Epiphanies Upon Return and Inner Demons

What a whirlwind of Life since I came back home. If Pakistan was physically, emotionally and spiritually rough... well, it didn't stop upon my return to Montreal.

First couple of weeks back, I was a royal mess. Really. I thought the extent of my "reverse culture shock" would be walking on the left side of the road instead of the right. Wrong.

They don't tell you about what really happens when you come back from the developing world, that it varies from person to person. We only ever hear about the "enlightened return" -you know, where the traveler or do-gooder or whoever, comes back with a secret kind of wisdom and understanding, strong, solid, confident, unshakable, and a bottomless well of compassion. I mean, it's who I wanted to be, that's for sure.

Let me tell you what happened to me in real life -it was humbling, to say the least. First week of school: I was more Type-A than ever, I was not able to 'rise above' with all that 'developing world perspective' -I needed to control everything. I swore at computers, ran around doing my errands like a paranoid, crazy. I felt like I regressed into old insecurities, but amplified now, with a vengeance, including a new obsession with weight, calorie-counting and prettiness. I have dropped about 1.5 BMI points, including the weight-loss of being sick twice in Karachi. I felt alone in a crowd. I felt like no one understood me, and that I didn't understand myself. I was right, at least about the latter.

See, I managed to convince myself that the emergent control-freak was because rather than feeling "enlightened", I felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility. Having seen what I saw in Pakistan, it was my responsibility to be perfect, remember every single little medical detail in my training because if you forget a detail someone will die out there because you never know if anyone else will remember that tid-bit that you should have known. So I had to be perfect on the inside... and I reasoned that somewhere in my head, I had decided that inner perfection required outer perfection... and whose body couldn't be a bit more perfect than what it is right?

Wrong again. I talked about it with my best friend, my best mentor, my sister and the Truth revealed itself to me. Since when does "a sense of responsibility" make one hate oneself, make one want to punish oneself, make one feel unworthy of love and cut off from the world? Yes, I do feel a sense of responsibility, but that was not the driving emotion behind my crazy behaviour. That was Guilt. Shame. Unacceptance. Guilt for what? That although I learned so very much working in Pakistan, that despite having met some wonderful people, having had some very special, life-changing experiences, having been blessed to be able to contribute to the work there in a meaningful way, I really, really, really did not love it. I felt no joy. I did not feel alive. It felt like a sacrifice, and I know that I am not the type to truly be able to sacrifice my whole life in this way. And now I was back, and all those feelings were so in my face, and it scared me to death because this is what I was supposed to want, this is what I thought I wanted my whole life. But I don't and I felt like a demon of a human being for that.

I do want to serve humanity still -that will never change. But I will do it in my own way. I want to help the poor, the disenfranchised, the uneducated, the sick... but I know my limits now and of course, I am still working through all of this. God-willing, at some later point in my life, maybe for a short period of time, I will be able to go back to some other part of the developing world and do more work 'on the ground'. I have my own gifts and passions. I can be a good doctor here, I can write for the world, I can effect policy level change at home and maybe in a broader context (I have, afterall, seen what it's like out there, for myself... and really, once you've seen it, you've seen it), but I don't actually want to martyr my life away in an abrasive environment that makes me sick all the time, brings down my energy, makes me feel legally vulnerable and fragile... look, see. If there is no happiness in it for you, how can you expect to bring happiness to others? Your own vessel will be empty. And that would be a fraud indeed.

So I am not fully resolved now, by any means. But I am starting to slowly chew over these early personal revelations. It helps to leave town for a weekend with friends, go out and be careless and carefree and have fun for the sake of fun -real fun, with real freedom. We are so blessed here... I can't give up those blessings. But this week, this second week, I have been embracing those blessings as much as I can.

Life surprises. It's dynamic, ever-changing -what 'is' today, may not be, tomorrow. And I find I am in awe of the mysteries that lie tucked away within myself.