Stress

When Weedy, the local radio DJ, text messaged me on Tuesday, she recommended that this week on her show we discuss “stress.” This might seem like a strange concept coming from a country known more for its lax perception of time than the mental conundrums of the overcommitted suburbanite, but I have noticed that “stress” is an interesting and underappreciated concept here that bundles a variety of symptoms and signs into one oversimplified package.
While staying on the Gili Islands, I met a thirty-five year-old mother of three who had run away from home at age twelve, spent several years in jail, and was now in the process of opening her second beach front bar in paradise. One night over tropical fruity drinks with overflowing umbrellas and twizzle sticks, she described her “stress,” a word used interchangeably across languages. She spoke of bills to pay, kids to look after, and the unavoidable boredom of small island life. Yes, yes, yes, I thought, we all have issues. I get stressed when mangoes from my tree splatter on my driveway, and when my gas tank begins flashing obnoxious warning signs at me. I was getting fed up with her self-deprecation, until she took out her mobile phone-camera and showed me photos of her unconscious on a marble floor, blood streaming from her nose and mouth, a red pool surrounding her head.
“What the hell happened?” I asked
“Oh, you know, so much stress,” she replied, at this point nonchalantly, “so I start to drink much. Two bottles of vodka alone.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Maybe, ya. So I almost die.”
“And who took the photos?”
“My friends.”
“Well, with friends like these…”
“Apa?”
“Never mind.”
Stress. According to the OED, it’s defined as “physical, mental, or emotional strain or tension.” In Indonesia, it’s defined as anything from the proverbial minor headache to attempted suicide.
This prelude made my radio show with Weedy that much more interesting. After fifteen minutes of banter about exercise and keeping a journal to reduce stress, Weedy fielded questions via text message that are automatically relayed into her computer bank. Most of the responses repeated verbatim the recommendations that I had already made – get exercise, keep a journal, be creative, talk to friends, etc. One respondent, though, sent four different text messages, elaborating how he listens to rock music alone everyday after school because he has “stress.” Another, a teenage girl, talked about how she always gets “stress” and eats a lot and sleeps all day. One more respondent replied with a cryptic message about famous people being famous and dying because of “stress.”
In any case, the barrage of slightly off-putting replies got me to thinking on my feet about the Indonesian definition of “stress,” and how one doesn’t really exist here. Many of the respondents indeed were talking about strains or tensions of some sort, but the three mentioned above were definitely getting at something much more sinister. So was the thirty-five year-old mother of three, who came within a hair’s breadth of dying.
I launched into a five minute soliloquy on depression, a term that Weedy and my other co-host, Aji, had never heard about. “Yeah, guys, stress can be stress, or if there’s a lot of stress and it’s really bad and you don’t take care of it, using the ways we talked about earlier, it can turn into something much worse.” If Aji and Weedy’s inquisitive stares were indicative of anything, I thought that I saw a ray of light, that I had gotten through to them. “So the main question we have to ask then, is when does stress become dangerous?”
“Oh, okay, ya, like Kurt Cobain,” replied Weedy. “Maybe I want get depressed also so then I am famous, ya?!”
And that, mercifully, drew our show to a conclusion. “Nick, say hello to anyone listening?”
“Yeah, to all my students at SMA Dua, big up, guys. And Shendi, I know you’re listening because you have absolutely nothing better to do. Keep it easy and don’t stress.”
The “ON AIR” sign switched off, and I received big high-fives from the two pros. “Ya, good broadcast,” said Aji. “Now I go to my wife and children.”