After reading my other Early Termination (ET) posts, a Peace Corps Volunteer struggling with the decision reached out to me. I wanted to share my advice and considerations, in case you want to know.
I want to note that each country is different, Peace Corps as an organization changed a bunch, even in the Dominican Republic the staff changed over like twice since I left, and there is no longer a health sector in the the DR. Things have changed since my time.
When I started Peace Corps, I thought the most shameful thing to do would be to ET. In the end, I needed to save myself, and I did. However, it made conversations with other PCVs about these difficult topics perhaps harder, because I didn’t want people to place that shame on me or know I was having that much trouble. I did have one or two people I could confide in, which was critical, but I also didn’t know anyone who felt like I did, which made me think the only solution was to get out.
My ET process started on December 5th, 2015. I was walking around my house in my pajamas, it was night, and I was just like, WHAT AM I DOING HERE? I called a PCV friend of mine, one I knew struggled with the same debate and in the end chose to stay, and we hashed it out. She asked me a lot of good questions and gave me the best advice I ever got: pick an ET date. I chose one a month in the future. This way, I had some time to seriously think and to make sure I wasn’t making any spontaneous decisions, as well as a set point to shit or get out of the latrine.
Honestly, even though I gave myself a month to think it through, the decision was made that day. I don’t know how to describe it well, but it felt like the decision had been made, like the river that runs through me changed course, and it was now just a matter of carrying out the decision. Notice I don’t feel like I made the decision, rather the decision was made. It was like my gut finally cleared my brain, and my heart was like, “oh yeah, you dingus, this is the absolute correct thing.” Since then, when making big decisions, I know I am making the right one when I have a similar sensation. The reasons to leave, the ones that I had been mulling over for months, tipped the scale. The experience seemed to connect me to myself in a way I never had before.
So on January 5th, I would decide to stay or go. I told my community partner probably a week or two before I left. I spent a week burning all my Peace Corps manuals because I just had no way to bring them to the capital (there were so many and burning was my garbage disposal method) and giving away my things. I said goodbye to my community members the night before and morning I left.
Once you tell the staff you want to ET, they start the process, so make sure you tell them only when you are ready to get on a plane. I decided to leave right after New Year’s, so I waited until the office opened up again to go to the capital. Celebrating New Year’s, I was in a 1 bedroom hotel room in a beach town with literally 9 of my closest friends. To announce the news, I literally shouted. There are few times in life I have felt such relief.
It was also weird because another PCV was ETing at the same time as I was and she told me on the last morning of the New Year’s trip, while I was sitting in a cafe with my friends. Since I had been there a full year longer than her, my thoughts during her announcement were something along the lines of: What, you want me to engage or empathize with you? Do you think you know what I am going through? I was pretty dismissive of her and honestly, it felt great, because quitting Peace Corps meant I no longer had to put on ANY act. I was cordial to her, but I sure wasn’t going to have a heart to heart with a stranger about anything.
On a trip to the capital in the weeks leading up to the big day, I packed a suitcase and stored it in the office, so I would have less to carry later. A friend whose site was pretty close to mine was getting medically separated the same time I was leaving, so the day I actually left, I went to her site and then got a bola to the capital in the Peace Corps car with her.
Once I got to the capital, I went to tell my sector’s director that I wanted to ET. I had to chat with her and the country director about it, but it seemed like more of a formality. No one really questioned my motives or dug deep. I met with the travel coordinator, with the doctors, and had a blood test at an outside facility (HIV testing). Everyone’s demeanor was normal and business-as-usual. I stayed in the capital for two days to get everything done and to wait for the next flight that could accommodate my destination and my dog.
In the month before I left, a former boss I had reached out to earlier, seeking career advice, contacted me with a short-term job offer. I interviewed via Skype a couple weeks later, and once I was set on ETing, I accepted the offer. After a week in New Jersey with my parents, I moved to Baltimore, a completely new city. I was glad for this move, because it not only provided me with a paycheck and some direction, it also allowed me to transition back to the US away from my parents and home town.
I think I would have reached out to PCV staff to talk about the problems I was having, mainly a lack of purpose and usefulness. I didn’t want to be the PCV who just hung out and I didn’t want to be the PCV who was just constantly traveling and I didn’t have enough work to do and I didn’t feel like I fit into my community. I was constantly exhausted and I didn’t know what to do about it. I was also going down a depression spiral I had never been down and was thinking about hurting myself. I heard some horror stories about the staff’s lack of empathy and resources and was scared of being forced into a decision I didn’t want to make, or to be punished in some way, so I didn’t reach out. We also had a big scandal with our sector’s director in the months leading up to my ET, and it made me distrust and disrespect the staff even more (I did not approve with how they handled things). I wish I had tried to seek counseling. Maybe there were strategies or solutions the staff, or the PCVLs (Peace Corps Volunteer Leaders), could have helped with.
I would have treated my social life in Peace Corps differently, too. I didn’t realize how cliquey my cohort and most PCVs were until I had time to look back. Peace Corps is an intense experience and I don’t blame anyone for any social dynamic that existed. You had to find your people. I also want to make it clear that I had a lot of fun. I mean, some of the best times in my life. I will defend to the death that my cohort includes some of the best people in the world.
