3 Reasons Why Being a TCK is Challenging. (Share your challenges and frustrations here) | TCKID 2.0

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3 Reasons Why Being a TCK is Challenging. (Share your challenges and frustrations here)

Originally published on December 29, 2007 @ 13:01.
This is a writing exercise w/ health benefits. Name 3 reasons Why being a TCK is challenging. (Very popular article with 162 comments)

Do you think being a Third Culture Kid is challenging? Some people seem to think so, but they haven’t been allowed to grieve for their hidden losses. “You lived a privileged lifestyle, what are you complaining about?” parents often remind them.

While there are many positive benefits to a cross cultural childhood, it’s important to acknowledge losses. According to research, when people are given the opportunity to write about emotional upheavals, they often experience improved health.

“Grief is healthy and has a purpose.” writes Tom Query, a counselor who has helped Third Culture Kids and over 1,000 victims from NYC from grief and trauma.

“But why write about negative emotions? Isn’t that a bad idea?”
Pennebaker, a professor in the Department of Psychology at The University of Texas at Austin is a pioneer in the study of using expressive writing as a route to healing. His research has shown that short-term focused writing can have a beneficial effect on everyone from those dealing with a terminal illness to victims of violent crime to college students facing first-year transitions.

“When people are given the opportunity to write about emotional upheavals, they often experience improved health,” Pennebaker says. “They go to the doctor less. They have changes in immune function. If they are first-year college students, their grades tend to go up. People will tell us months afterward that it’s been a very beneficial experience for them.”

What could you explore writing about?

Many Third Culture Kids have expressed having restlessness, a lack of identity, short-term relationships and unresolved grief. It’s not surprising to find out that some TCKs have had to deal with issues like depression, drugs, alcoholism, and self-injury.

-Do you feel like you don’t belong anywhere?
-Do you have short-term relationships and friendships (18 months to 2 years)?
-Do you have a lot of unresolved grief and sadness for breaking off relationships and friendships?
-Do you feel restless and unable to deal with it?
-Have you always felt you never got a say when your parents decided to move?

We have many hidden losses and unresolved grief. It’s time to write about them.

This post is about naming 3 reasons why being a TCK is challenging. Name your losses and allow yourself to write about your deepest feelings.

What did you lose? What are you really angry or sad about? What are your fears? Who hurt you and who did you hurt?

You can express yourself and post anonymously if you want.

The purpose of this post isn’t to neglect the positive benefits of growing up cross culturally, but it’s to help you put your post losses behind so you can use all the rich gifts this experience has to offer.

ON THE POSITIVE SIDE: Top 10 Positive Reasons to be a TCK Read reasons why being a TCK has been a positive experience. Should my children be TCKs?

Popularity: 53% [?]

  • Wow, I try not to think too often about the challenges of being a TCK, I just try to make the best of it... But there are definitely parts of my identity and ways of being that date back to those childhood experiences, some good, some less so...

    The most obvious challenge is the feeling of not being in control of my own destiny. Like a leaf blowing in the wind, I often feel I cannot determine my own future. It took me 10 years to commit to marriage, as I always thought, "We are fine for now, but how do I know how I will feel in a few years time?" Luckily my wonderful rock of a husband was prepared to sit out the course and wait for me to be ready! (We are about to celebrate a double 10: 10 years of marriage and 10 years together before that!) Now we are living in Borneo (because of his job) and I still find it hard to believe that I can create my own future - it so often feels beyond my control...

    The second challenge is to be happy settling for the 'normality' that most people accept willingly in my home country (UK). I stuck to my first 'proper job' in London for 18 months before I resigned, as I couldn't stand the thought of 'life out there' being restricted to one 2-week holiday a year. I still find the island mentality of mainstream UK society narrow and superficial, failing to see the bigger picture of life on our planet, wrapped up in the latest gimmick or gadget and failing to grasp how lucky they are compared with millions of people around the world who have so much less...

    The third challenge is probably the hardest to overcome - the hit to your self-esteem from not fitting in and not having deep, long-term friendships, and the difficulty of making strong friendships with people who do not share those TCK experiences... My brother used to say I was good at making friends but not at keeping them. I miss the known-each-other-since-childhood friendships I see in others around me. (I am, though, now managing to reconnect with some long-ago friends through internet social networks, a source of much joy, when I find those people I remember with affection remember me too, and, yes, they want to be in touch!) And its hard on your self-esteem when 'normal' people with 'normal' childhoods fail to make allowances for the fact that you never watched their TV programmes and think you are showing off when you mention somewhere you have lived - they fail to grasp that for you international travel is about life and not just exotic holidays! That's when the privilege of being a TCK comes back to bite you in the butt!

    Now I am living in Borneo and trying to navigate the TCK issue for the sake of my own kids, hoping to give them some 'out-there' exposure and positive experiences whilst protecting their sense of identity... I am planning to return 'home' in time for them to take back control, put down some roots, decide what they want to do/be, and make strong and enduring friendships.
  • unpreets
    Ok. so what bothers me is that "they" (mono cultural people) are considered "normal" -even by us, and we, tck's, mk's, etc are "abnormal"!!!!!!!!

    I don't want others to have the power of/for/over my life. As Kate Winslet's character said in 'The Holiday' : You're supposed to be the leading lady in your own life, for God's sake!

    So, Normal to me is my life and others life is abnormal because it's not my normal. This helps because I am through living by the world's definition. They can't and shouldn't be allowed to define what they have not experienced ad they have not lived my life. I get to define it.

    So why being TCK is challenging for me is:

    1) The mono-cultural group wants to have control as they are the majority. But 'majority-rule' is abusive to minority. I am a TCK and so I am a minority. I want majority to, in interpersonal relationships at least, care enough to go beyond their 'normal'. STOP ASKING ME TO BECOME LIKE YOU and accept me for who I am and love me for who I am.

    2) I don't want people from my culture to judge me for they way I have changed or adapted to my new home. Many Indians who have immigrated to USA, create a mini-India environment and still try to maintain being mono-cultural in their little enclave. I can't do that. I am just as Indian as I am American. I have Indian friends and white friends. I also have friends of other races. So excuse me for not knowing about every bollywood movie and or Garbha night. I hang with a mixed group and we do mix-group activities and that doesn't make me a BAD INDIAN!

    3) To my dear dad and extended family- I don't care what others "back home" might say about my choices. I can't live by your moral and societal rules as that's not my reality. This is my home. Dad, you may not understand the rules of engagement here or accept them as good but I live here and this is my life. I would have been different if I lived back home but that's not our reality anymore. So allow me to become who I am becoming.

    My past and my present has shaped me as an unique being. Not abnormal but unique, an individual, a true American as i create in this land, just like many others who came to USA over time, my home.
  • greenie
    I'll just do a stream of conciousness post:

    Because I "adapted" and fit in in every new place I moved to I don't think I ever really explored my own identity. So at age 38 I feel like I am just getting into my teenage phase of self discovery. In my youth I yearned to fit in and just observe and survive, while now that I am an adult I want to be heard and achieve what I want but I am having a very hard time expressing myself, and getting what I want...I feel so bitter and frustrated that this is the way I am, and I blame myself, but also my parents for not being more sensitive to a sensitive child's needs and maybe encouraging me to be who I was and to let it grow...I think my family might have wanted me to be a good kid, no trouble, smiling, well behaved always...

    I think being a TCK makes you more of an observer...maybe more sensitive to one's surroundings and environment (physical and emotional/mental)...It's tough to be in a world where individualism is becoming the "way of the world". Being sensitive exposes you to the beautiful and the good, but also the sad, lonely and exposes you to some of the burdens of life that others might look over. This can lead to ruminations which can lead to sadness and depression and a great sense of loneliness.

    I am hoping that I come out of this with a sense of hope and faith in humanity, and that things happen for a reason. Right now, I feel bitter and looked over in life because I was always thinking of others...I am hoping that eventually the benefits will show up....
  • Sacha
    Being able to grieve; what was and what would never be. There are so many losses.

    Not being accepted for who you are as a person; having to explain who you are and where you come from especially if your DNA make-up does not fit the stereo type.

    Not being able to nurture friendship/relationships due to nomadic life style. Sometimes it is lonely out there and it can be hard if you do not have close friends around you. Do you even let yourself to develop close relationships when you know that you will be leaving within the next year or two?
  • eurydice13
    The bad stuff...

    1) You lose all your friends again, and again, and again. This makes you stronger in the long run, and better able to cope with loss and the re-forging of new friendships. But as you live it, it is painful.
    To this day I believe I have maybe 5-6 real friends. Of the kind that I know I can show up on their doorstep one random evening and I'll get a cup of tea and the couch for as long as I need it. And I'd do the same for them. Amusingly enough, ALL are expatriates too...

    2) You become this cross-cultural freak who doesn't belong anywhere but miraculously fits in everywhere. Speaking too many languages, having lived in too many places, and a nomad at heart with little plans of committing to settle down in just one place. You're not even able to have a conversation about real estate because as you were growing up, you didn't even own the bed you slept in...
    I feel much what Bob feels. Moving to a new place and starting over has much more appeal than "going back" anywhere, or staying put!

    3) You get no say in what happens next and when. You're just dragged along like a piece of furniture or an accessory. Not a happy place. Occasionally, you feel worthless.

    4) Bonus round. I _hate_ answering the "where are you from" question. Do you mean: passport, birthplace, accent of currently spoken language, where i live now, where i've lived before...
    Similarly to Karmen, I'm from Athens, but I've lived very little there and barely know it. Thankfully I know the language well, but not all of the idioms and colloquialisms. Tricky.
  • kate
    I wish I wasn't a TCK. I look at my cousins who all grew up in my parents' hometowns, and wish I could be like them. I'm 30, single, alone, and lonely. They all have families of their own now. When I asked my mom why she didn't mind moving away from her family (my grandparents/aunts/uncles/cousins), she said, with obvious satisfaction, "Your dad is my family." But I have never even had a boyfriend for longer than a year, and am starting to feel that I will always be alone-- due to the TCK challenges of:

    (1) No Identity -- I have no roots, as I never lived in my parents' culture but was brought up with that culture in the home and 10 other cultures outside the home. I think this makes it hard to develop relationships with friends/boyfriends, b/c I don't even know who I am.

    (2) In-authentic People Pleaser -- My loneliness and lack of a sense of self or sense of belonging makes me so desperate for friends, and I don't even know who/what I like, that I let people walk all over me, in the hopes that they'll like me.

    (3) Impatient with Ignorance/Maturity Disjoint/Superiority Complex -- At the same time, I get so frustrated listening to my friends talk about politics or religion or social justice issues -- they just have no idea. They feel so passionately about something, and preach to me all about it, but when I try to educate them, they get mad. I have so much perspective, but I can't share it. It just stays bottled up inside me, like everything else.

    In summary, I wish that I was not a TCK. I wish I grew up like my cousins, who are all very settled and happy now, with roots, identities, and families, whereas I'm all alone.
  • Bob
    It's pretty lonely sometimes. I feel I don't fit in with anyone and everyone around me has lacked the sensitivity to accept my unique differences as a result of my dual but incomplete backgrounds. I am afraid of starting relationships because I'm never in one place to keep anything meaningful. This has made me become very independent and resourceful, but also one that's always doing things alone. I frequently eat out by myself. My peers tell me they'll never do that. I see nothing wrong with "Table for one please." Oh well, at least I have the food to accompany me.

    One thing I really envy in other people is how they have all their friends and family in one city, the city where they were born in, one that know like the back of their hand. Curiously, the only thing I want to do now is move to a new place and start all over again.

    Rereading my rant, I noticed my frequent use of words like "one" and "peers" instead of friends. Funny how one feels affects how one writes.
  • ptaylor
    One of my challenges - dealing with the issue of loss.....

    I just turned 48 this summer and found this site. Since reading the posts, listening to the teleconferences, and reading the book "The third culture kid experience", light bulbs are going off all over the place.

    Right now the biggest insight is the incredible amount of loss that I could never acknowledge fully because my monocultural friends, teachers, family members (parents, aunts, uncles, etc.) just could not understand tolerate the fact that I felt such deep loss at leaving my country and repatriating within a few days of graduating from high school. If I said anything about my sadness, it was looked at as a character defect - as if somehow I should just "get over it" and move into the new phase of my life without grieving.

    For many years, every time I've thought about the events surrounding my graduation and leaving, I've been so angry at my parents and at their sponsoring organization. We were packing and washing windows (so as to leave the rental house spotless) on the day of my graduation! Although we did make it to graduation on time, I never got to go to the graduation after parties and never got to really say goodbye to my friends in the way that I wanted to. No amount of begging or pleading could cause my parents to change their minds and let me stay - even a few more weeks - although I had friends whose families had said I could stay with them...

    I was whisked away from all that I held dear and put on the plane and taken to a place I'd never even been before. We went to Alaska for the next 4 weeks because of my parent's work. Alaska is beautiful and interesting, but being dragged there against my will and then told that I was, along with the rest of my family, to represent my parents' sponsoring agency was a bit over the top.

    Flexible as we TCKs learn to be, after a few days, I did "get over it" and enjoyed meeting new people and having new and interesting experiences there. Then after that, I went to a wilderness camp connected with the college I was going to go to- which was really good for me. Then I started college in a new place I'd been a few times, but still was very foreign to me.

    I went to college, graduated, worked, made friends, and - oh yes - changed jobs and apartments every few years - sometimes in the same city, but sometimes not. Sometimes I moved for work or education and sometimes for personal or financial reasons. Most people looking at me would probably say I am a reasonably responsible and successful adult.

    However, over the years, I've struggled with identity issues and having a hard time getting close to people. And I've experienced so many of the other characteristics that make up the "TCK profile", too - both positive and negative.

    I like the fact that Ruth Van Reken says that we are not just tcks - we are people. And it is not just the tck experience that affects who were are. But also, I'm pretty amazed to find that there are so many of us that have had (or are having) so many similar experiences and challenges, too. And I also like the fact that Ruth says that it is never "too late" to go back and deal with unresolved grief and loss.

    I appreciate the book and the website enormously, because as I read everyone's specific experiences, even though they are not the same as mine, there are so many things that ring true. It does give me a feeling a community and belonging. So, thank you Ruth and Brice and all of the others who write and share your struggles and insights. Even if I have to shed a few tears, I know that coming to terms with some of these tck issues ultimately will make me a more complete person and allow me to interact more fully and positively with others.
  • Joy
    I'm a little late in this but can definitely relate to most of these -

    1) Chameleon Tendencies - the desire to feel normal, and fake it in order to feel that way. This irritates me when I do this and at the same time is a defense mechanism. I will sometimes completely gloss over whole sections of my life just that I don't have to explain them. From what some people know - I'm a normal girl from Texas. So its all kept on a surfacy level until I can figure out how well I want to know you..... so in general I can be hard to get to know - and may pretend to be adept in situations that I'm not. Hypocritical - yes - but necessary - also a yes. How can you not sometimes? So, like it or not, there are times when it is just way easier to fake a laugh and pretend I get something than bother explaining why I don't have a clue what is going on. Some consider it lying. I consider it just surviving most of the time - but it drives me crazy nonetheless.

    2) The Infamous "Where are you from" question. I hate it. Because there is no real answer. I'll say where I was born. But then someone will ask about things there - what school did I go to etc. Well.....I left there at 5. "Oh - well then where are you from then?" "Austin" I'll say. "Oh - your family moved there next?" "No - I moved there at 17 to go to UT"........um the question is still not answered. "Where were you from 5 to 17?" "Here and there?" If I get into the details - people get lost.....and confused..... and then blank out. If I don't they can't figure out why this person who claims to be from Texas doesn't have a clue about Texas, left at 5, came back at 17, left at 23 and hasn't lived there in 7 years. But calls it "Home" why? For no other reason than where else am I supposed to call home?

    3) Not understanding the mono-cultural defeatism.....I'll explain. I recently moved to Japan. My TCK friends and some of the more adventurous were all excited - new place to visit for free! My mono friends blinked three or four times and laughed nervously and said they'd see me in 3-4 years. My question is WHY??? (And who said I was coming back anyway??) Is it really that hard to get on an airplane??? I don't know why this was so frustrating as we were preparing to leave - but honestly, it got really annoying. Its Japan - the safest country imaginable (well barring an earthquake now and then). Why is it so hard to go? Or even to CALL? I can't tell you how many people I've lost contact with because they just can't figure out the time differences. How is it that difficult? I think I get frustrated both because I don't understand and because I think its easy. But I can't wrap my mind around where they are coming from at all.

    4) I'll add one more - Restlessness. I can't stay in one place. I have to keep moving. I may absolutely adore the place I'm in (and I love Tokyo right now) but I'll never be able to stay in one place without getting the "itch." I just can't. I've moved ten times in as many years. I can't help it. I changed dorms and roommates every semester or two in college because of boredom. Where does it end? Why is it so bad? Two months without getting on an airplane seems like an eternity.
  • 1) I guess the worst aspect of TCKness, IMHO, is having to cope with so many people who assume that you feel superior to them. Somehow, they convert their own inferiority complex into an assumed superiority complex on your side. Either you hide your TCKness, or you are exposed to the "well, my life is not as interesting" comment or thought.

    2) Definitely, not having a home. While registering on Facebook, when I reached the "hometown" field, my first reaction was "uh, what do they mean ?" I first put the town where I currently live. Then I saw that the French version was "Originaire de:". So I changed it to the place where I was born. But I know that it's misleading. Gliwice is not my hometown, I've been there once or twice since I left it at the age of 5, have no friends or family there, and if I found myself two streets from where my parents and I used to live, I probably wouldn't even recognize it.

    3) Restlessness. Being a rolling stone, without necessarily having the Rockn'roll side of it. :o) "Long-term" means three years or so. Relationships, friendships, flat leases, jobs, everything seems to have an expiry date.
  • wanderlust
    anonymoustck, your English is fantastic, better then most english-speakers, haha!

    To explain, I lived in Germany as an American for 18 years, since birth, then came to America to go to college and, now, start a job in California.

