Kidi Tafesse
In the 21st century, when we think of mental health, we acknowledge how consequential it can be to our daily lives. We read about it, talk about it, address it as an issue that is a little more long-standing than some physical ailments and even take BuzzFeed quizzes to determine our level of stability (disclaimer: BuzzFeed quizzes are not medically certified surveys). However, as someone who has lived between the duality of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Wooster, Ohio, I’ve seen that the conversation regarding the importance of mental health differs from place to place.
Why does this matter? Because whether we know it or not, the implications of our surround- ing environment stay with us for most of our lives. So, for example, if the only time you hear about somebody facing mental problems is in hushed conversations such as, “Oh, did you hear, the neighbor’s son went nuts?” then you for sure don’t want to be referred to as “the neighbor’s son who went nuts.”
Coming to The College of Wooster and witnessing the ease with which domestic students dis- cuss how they handle their mental health issues was a culture shock in and of itself. With that culture shock arose questions of how I had conceptualized strength and weakness; consequently, it made me realize that admitting I strug- gled with something always made me feel as though I was ungrateful for the opportunities that led me here, mortified because I could not overcome these obstacles by myself and, most importantly, unaware that it was okay to talk about these issues with the people that cared. This is not to say that I believe U.S. culture has fully mastered how to tackle these issues; the overprescription of pills and the fetishization of mental health can speak against that. However, at least there is a conversation, and at least these conversations are validated enough that there are resources available to a good amount of the population.
International students, those who have come from places where the nuances surrounding these issues are negative, have to grapple with and overcome the norms and ideas they’ve grown up with in order to acknowledge and accept that it is normal to not be okay. It is natural to struggle with assimilating into a new culture or life. We leave our homes, which can at times be thou- sands of miles away, we integrate into a new education system with its own set of norms, we navigate between our personal lives in Wooster and back home and on top of all this we carry with us the understanding that this is not an opportunity extended to everyone; thus, our performance while we’re here has to showcase that understanding.
This is all to say that when discussing the topic of mental health and issues related to the inner well- being of international students on this campus, the conversation and the approach has to take into consideration our differences and how that impacts our ability to ask for help when we need it.