However, the other side of that coin needed polishing. I wish I worked through some of my regular social anxiety and the anxiety about only seeing my friends once a month, and that, in my head, meaning we had to squeeze a lifetime of adventures into one night and that I had to follow the cool kids to their activities. My use of alcohol could have and should have definitely been more responsible. I guess it’s kind of hard to explain, but I wish I had been more confident in myself and not taken the intense social dynamics so seriously.
I think one of the other driving forces in my decision to leave was my financial situation. I didn’t have much money saved up before service and I spent what I did have in the first year, making vacationing and travel more difficult. My mom was also paying my student loans, which was a stresser on her and therefore me. It didn’t make sense to me to be bopping around somewhere when I could be working on becoming financially independent. Now that I reached that goal, it’s still important to me to be able to help take care of my parents and grandparents as they age, so it’s almost validating to see a value that helped drive my decision still exists today.
I also never jived with the DR culture that well. I’m sure everyone has told you already that comparison is a death sentence and one of the worst things you can do is compare yourself to other volunteers. This is true. It’s interesting to see the differences now though. I live in Baltimore and there are a number of PCVs from my cohort here for grad school, so I got to see these things up close. I don’t really want to go back to the DR and don’t seek out bachata clubs and don’t buy plantains. Some of the other volunteers have been back to visit the DR, date Dominicans in the US, dance bachata, and make monfongo at home. They fit in with the culture in a way I never did and our experiences are so different. They finished their service. Instead of comparing and just feeling desperate about that fact, I wish I had brainstormed more strategies on how to make myself feel more comfortable. I wish I had realized, really understood, that their success would always look different from mine and that it was okay for me to never fold into the culture like they did. There’s a difference between comparing yourself and just hating yourself or other people and comparing yourself to obtain the things you need to function and thrive.
I took a week long vacation to the US in July 2015. A friend gave me another amazing piece of advice for that experience. As soon as I landed in the US, I didn’t want to go back to the DR, but I heard her voice, even as I dragged my feet: just get on the plane. It helped. I did.
I also should have left more money for my host family, even if I didn’t have that much at the time.
I did externalize some of my feelings by creating a perfect PCV that was a counterpart to me. Her name was Bailey and she had a lizard head (because there was no way she could be human). Whenever I locked myself inside my house to hide from the kids or spent a couple of days a week in Santiago or did anything that I felt was not up to the perfect standard, I saw Bailey doing the exact perfect thing instead and for some reason that coping mechanism helped. All of my anxieties were channeled through her and for some reason seeing how impossible that all was helped me feel better.
Yes, I miss Peace Corps sometimes. It was a time of immense and fast growth, adventure, exploration, beauty, and joy. I will never not want to be on the back of a pick up truck, riding through the mountains. I got to spend a lot of time with some extraordinary people. Teaching sex-ed at the high school in DR is one of the best parts of any job I’ve ever had. My current life flows much more slowly and regularly and though I try to seek out new experiences and people, it does not compare to Peace Corps.
If I had to change anything, I think I would have applied to Peace Corps in my late twenties or even later in life, after I had worked a couple of years, saved up some money, done all the therapy I am only doing now, gotten to know myself better, and had more skills.
Are you thinking about ETing? Why did you join Peace Corps in the first place? What are some of your biggest difficulties? What are some of your pet peeves? Can you alter those in any way? Do you feel safe? Is a site change in order? What are the things getting you up in the morning? What are the smallest things you can be grateful for? What expectations do you have of yourself? What expectations do you have of your community members? Why do you have all those expectations, and will life be easier if you managed those better? What do you want to do that has nothing to do with your PC work goals (run a marathon, learn to knit or meditate, learn a language that is not your host country’s, study for the GRE, make finger puppets, build a chair)? Why do you need to feel productive? What does that even mean? How can you start doing them? What medications are you taking and do you need to start or stop any? How is the weather altering your experience and how can you manage that better? Who can you reach out to? Anyone in the USA, PCVs, community members, RPCVs, PC staff, the person who wrote this post? Can you make your life easier in any way, by getting wifi or a blender or some other (luxury) good? Is your vision of life in the US more rose-colored than reality will probably be? Is there any way you can get out of your site for a week? Can you challenge yourself to stay in your site for a week? What parts of your community, region, country have you not explored? Are you not giving yourself permission to be PISSED and SAD and UNGRATEFUL for a gosh-darn minute? Are you not giving yourself permission to be so FULL OF JOY because the people around you are having a difficult time? If you are struggling with privilege and your lack of ability to make change, how can you continue to educate yourself about these issues? Are you trying to force yourself to be someone you’re not?
Early terminating can be a difficult decision and I hope you already ran through these questions. In the end, it is your choice and your life, and no one else gets to say anything about it.
My decision to Early Terminate was extremely empowering and painful and intense. Even if yours isn’t, you’re still the only one who really experiences it. It’s yours, and you don’t have to love it or hate it or feel any way about it.
I just celebrated my one year anniversary at Johns Hopkins working as an ophthalmic (eye) ultrasound technician and I’m amazed and excited I found a job I really like. I’m settled in Baltimore, I live with a RPCV from my cohort, and I am forever grateful for how Peace Corps changed me, the skills it’s given me, and the reflection I have done since. It’s weird to be so far from it now, to realize it was such a short period in my life. It defined me for so long and now it’s only a small, fleeting part of my identity.
To make this post, I was looking through all my photos from Peace Corps and as I picked out my favorite landscape ones, for the very first time, something inside of me said quietly, yeah, I think I could go back.
I guess time does heal.
More about my Early Termination Experience:
