One Year Mark
来美国读大学一年了！我成长了！（正常点…醒醒…
我觉得我现在比之前放松一些，但是很难描述现在的状态。思考很多，但是也很难说是有益的思考还是焦虑时解决问题的impulsive thinking。
来这里以后遇到了很多很好的人，真的十分幸运。昨天和discord server里的人见面，朋友说看我的分享感觉住在朋友家，没有意识到我住在一个airbnb里。从见到的人的身上学到了很多细微的东西，妈妈说感觉我健康很多，我觉得…并没有。
在一个相对正常一点的环境里保持健康显然也比之前更容易一些，另外可能是很幸运可以和人讨论这里不正常的地方，有点group therapy的感觉。刚来的时候确实人生地不熟也有些幼稚，会internalize一些这里对「外国人」的bias（那时候连xenophobia这个词都不知道）。现在…只能说还好不打算在这里定居（？？）我知道其他地方的草也不见得更绿，但是还是想尝试去不同的地方生活。
这样思考的好处是可以想说什么是什么，不太担心得罪人。不知道其他地方是不是这样，但在我待过的地方大家的对话有一些norm，这可能是很多时候我不喜欢社交的原因，因为我厌恶重复的事情。但打破这样的norm需要一些勇气，因为往往会引发尴尬的沉默，让对方不知道怎么回复。
有时会很希望以前的朋友在身边，因为有些事情除了和咨询师提到以外只有她们能真正理解我的脑回路。但也许可能因为之前的朋友不在身边让我不得不去认识新朋友，也确实收获了不少…奇怪的东西。
在不断的交流里的感触里除了原来我不是社恐（大雾）以外，就是人和人区别…真的不是以地域区分的。来之前很多过来人说会有身份障碍，遇到融入的障碍，但是在我的情况里我觉得不是是否融入的问题，而是我到底怎么和其他人交流的问题。有的时候会很self-conscious，一般是因为潜意识里觉得自己不应该这样说，或者不应该在那个场景里说，但我真的太需要发泄渠道了有些不分交谈对象（感谢心理咨询，这个问题没那么严重，就是可怜了我的咨询师，为什么要承受这些…）。我到底以什么视角去说比较好呢？如果是以我个人的视角当然没有问题，可是对方会意识到这只是我一个人的视角吗？如果对方意识不到，当然也不是我的问题，可是我并不希望给这个充满偏见的社会带来更多偏见（damn）
最简单的方式是让聊天话题变得十分日常，比如食堂多么糟糕，作业如何的难，天气如何的奇怪，哪里有什么活动可以一起参加，邀请朋友一起做一些有趣的事情……
但是显然我依然保留来之前的一些特质，比如overthinking，比如思维发散……
总是多想的我想不出什么合理的结尾，只能说这一年总体来说收获很多，也很快乐。离开熟悉的地方是一件很困难的事情，而我做的还不错。也许下一年我可以找到平和的心态和思考方式，但找不到也没有关系，反正这个世界也不太正常。
Translation:
I’ve been in the United States for college for a year now! I’ve grown up.
I think I’m more relaxed now, but it’s still hard to describe my status quo. I think about things a lot, but I don’t know if it’s helpful or if it’s just impulsive thinking when I have anxiety.
I’ve met a lot of very good people here, and I’m very lucky for that. Yesterday I met my friends in a discord server, and one of them said that she thought I’m living in my friend’s house instead of an airbnb. I’ve learned a lot of subtle things from those I met with. My mom said that she thinks I’m healthier than before, I… don’t think so.
Well, granted, it’s eaiser to be healthy to live in a relatively more normal society, and one big difference would be I can discuss with others about what goes wrong in this society, as if it’s a group therapy. When I just got here, I wasn’t familiar with the place and I was a little naive. I internalized a lot of the biases against “foreigners” (I didn’t even know the word xenophobia). As for now… I’m glad I won’t live here forever (??). I don’t think the grass is greener elsewhere, but I want to live in different places regardless.
The good thing about thinking in this way is that, I can say whatever I want without the fear of making anyone unhappy. I don’t know if it’s the case with other places, but wherever I go, I find that there are certain norms of communications, which might be the reason I don’t like socialization in general. I hate repetitive things, but breaking the norm requires some courage, because it can often lead to an embarrasing moment of silence, as the person I talk to might not know how to respond.
Sometimes I really hope that my friends from China can be around me, because there are things I can’t talk about with any others besides with my therapist. They are the only people who can really understand me sometimes. I was forced to meet new friends, and I do learn a lot from the those I met here, sometimes it’s really weird things…
Through constant communications, what I learned besides I’m not anti-social is that, the difference between humans is not… primarily due to regional differences. Before I came here, I heard a lot about the identity crisis, the moral dilemma in being assimilated, but in my case, I don’t think it was those problems. My problems are mainly about how to communicate with the others. Sometimes I became very self-conscious. Usually it’s because I might know unconsciously I probably shouldn’t talk about certain topics related to my background, or at least I shouldn’t talk about it in that setting, but I really need to talk about those things to the point that I don’t pick my audience (thanks goodness I have a therapist, what a poor being…) Basically, what perspective I should use when I talk about those things? If it’s my individual perspective, then there’s no problems, but do my audiences realize it’s my own personal perspective? If they don’t realize this, it’s not my fault, but I don’t want to contribute more biases to this world full of biases (damn).
The easiest way is to make the topics closer to my present daily life, for instance how awful the dining halls are, how difficult the homework is, how horrible the weather is, and what we can do together as friends…
The only problem is, obviously, I still have some of the habit before I came here, and overthinking is part of it…
As a constant overthinker, I can’t think of a reasonable conclusion for the journal. In summary, I’ve learned a lot and I’m very happy in this year. Leaving a familiar place to live is very difficult, and I’ve done it fairly well. Maybe I can be more calm next year, but it’s fine if I’m not, as this world is abnormal anyway.
Translation Note
This is an attempt to see how well my Chinese matches English language, and yes they match very well. I don’t know if this is a good thing, but it was surely interesting to see how they align with each other. Just some weird billingual moments.