Here's the paper I wrote for my assignment in one of my PSY class. I have a month to go to finish college. Now, I'd like to share with you my personal experience.
The loss of family members was one of the hardest things to deal with in my life. In fact, when I was ten years old, I lost two of my cousins in an accident that happened while we were at the beach, and I have been traumatized with their deaths. We were always together and very close to each other like sisters. It has been almost thirteen years since that event. In looking back at how my life has progressed since that time, I believe that this event has affected my life the most. Accepting the deaths of my cousins was very difficult; however, it became significant in personal ways I could not have predicted. Their deaths, and my experience at the site of their deaths, was also my own turning point in which I was able to redefine what life is. The world appeared differently to me through this event.
I had been traumatized very badly, not only because I experienced my cousins’ deaths, but also because I could almost have been killed in this accident as well. The accident happened about thirteen years ago, seven people, including my sister and me, were involved in this accident. We all were pulled out to sea and five of us were rescued alive, while the bodies of my cousins were also retrieved.
I remembered at first that I was not able to accept their deaths easily because it happened all of a sudden; I tried to understand what happened to my cousins. Even at the age of ten, I kept asking myself why I lived and my two cousins, who were like sisters to me, lost their lives. Perhaps, adults may have thought that I was too young to understand what was going on then, because no one ever really talked to me face to face about the accident and their deaths. However, no matter how old I was, I actually remembered that I felt very sorry and also guilty about what happened to my cousins. (Later on, I learned this kind of guilt is referred to as “survivor guilt“; people usually have this guiltiness after losing someone.)
Since the accident, I became closed-minded and tended to think of things negatively. When I took the time to think about how my life was going, I hated myself and my character that had been changed because of the past event. However, even though I tried to pretend that I was fine and I worked to act as though nothing really happened to my life, in my mind I was thinking and relating anything happening in the present moment as a link to the past event; I was very lonely and felt that I was missing something inside of myself. Maybe I should have talked to somebody about how I felt; however, for some reason I could not share my feeling with anybody, not even with my family. I believe that this is because of the Japanese society and also the way in which my parents have raised me, I told myself that I had to be strong and help myself out, but not depend on anybody.
As I became older and thought about the feelings I had, I began to realize that I needed to do something else, something that would totally change who I was. Everything around me was still reminding me of my feelings about myself because of the deaths of my cousins. I believed that if I could change my environment, I could challenge myself to be “tough” and by being challenged, I could distract myself from these difficult thoughts and feelings. I could work on something to repair myself and make myself stronger. I wanted to feel whole, not like something was missing from me.
Living in the U.S. was one of my biggest challenges; because I wanted to be strong and face my traumatic experience and change my life. First thing I did was that I worked very hard to save money; I spent about two years preparing to come to the U.S. At first, my family disagreed with me to be far away from home because my family, especially my mother, was very afraid of losing me like my cousins. I believe that my mother must also have been traumatized somehow with the past event and become little obsessed with death. However, in the last two months of my preparation, my parents started to support this goal. I was very excited. I believed that living in the new place would provide me with a chance to see the world in a positive way again.
No one, even my family, knows the actual reason of why I came to the U.S. Although I told my family that I wanted to experience and learn about some other cultures before coming to the U.S., what I actually wanted from life in the U.S. was to find myself and start living my new life from the beginning. Then, as I planned my trip, I told myself that I was not escaping from the past; however, I was going to face my psychological problem and get to know who I am by living a life with a fresh start in the U.S. At that time, I had a very strong feeling that I could find something new to help me grow myself up through this new experience. I just had to believe in myself no matter what other people said. Many influential people in my life tried to advise me not to go or to make me feel obligated to stay. However, by the time I had announced my plans, I already knew I would have deep regrets if I did not take any action at that point. It was fortunate for me that my parents were supportive and trusted that I was determined to follow my plans.
After living in the U.S. for a couple of months, I learned about psychology. In fact, psychology was a field that I had never studied before in Japan. I remember vividly that when I first learned about human psychology, it interested me very much. I would say that learning psychology was also the one most important factor that changed my thoughts and my life. Learning psychology continues to be very helpful for me in order to understand myself and my traumatic experience. In retrospect, I have come to realize that not knowing anything about the effects of traumatic events had made me feel even more anxiety and worry. In Japan, I could not talk about what had happened and was expected to forget about it and move on with my life. Since there was no direction I could take to help myself or even to learn about the cause of my emotional pain when I was still in Japan, I kept thinking that I was overreacting to the accident and I must have been crazy. However, through the many psychology lectures, I have learned that I have very similar symptoms of PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder) that this is one type of psychological disorder that occurs when someone has experienced some shocking event such as car accident, rape, murder and so on.
By expanding my knowledge of human psychology, I have become more confident and open minded toward myself and others. Since I have been learning psychology through the many classes I have taken, I think I now know better what causes my feelings to develop, how to express my emotions through words and creative outlets and how to deal with my emotional pain.
In Japanese culture, psychological disorder is not considered as serious as physical problems; people believe that they can heal themselves and not require any supports, unless a person is seriously mentally ill. Therefore, in the Japanese culture it is more likely that people do not express their feelings to other people in any social settings. Feelings such as sadness, depression, anger, and sometimes even happiness are hidden from others. Culturally, it is considered that the ability to not show emotions is a sign of growth and makes a person stronger and more successful in Japanese society. People may believe that being on medication or counseling are for those who are emotionally weak, immature, or mentally inferior and this can affect their social standing, something that is very important in Japanese society.
In the U.S. the study of psychology is much more developed than in Japan; even counseling and social services are available for anybody in many places. For example, I was very surprised at first to learn that all schools have a counseling service that students can access at anytime as they need it. Compared to Japanese society, this is a huge difference. In fact, I have seen one of the counselors at PSU for about two years; this has also been very helpful for me in learning to understand myself. Counseling does not directly help to heal emotional pain by talking to a counselor, however. I can see myself and my problem through how my counselor responds; my counselor shows me a different way to view my problem.
Removing emotional pain is not as easy as we think. I challenged myself to see how I could fit into new surroundings by coming to the U.S. My life is changed through this choice, and learning psychology while living in the U.S. is an additional action that I have taken in order to grow myself and create a better life. I believe that by adjusting myself into this new surrounding, I have been able to heal my emotional pain and enjoy my life better. I have grown in my understanding and acceptance of who I am and have become more comfortable with myself.
Through living in this world, any of us have to, at least once, experience some difficulties and then challenge ourselves in order to adjust into our new life situation. My challenges have still continued; I have decided to be a counselor in Japan. It is going to be very difficult; however, I know that this new challenge is also going to continue to help me remove emotional pain from the past event and continue to help me grow.
