Some weeks ago, just before the inauguration of President Biden, I was walking down the street by Galway Bay. As I crossed the bridge from town and entered the Claddagh, I was reminded of my time in Afghanistan when an image of members of the Taliban driving a tank down the narrow streets popped into my head.
I wondered whether I would be calm enough to react properly if the Taliban kidnapped my beloved dog, who lives with my parents in the United States.
This irrational image and train of thought passed, leaving me with feelings of depletion and fear. To be honest, I’m used to it. Since I went to Afghanistan for work in 2015, I literally almost jump out of my skin every time I hear fireworks or crackers going off, especially on New Year’s and Fourth of July celebrations.
In June 2015, I moved to Kabul to work in human rights. This provided me with my first experience of lockdown when the Afghan Parliament was attacked. At the moment of the blast, I was leaving work and remember thinking, “that is what that sounds like?”
I moved to Afghanistan with the best of intentions and had tried to prepare myself for life in a volatile and unstable environment. But nothing could prepare me for an existence of constant terror, even when walking down the street to the local naan-va (bread store).
Though I hoped to be there for a while, my experience was short-lived. In August 2015, I came home from work one morning, after accidentally having left my laptop behind. My housemates were there and informed me that a German woman had been kidnapped. At that moment, my fight or flight instincts kicked in, and I immediately made the decision to fly away from Kabul.
My fear of impending violence derived from working in a traumatic field and in a traumatic location is not new. Last year, in the aftermath of the assassination in Iraq of Iranian General, Qasem Soleimani, I wondered what would happen if social structures fell apart and if white Americans and Europeans came after people of Iranian/Middle Eastern descent. I wondered whether they would put us into detention camps, remembering the internment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War.
I wish I weren’t experiencing these fears. I also wish I weren’t up at night and in the morning with my sheets thrown off and my clothes soaked with sweat. Additionally, my quality of life would definitely improve if vivid, violent dreams would cease haunting and disturbing me, would stop appearing in a more physical manifestation of grief and trauma than has ever arisen in my life.
The trauma inflicted on me and on everyone else by the pandemic is compounded by years of researching emotionally traumatic issues, in addition to the isolation and emotional stress of being an overseas research student. More recently, the loss of my cousin made things worse. And on top of that, the division and polarization in the world terrify me, as does the potential rise of extremism from all political camps.
Many other students and the people who usually make Galway a vibrant, bustling city are at home or are far away from the city, for good reason. I can only imagine that all the others remaining, separated from each other by walls and computer screens, are processing trauma, grief, isolation, and loneliness. Some may not have the option of checking in with their families, friends, and coworkers over the internet.
The past year has shown us that we are definitively interconnected in far more ways than we are aware of. We are learning (again) that we need each other to survive, quite literally, and without mutual support, economic, social, and political, we cannot.
Students and everyone who is going through a difficult time right now - you are not alone.