    1. Can't give up material things easily.

    I'm about to trade in my crummy old car for an awesome new little one, with AWD, sunroof, all the neat toys now that I've got my post-college job. The problem, of course, is committing the oldie to death. This car has been with me through it all. It was in Germany with me when I first learned to drive, it's been in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, Luxemburg, Italy, the French, Swiss, and Austrian Alps. Then after me and my family's move to America, it was all over the American mid-west, went coast-to-coast twice. Been in Washington D.C., Chicago, Las Vegas, seen the sands of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, the plains of Kansas, the Mojave desert, the Rocky Mountains. It peddled it's darndest on the Autobahn and the Interstate. In a life after college where I am 100% disconnected from my past with exception to a few scattered phone calls to old friend that have changed beyond recognition, this car has been kind of a sanctuary, as sad as that is. And now it's reaching the end of it's life, and I must part. It reminds me of having to lave most of my stuff in Germany that wasn't worth shipping across the Atlantic. Old toys. Old friends. Old buildings of hundreds or thousands of years of age. It's just another thread, a big thread, connecting me to my old, I dare say deceased life, that I'm about to sever. With a signature. To a smug car dealer who will have it crushed because of it's age... turned into soda cans or something...

    2. Trouble meeting adventurous folks

    I don't mean to insult people, the fact is that many are comfortable right where they are. I'm not though, and never have been. I travel, was raised doing so, and love it with a perhaps unhealthy passion. I've gotten used to doing it cheaply too, using the train systems in Europe, gotten to love light-weight camping, and am fond of cheap, mom-and-pop hotels where breakfast is shared over conversation with said mom-and-pop, all this so I can try to travel more with the same amount. Unfortunately, I can't find a similar person anywhere. Everyone wants their comforts of home, and if they venture from their home, they still want it. Cable TV in hotels. Internet everywhere. A cell phone signal with data support in the wilderness. Camping with giant tents, air mattresses, and nearby electrical outlets. Hotels that better, by the love of god, have a shower curtain and working television or they want a refund! I'm not sure why I seem to be the only person who loved nights in dirt-cheap huts in Switzerland with my dad when I was a kid, with the local entertainment being a local bar with a fussball table surrounded by jovial drunk Brit skiers more then happy to try playing the 12-year-old, but mostly sober American kid.

    3. Novelty vs. Unrelatable

    "Where are you from?" I actually fear this question now, it makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. On one hand, I can say "I grew up in Germany, but I'm an American." This entails the person being taken aback, having themselves lived within the same part of the State since forever, perhaps having taken a few vacations outside American soil. I'm something special that people must either thing makes me an elitist prick or otherwise someone they simply don't want to try understanding, much less being close friends with. I become a fun guy to talk about and be with at certain occasions. I am not the guy they want to hear deep thoughts about repatriation and other stuff that, in all fairness, they can't really understand, and get annoyed as HELL if you try to help them understand, repeatedly, failing, over and over again.

    Or, you don't tell them where you're from. You disconnect entirely and run on a blank slate. You tell them you're from the last place you were, in my case, the state I went to college at. I tell them I have no idea about the big sports team my college or my state has since I'm not very big into sports. I don't even know the existence of certain, otherwise well-known things like certain restaurant chains, gangs, suburbs of such-and-such city in "my home state". I havn't been very into accepted American music, having grown up in Europe, I like a little American stuff and some European stuff that Americans mostly can't stand (some trance, even some europop if I'm feeling nostalgic). I dress fairly simply to make sure I'm fitting in on a minimal level. I become uninteresting, some guy with no clue about life from "my home state". I never try to explain my past life in another country or the essence of my past history from there.

    Damned if you do, damned if you don't. For this latest move, I've embrassed a half-in-half idea that really doesn't seem to work that great. I'll mutter if they ask that I lived in Germany for 18 years before coming here. If they probe, I answer those questions, and when they lose interest, I sink back into my purely Americanized self, and let them know that fact only as a fact, and let them forget that, gee, it might just have some bearing on who I've become!

    Know what, I'm adding a 4th reason...

    4. Superiority complex

    I can't help but feel this way every time I write something like this. "They don't understand, I'm a TCK, I've lived a much more rich life." It makes me sick to my stomach, I don't want to be better then anyone else, and I know I'm not, and I know I shouldn't think so, but from time to time, I cannot help but have my head slip into that gear. I'll hear my sister and my friends talk the same way, and I feel compelled to remind them that we're all just people, and that we need to try to understand and relate to non-TCK's just as we expect the other way around. But damnit, it's so tough to keep that mentality up when it never, EVER seems to make any headway. Seeking humility and accepting my place on this earth and (dare I say) accepting God's apparent intentions is a struggle for me that, I'm glad to say I've been better at achieving on a regular basis lately. I've learned to laugh at a Nazi joke (much more acceptable on this continent then others...), when before I'd get on the soapbox with angry words, pissing off everyone. I've learned to accept that not everyone cares about life abroad, many just want to stay rooted to their rich local tradition. I kinda hope we all can keep a check on our own feelings of being more experienced then others at the expense of being less relatable, and be thankful for what we've gotten, and make the best of things.

