in touch and supporting each other through the grey path of depression and suicide thoughts. In addition, it is interesting when the author, referring to two sergeants, writes: “The two men, now thousands of miles apart, had become closer than brothers in Iraq, serving shoulder-to-shoulder under mortar and rocket fire.”

First, the article shows the relation between the number 22 use by the Facebook group ‘Buddy Check on 22’ stating this number is related to the average of veterans per day that had taken their lives by their own hands on 2010. (Para 3) It is frustrating and sad how veterans have to deal with survivor’s guilt, PTSD, depression and other mental illnesses, nevertheless it is encouraging how technology is used to support each other as a family and overcome the difficulties together.

Yet, I do not want to focus on the sadness of suicide or the struggles war veterans have to deal with, but focus on a crazy analogy theory that came to my mind when reading this New York Time’s article and relates to what I am living at the moment as an exchange student. Even though, I understand that being an international student will never be literally compare to be in war.

When students are on exchange, experiencing another culture, learning a new language, making friends and doing things for the first time it is like people who serve in the military; exploring a new territory, trying to understand a new language, surviving from the enemy and confronting situations for the first time. Therefore, all the emotions involved in all those activities are magnified for the simple fact that you are not in your comfort zone, you are not at home.

Once we come back to where we started, to the routine or the familiar environment, it is not comfortable anymore. It becomes a bigger challenge to adapt again to our old life, because all you have lived changed us and the things we left at home are the same but we are not. There is when the problem begins. The struggle is not with the language or with the need to stay alive, now it is with our minds, which is even worst.

However, with the current social media boom we are able to help each other and find support on those who are living the same situation, struggling just like us. Also, this kind of experience brings us closer to the people who are on the same boat, it is a relief to find empathy and rely on those who feel what we feel. It is not easy and if we let our mind win in the worse scenario we may end up literally kill by it.

In conclusion, the experience can be either traumatic, like in war or rewarding, like in an exchange, but both makes us lose our mind once we get back to reality and if we do not have the support from those who lived or are living the same we may lost it completely. Therefore, I ask myself: Is there a way to stop our minds to feel lost after this type of experience? How can we deal with depression post-exchange/post-war? What can we do when support from our fellows is not enough?