Taylor Houston: Getting Comfortable

Of all my time in Argentina, of all the places I saw, I remember the bathrooms the most.

When I close my eyes and imagine Argentina, I see tiled walls and cramped spaces. I feel the cold tile floor on my cheek, scratchy toilet paper under my eyes. I hear people outside the door, carrying on in two separate languages apathetic of my absence, or, perhaps, knocking on the door and asking me to come out. I read the sign on the wall over and over that asks me not to flush my toilet paper, I follow the lines in the tile. The drips of water counted the seconds I was wasting away feeling sorry for myself instead of taking advantage of my time out of the country.

I saw plenty of amazing places. I toured Hospital Borda, an infamous mental institution in Buenos Aires, I saw the waterfalls at Iguazu, I rode horses outside the city of Mendoza, and still, I remember the bathrooms the most clearly. The images are engraved into my brain, right over where Argentina is supposed to be. They alter the lens through which I remember my time in Argentina: I see pictures of a mini pastry I was given for my birthday, and I remember how I was locked in the bathroom for a half an hour before I received it and another half an hour afterward.

Bathrooms are supposed to be a private place to take care of business—that much is the same for everyone. The bathrooms in Argentina for me, however, had additional expectations and meanings placed on them. They were the only place I felt I could feel what I did because I could lay down on the floor and stare, or curl up against the wall and cry and the bathroom would neither be annoyed with me nor try to comfort me. It wouldn’t misinterpret my depression for homesickness or think I was being dramatic. It was safe.

Hiding in the bathroom sort of became My Thing. I avoided conflict with my housemate through it, and at least a portion of every day was spent sitting in close proximity to a toilet with no other purpose but to get away from everything else. By the second week, people had already figured it out. Where’d Taylor go? She’s probably in the bathroom.

Getting outside of my comfort zone meant getting outside of a functional normalcy I’d fallen into. When I should have been excited, I was bored. When I should have felt motivated, I felt tired. I was constantly watching the clock for some foreseeable end to whatever I was doing at that moment in a never-ending cycle. Everyone was nice, and everyone liked me, and yet I couldn’t connect to them.

I thought it was because I hadn’t gotten to cook my own food, but then I cooked and didn’t feel any better. I thought it was because I didn’t have animals around me, but then I went to a homestay with a cuddly cat and a friendly dog and I didn’t feel any better. I wasn’t homesick—I didn’t really yearn to be back at my own apartment. I was simply forced to face a profound and deep-rooted dysfunction that I’d been living with for most of my life.

Major Depressive Disorder runs very, very high in my family but I had been pushing any problems I had down because I thought it was normal. I didn’t fail classes, I got out of bed most days. I had seen people in a worse condition, so I assumed that meant I didn’t have a problem. However, I realized that the waves of tiredness I’d attributed to laziness weren’t just a desire not to move-- it was practically an inability to. Usually, I’d just stay in bed when a wave hit me, but that wasn’t always an option in Argentina. I found out that if I forced myself up, my muscles would shake like a newborn and it only took a couple of minutes before I’d be completely exhausted. 

Considering the breakaway I was on was full of future psychiatrists and counselors, therapy was something we talked about a lot. The girl I looked up to the most, Makenzie, just graduated with her masters in counseling and she really opened my eyes to how beneficial it could be. Previously I hadn’t even considered talking to a counselor under the assumption that I wasn’t “bad enough”, but getting help became a real thought in my mind and I started actually considering the possibility. I even came back really wanting to see one.

I don’t necessarily think of my time in Argentina as a good time, but I also don’t think of it as a bad one. I think it was a necessary one and it has certainly become something that I reflect on a lot. I’m finally getting help now that I could have used about a decade ago. I wouldn’t be doing anything at all if I didn’t have that experience to think back on and say “that’s not normal.” It’s ironic, in a way. It took getting out of my comfort zone for me to finally start getting comfortable.

Taylor Houston traveled to Argentina in the summer of 2017, spending time in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, and the city of Mendoza which sits at the foothills of the Andes. Born and raised in Amarillo, Texas, she moved to South Carolina after high school to live with her girlfriend and attend Lander, double majoring in both Biology and Psychology. Her expected graduation date is the spring of 2021, after which she plans to go to medical school back west.