By Chetakwa Nicole Enunwa

Shortly after graduating with my MSW, I went on a week long trip abroad with friends that I made at school. I was nervous for the trip because I had had a hard time in grad school. I spent two years getting a degree that I wasn’t proud of. I had come to associate that school with many of the problems I faced and as a result I had mounting anxiety and unaddressed trauma associated with an entire area of a city. I knew that for those that didn’t know me well, it would be hard to understand what was going on. Especially considering that around this time, I struggled with communicating my needs and anxiety well. 

This lingered in my mind but I tried to get excited for the trip nonetheless. It was my first time in the country we visited and it was one of the few times we had hung out outside of school. The trip started with a few hiccups. We flew standby and there weren’t enough seats on our connecting flight for a group of 4. 

The people I travelled with knew me to be lively, funny, energetic. I had only given them a taste of what my anxiety and immense sadness looked like because it was hard to explain myself while I was going through it. I had told myself that any time I introduced this side of me, it would be on my time and it would make sense. I had a deep fear of being misunderstood, labeled, and secretly judged. 

The trip had other small hiccups—a car rental, language barrier, differences in interests—before the first big blow up a day or so into the trip. It left a bad taste in my mouth, it felt like a misunderstanding that wasn’t addressed, just swept under the carpet. I feared what the repercussions would be if I brought up the situation as a means of dissolving the awkwardness I felt. I decided against it for fear of being misunderstood and starting a bigger conflict so early into the trip. 

As the trip went on there were other hiccups and I had internal problems with my family amounting. I had anxiety about what I would be going back to when the trip was over. I had anxiety about the trip. Out of fear of being misunderstood, I said nothing. Although these were people I considered friends, I felt that expressing sadness would put a dark cloud over the trip. I tried to put on a happy face but was unsuccessful. My dad used to tell me that when I’m upset, the whole room can feel it. I started to shrink inside myself. I had spent so much time the last two years with a break from everyone at the end of the day that being around people all the time exhausted the fuck out of my social meter. I wasn’t upset at this point, I just wanted to be alone. To recharge. I didn’t quite know how to explain it, so I didn’t. I feared that saying, ‘hey, I’m trying to be alone, not because I’m mad but because I’m tired of being social. I live by myself y’all. I enjoy the QT with myself,’ would hurt someone’s feelings. I assumed that an ask to recharge would be interpreted as I’m not having fun. But I was exhausted socially. At several points I stopped talking, I felt like I had nothing meaningful to add to the topics they felt passionate for.

With four days left on the trip, I got into two huge arguments. First with a family member. I felt useless because I was thousands of miles away and not able to resolve a task that could’ve waited four days. I sobbed. Hard. I was so tired. Of carrying my anxiety, of running on a depleted social meter, of feeling like if I said something it would be wrong. I just wanted to be alone. To cry. To fall asleep. Wake up. Text my best friend and find peace. 

My trip mates didn’t exactly vibe with that. We walked back to our Airbnb for a “group meeting.” I pulled myself together to sit in a chair to listen to them tell me that I selfishly ruined the trip for them. Shocked, I tried to explain that I wasn’t mad at anyone, I just get distant, I had gotten into an argument, a bitch got a DSM level depression. I tried to explain what I was going through and how uncomfortable I felt sharing. But it was too late. The explanation fell flat. We decided that we would finish the trip together but I could tell we wouldn’t return to the States as friends. 

It was awkward. You can imagine. I questioned and blamed myself. Had I been selfish? Had I done this on purpose? Their words rang loud in my head. Over and over and over for four days. My blame shifted towards them. They were my friends. They had seen me crying almost mysteriously at school. One had talked me through one of the worst anxiety attacks I had that year. They knew that I turned off my text message notifications when I felt overwhelmed. I almost felt like I explained myself enough for them to get me. But I hadn’t. 

I have this strong desire to be understood. During this trip it crippled me. I gave power to my fear of being misunderstood and failed myself. In areas where I felt uncomfortable, I made myself small. I swallowed myself in order to avoid explaining myself. My anxiety. My fatigue. I forced myself to be the person they saw me as forgetting that I’m an onion, I have layers (shoutout to Shrek). I sheepishly convinced myself that my own peace could be sacrificed for the peace of others. 

I don’t talk to any of the girls I went on the trip with anymore. Just as I thought, my friendship with them dissolved completely before we got back to the U.S. I wanted to punish myself, what had I done to ruin these friendships. I cried a lot about it. My tears festered into anger. I remember telling my mentor about it. He told me that losing friendships was part of being an adult. 

We aren’t meant to maintain relationships with those who don’t understand us. The result of that trip was no one’s fault. My discomfort with sharing with them only speaks to those friendships being more shallow than I wanted to admit at the time—which doesn’t mean anyone is bad or good. We’re just different and that’s okay. I remind myself of the people who make me feel heard. Those who I feel understand me. And I cherish them. There’s no shame in not being understood by everyone.

And trust that this isn’t something I recognized immediately after. Not only did it take time, but it took me realizing the ways that I was coping that felt necessary at the time were the same ones that I needed to unlearn so that I could relearn healthy ways of communicating my needs and not submit myself to my fear of being misunderstood.