- Part 2 -
The pressure of measuring up to the world's standards can sometimes do more harm than good. As I was growing up, I felt a lot of pressure. Pressure from everywhere. Pressure to succeed, to be successful, to help others and be as good of a person as I can be. That’s what my parents expected of me. From pop culture made me feel like I had to be perfect, to look great all the time, to behave as a lady should. The culture I was raised in, gave me no room to discover what I wanted. Instead, I was leading a life that was mapped out for me. A huge pressure, with so little of my own choices. People around me, who are not even part of my network, determine what is good and what is bad. Those unknown people, whose faces I I haven’t seen, created enormous pressure to live and perform within the ‘norm' of our culture. Eventually, it got to the point where these pressures had their own growing structures, their own life, where they didn’t need any living source to be. They were hovering over me and following me everywhere. They had their own reasons for doing it. They were born when my family and I became refugees.
My parents, sister and I came as refugees to the Netherlands. My parents have been through hell and back to get to where we are today. They fled the country for many reasons. They wanted to escape the war. But more than that, my health pushed them to leave their country, their homeland, their life. I was young and I was not aware of this factor. “I received a call,” my mother said. “I heard your cousin, who was babysitting, crying. My heart started to race. She couldn’t get a word out. I knew something was wrong so I rushed from work to eventually find my 1.5-year-old daughter unconscious on the floor. There seemed to be no breath or life in her little body. The doctor said it was a brain injury suffered at birth so he couldn't give her the care she deserved. I knew at that moment that I had to do everything in my power to receive the best healthcare for my child, “ my mother told many years later. They did everything in their power to secure our future. So how could I let them down? The pressure to succeed, as a refugee, is a lot. As a parent, you want your children to shine, and let this ‘foreign’ country know that we have something to offer too. Naturally, you want to outshine the rest, because you’re already at a disadvantage: you don’t share the language, culture or color of skin. You have to work harder to achieve the same. I never really felt like I was a foreigner, not until years later when I made a drastic decision to cover up, and people made me feel like I was. But for the most part, I felt pressure to succeed, even as a child.
Are you paying attention, Mena?” Said Miss Marije, my favorite teacher in primary school. I nodded and realized that I was not a butterfly flying around, but that I was actually in class. My beautiful fantasy world was interrupted. Okay, pay attention!, I thought .. Miss Marije wrote numbers on the board. I thought to my self; Where am I? What does it say? What are we learning about? I look around me. ‘Amy is wearing a really nice sweater today. No! Pay attention, Mena,’ I told myself. ‘Okay, 8.8 + .... 8 looks like a caterpillar .. Caterpillars become butterflies. Butterflies are beautiful. They can go anywhere, but they must go to the Amazon because that is where a butterfly belongs. That is what we have learned from the subject nature, right? Or is it biol’... "BEEB". The school bell rings. My fantasy world was interrupted. Again. I started to walk home, at this point I’m very angry. Angry at myself because again I missed everything today. I have to do my best!, I thought. I have to get good grades. I can't let Mom down. I have to become a dentist, just like my mom. I felt the pressure to perform at a young age. Unfortunately, my environment was not aware of my attention problem. This only caused more pressure. Only I couldn't keep up with it all. This was a factor that lead to having a burn-out.
To be continued.