    If you can't tell, I am a tad flustered at the moment, hope nobody minds. *steps off the soapbox, heads to bed*
  • Akli
    1- watch that English/French
    Being from a country where French or English are not the official languages, any weird construction, syntax, omission, mispronounced word or stuttering will lead to people asking me every two minutes whether I understand what they're saying.
    2-People assume that I lack common sense
    This is the kind of things some people have told me "in this country when people are seek they go see a doctor", "people don't go to work on weekends", "don't forget to pay for your subway ticket", "when you pay make sure you get the change"
    3- people think I'm weird
    -Dude nice mustache
    -I hope mustaches aren't offensive in your country

    -I don't eat onions, they make me sick
    -does that mean I should not serve onions when I invite people from your country?

    -hahaha that's so funny
    -you have a good sense of humor. I didn't expect that from someone whose country was torn by civil war over the past decade

    TRUE STORY
  • anonymoustck
    Over 12 years of stuttering because of not fitting in.



    ---
    Hi Brice,
    Hope you can understand my English, It's what I learned by myself so I hope everything is understandable.

    I think my story is maybe a bit different because there are 2 other factors in my life that makes my life even more difficult.

    You may reconsider your promise of reading every email if they are all this long ;-)
    I lived in Oman, Irak, and Saudia Arabia with my parents up until I was 13. I loved it there. I can't Imagine a better childhood than the one I had. That is the first 13 years. The rest was not a pleasant experience to say the least.
    I never went to school when we lived in the Middle East. All studies were done via mail and came from the ministry of education in Belgium. My mother was also my teacher... if she had the time that is.
    My fathers career was the bigest focus of my mother. I can remember that she was always preparing some big party to get my father introduced to the write people. So many times we were left wandering on ourselves, wich ment no school at all and that was fine for me :-) My mother also had a very different idee of how to raise children. She believes in a free way of raising children. Wich in many ways ment 'no' upbringing. A child can only develop it's natural capabilities if it's not suppressed by adults she thinks. In theory this sounds very good but in reality there are many drawbacks. I didn't know what it's like to listen and do what an adult tels me. And on top of that I have ADHD wich my mother also refuses to give me medication for because se believed that this would also surpress any natural development of a child.

    At age 13 we came back to Belgium.
    So there I was in Belgium in a real School (even a boarding school!) for the first time in my life. Here all of a sudden I had to listen to what adults told me to do.
    You can imagine it didn't go well and I hade real problems to fit in. I had been kicked out of 7 schools when I reached the age of 18. The day I got the be 18 was also my last day of school, with no degree whatsoever.
    The only job I could get back then was working in a factory. That also didn't went wel. I think I must have worked in at least 20 different jobs by the time I was 24 and I was feeling deeply depressed. From the time I was 13 when we came back to belgium I had begin to develop a speaking disorder, apparently because I couldn't handle everything. When I was 24 I stuttered so bad that I could hardly speak anymore. Today almost all of my stuttering is gone as I began to think a lot and understood from where it was all coming and starting to accept things for what they are.

    Back when I was 24 the internet was starting to develop. I saw a big opportunity here in designing websites, creativity had always been my biggest capability. Designing websites was so new that there was no degree for this so me not having one I hoped wouldn't be that much of a problem. I talked it over with my father and he also believed it was a good idee. He bought me an Apple computer I couldn't afford myself back then but it was the computer you needed to have to do graphic design work. I also stopped working in the factory's and I got my self a licens to work as a freelancer. The beginning was far from easy, I had to learn everything myself and I didn't have any money. But I hanged in there and it did work out in the end.
    Today I work as a senior Motion Graphic Designer at Agency.com Brussels. I'm a full time freelancer at this company for the last 5 years, I have a really nice income and I work for mayor international clients. I worked really hard to get this and I'm good at what I do so I should be happy where I ame now. But I'm not. I want to walk away from it all and do something else. And this isn't the first time. Back when I was working in the factory I was also a semi profesional snooker player. I put years of hard work in my snooker, but when I started to get really good at it I walked away from everything and start to do something completely different. Same with the job I have now. I'm going to walke away from something I worked so hard for to do something completely different I know nothing about. Now I want to start up a small company that designs and makes leather laptop sleeves and bags, and I know absolutely nothing about this leatherbag business. It may seem strange and foolish to leave everything you worked for and are good at behind, but this is what I know and in a strange way I feel familier with, this is what I always have done. Except that it's painful because it's something I worked so hard for. I still cry sometimes that I left my snooker and never looked back to it. And I aslo cry now that I realise I'm going to do the same again with my present work. But if I stay and do where I ame now I'm unhappy to.

