Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Seven months after leaving Tampa Urban Project, I received a text message from one of the housemates. I never returned the message neither have I called her back. I have been ridiculously bad with my communication since leaving Tampa, which makes me a little afraid about the relationships (probably all) in college that I will no longer make an effort in keeping in tack. But with Tampa, things are different. You do not just spend 6 weeks with 30 complete strangers and 15 of them in a house, and within the first week, things are said and done that exposes the hurt of 20 years, flooding the small house with tear after tear from grown men and you don't go through 9 hour house meetings before waking up 3 hours later, and be called out over and over again. You don't do all this stuff and then leave, pretending to be normal friends again. It's impossible. What happened in that place was like war. It bonded us like a magnet, but like a magnet, it had the power to repel us too. The things we saw, the things we did. Sometimes, we just wanted to forget. But you never can.

For those who are utterly confused at this point, I went to inner-city Tampa, Florida last summer for a missions project called Tampa Urban Project. I worked with two different internships: one of them was teaching high school students basic and intermediate computer skills and the other was working in the projects as an art camp counselor. At nights, we had college course readings and a weekly three hour class. We also lived on 15 dollars a week that covered our food, our tithes, our toiletries, and everything/anything in between. We lived in a small house that housed 15 of us. Each week, we had anywhere from 1 to 7 house meetings to discuss logistics but really wound up being animosity between one another, as hurt and pain and anger was all exposed in front of each other. I learned and understood and felt racism and sexism to a degree that I have never felt before. And then I was sent back into the real world without training wheels or allies in my struggle.

The project was the best thing that had ever happened to me. The project also ruined my life. Seven months to gain some perspective on the thing, those are the only two sentences that seem to make any sense to me right now. It made a mess of my semester last year, and I now currently stand at a point where I'm trying to rebuild relationships that were broken and trying to do humbly, acknowledging my own sin as well as the person I'm trying to communicate with.
I do not expect anyone to understand anything I am saying or anything that I went through. If you are black, everything that you have felt bombarded me in that six week period. If you are a woman, everything that you have felt bombarded me in a two week period. If you are Asian like myself, my heart opened its formerly bolted locked door and let out a large amount of pain. Find for me the structural white man struggle, and maybe I'll feel that too, but I didn't. And that was what I was thrown back into the world with.

It would have been easier if she hadn't said these words to me in tears: "If you want to truly love me, you must walk in solidarity with me. And if you want to walk in solidarity with me, when you hear something that is against me, you stand up for me and you just feel my pain. Not to get rid of your own guilt, but just to feel the pain that I feel everyday and say something about it." Those words never left me. And her face of tears was imprinted into my mind, to the point that when I did hear something about her gender or her race that I knew would upset her, I pictured this woman, this sister that I love with those tears. And the irrational bursts of anger and tears, and my somewhat unforgiving/bitter heart towards men, white people, and myself were so high that no one could understand it. And unlike other times when I stand up for something, there is no behind me to affirm me that I am actually doing it right. I was simply clinging on to that mental picture in my mind of her crying. It was as if the whole world was dissing your mother on a daily basis, and yet the world did not understand why I was so "offended" or "sensitive" or "couldn't take a joke." I could never explain it to anyone. And after a while, I never bothered.

It's a blur of what I should do, what I should think, or how I should feel. I'm trying to offer more grace as God has offered me much more grace than I can ever ask for or give out myself. I'm trying to be patient with both others and myself. But at the same time, beneath the fake laughs and weird looks I give, a part of my heart does break each time I hear that "racism no longer exists," or "love this country or leave it," or "women aren't as good as men in ____" or "why are all black people....."

And I have no conclusion, neither did I have an introduction. I felt like I needed to post what's going on in my mind one more time before I fall into the temptation of writing too much about sports and politics again. I'm not looking for anyone to agree with me or disagree with me. I'm just hoping that one more person will understand me.