    I'm a bit afraid to seek contact with other TCKA people because what if I can't even relate to these people? Many things I read on the website I do relate to. But for me it doesn't stop there. There are 2 other big thing wich causes a lot of problems for me in fitting in, making friend and keeping friends I think. It's not having a proper upbringing by my parents together with having ADHD. It's like our family lawyer once sad to a friend of mine when he was talking about our family, 'the mother can not be tamed, and the children, they are like wolfschildren'. He didn't say it in a bad way. But I think his observations are right. So maybe it's not only me who has it difficult in keeping friends, but it's aslo true that it's not easy to be a friend and stay a friends with me for other people. I think many times people don't know what to think of me, they don't seem to be able to get a grip on me an place me.
    I'm an observer and a thinker like may TCKs. Maybe a bit to much of a thinker because the outcome is many times not that pleasant. Thinking a lot develops very strong believes, principles and values. This is fine, accept I also think it's this that makes it very difficult for other people to stay friends with me. I can easily make friends with Belgium people but after a period of time I can't stay friends with them.
    Many times it comes to a confrontation I'm so deeply hurt in my believes, principles and values by these friends that I can't be friends with them anymore. The person in question does not even understand why. Not all people think as much as I do and are therefore many times unaware of what they are doing and why I can't be friends with them anymore.
    This makes it very difficult for me to have a feeling of home.
    For me home is not a physical place. I feel home wherever I know there are people who truly care about me and I about them. Home is a constancy in your life wich you know is always there no mater what. But I can't find constant friends, they always come and go. Therefore It's difficult to have a real feeling of home.

    -----

    My stuttering began when I was 13. At first it was not so bad and I could keep it much under control so people wouldn't notice it. As adapting and trying to fit was more difficult each year it got worse. I remember when I was 16 a teacher in class asked a question to me. It was really simple, everyone in the class knew the answer and so did I but couldn't say the word. The teacher waited for the whole class hour for me to say the answer. I sat there all this time in my seat with everyone in a painful silence waiting for it to be over. It was only at the last minutes I couldn't take it anymore and I broke out in tears.
    when I was around 18 it was again more easy to keep it under control when I felt a bit better because I made some friends here in belgium who I had a nice time with, even if it was only on a very shallow level. It was a few years later when it went very bad when I started to realise that I had no education what so ever and that it was not going to be easy to get out of the life I was living. The friends I had were all doing drugs and so was I. The older I got the more I started to have difficulty what I was doing and the people I was associating with. I was 24. So I cut them of in my life all at once. This was very hard, it was a time that I had no friends what so ever. It was also the first years as a freelancer and in the beginning I had no experience and no or very little work. All of a sudden I also had to talk to people with I higher education and I felt very much inferior to them. I remember those years very well because at one stage it was so bad I could hardly speak. I felt very unhappy and depressed. When I was talking I was thinking about these things that made me feel depressed and it made my brain and talking organs completely out of sync.
    The next years my stuttering gradually got better as I made some new and different friends than I had before. My work as a freelancer also started to go very well, and when I was around 30 I was working for all the big clients I always believed I had the capabilities to work for.

    Today I think people who know me can still recognize some stuttering, but it's more a habitual left over. If I really wanted to I could speak without stuttering but I don't care that much anymore. When I was younger I felt very ashamed for it but now I don't anymore, and with that thought it gradually went away. Getting older makes you accept tings more like they are. I'm 36 now.
    Lately I feel that some of my stuttering is coming back a little bit from time to time because I'm very much in the same situation as I was so many years ago when I was doing it so much. I feel again very restles because of all the changes that have happend lately and are going to come. Like before I felt that a lot of people I was friends with were not really my friends and I had to break with them. But a very few are still there this time, so it's not that bad. Also I realised that the job I worked so hard for is coming to an end and that I have to leave it behind in search for something else. But also this is not the end because for each loss there is place for something new and different. It's still hard because you step in the unknown and you don't know what it's all going to lead to but then you realise that you have been here many times before. It doesn't give you any guarantees but it helps.
    Of course you have my permission to share my mails if it can help people.
  • Zoe
    Burden....

    Someone gave me a awesome quote:

    "Any burden is a resource; any resource is a burden"......

    I like the quote, despite of hating the person who gave it to me!!!

    He doesn't believe in TCKness!!!!

    ????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ?!!!!!!!..........?`?´+?
  • Martin
    Sven, I am aware of the difficulties you and I experience and that we do not have any ready-to use answers. I just noticed that this feeling of fatigue and a good deal of hopelessness which I share with you (because I am in the same boat) has become amblified and it impacts my work and relationships. People say: "You are different today! What´s up,now?" The reaction usually comes not from monocultural guys but foreigners.
    With regard to your question: Unfortunately, I have been single all my life. I am surrounded by twin sisters who came from Turkey (I "am incarcerated" in Germany). My life has had some nasty turns and twists. When your children start their own lives then you will have time to do some of the things you have not done for ages, like some of your favorite pasttimes. I think everyone has something along that line. You will keep some form of contact and will be able to develope other skills beyond that. I, for instance, have been using my time for reading and translating. I do have some projects on the backburner which, given the health and strength, I can still pursue. Maybe this will help you a little. Please feel free to come back and give me a feedback. Thanks and God bless
  • Sven
    Experiencing fatigue from the stress-points ("weird-points"?) between me and the monocultural environment - I'm definitely experiencing that.

    And it becomes more evident as I enter the life phase where I'm busy building a family.

    But I don't know if I have any real suggestions. At present I feel the temptation to retract from parts of my social life, for lack of positive feedback.

    What if I choose to do so? Would that make me feel any better handling my monocultural surroundings? How about when my kids grow up and leave? Any experiences?
  • Martin
    I was wondering whether there are people out there who experience a nagging sense of fatique, the type of being drained after you have spent decades struggling with circumstances or fighting battles between self and your environment. I am an ATCK (62) and am in such a situation. It would help me tremendously if someone came forward and contact me on this issue. A response is for sure to come. My e-mail: MJaeschke25@aol.com. Thanks alot.
  • (mono parents who don't believe in TCKness)
  • Oops!~

    I forgot

    all should be "plural"

    Repatriations, expatriations, parents
  • Repatriation, expatriation, parents

    Clear and short!!~~
  • MochiGreen
    1. Identity
    Its annoying sometimes to be treated as "foreigner" wherever I go
    Koreans who lived in Korea/Asians who lived in Asia countries all their lives see me as "American"
    I think the reason is that I have become more Americanized
    through my Asian-American friends, since I barely hang out with
    Koreans while living in Bangladesh and U.S.
    Americans (especially 'white-washed' Asian-Americans) see me
    as "International student" "foreigner" "fob" blah blah
    I am told that I have American accent when I speak Korean, whereas I am told that I have Korean accent when I speak English
    (what the hell? haha)
    Even some Koreans who live in States told me later that
    they assumed I was second generation, aka Korean-American lol
    I'll just end with summary that I don't fit in perfectly in both
    countries, even though I am bilingual and know both cultures
    pretty well :)


    2. Indecisiveness
    I don't know where to live after college graduation. I don't
    want to stay in CA after college graduation since I have tendency to be irritated at the thought of living in one place for rest of my life. Still, I am not sure if I should stay in States or move back to
    Korea and find a job here (since finding a job in U.S. with foreign passport is hard due to crappy economy) or just go to graduate school in other Asian countries, other than Korea.

    3. People
    They, including most of my friends and family, don't understand the feeling of rootlessness I have. (sighs) Sometimes, I get
    the vibe that most of them force their western values or Asian
    values on me, expecting me to act 100% American or 100% Korean, and roll their eyes when I refuse to act like it and try to blend both cultures (with some other cultures added) in my own way (although I lean more toward Asian ways).
  • rafael
    Hey Bobby, I know how you feel.
    People see some trait in you, say the way you dress or speak, and they readily label you as belonging to a culture that in their eyes is represented by that characteristic. In itself that doesn't pose such a big problem, but then people start associating you in many situations with that culture, and make assumptions about you or expect you to represent that culture in the way the news portray it.
    I could imagine people constantly asking you to give your opinion on U.S.A. politics(Obama and such), when you aren't even interested in it; or they criticize Guantanomo Bay, and then look at you as though you were responsible.

    I think we all went through that quite intensely during school, and I'm afraid there isn't any one solution. Understanding TCK identity isn't simple, and not many people are complexity-lovers, so they much more prefer to label and make assumptions about you than actually try to understand... I can only advise you to stick to the handfull of people you can call your friends, and not to worry too much about what the rest think. If you don't feel like changing the mind of the majority of your peers, I think you are perfectly entitled to straight forward ignore such oversimplistic cultural classifications.

    Being a TCK is something that pays off in the long run - even though it doesn't make life simpler. I can't recall having ever heard from an Adult TCK that they regret having grown up as a TCK.
    Enjoy the good sides of your life, and don't spend too much time getting angry at people for their shortcomings. Take care, and I hope to see you around.
  • Bobby
    I'm half British half American but becuase of my dads job, i have never lived in the U.S or England, and i have changed countries every 3 years.
    What I hate the most is that becuase of my accent and appearence, i am percieved as American the problem is, i don't consider myself American as most of my views and traditions are not the common American ones nor do i act or think like the "avarage" american teenager, I hate being embarrassed about being an American citizen becuase of the bad publicity
    My family has picked up traditions from all the countries we have lived in and we carry them with us. I speak to people my age who have only lived in the U.S and they seem so much more ignorant at times and it frustrates me that i have to be assiciated with this nationality as much as it sucks being a TCK, im glad i didnt have to grow up in the U.S, beinf sheltered from the reast of the world and only influenced by the American government and the media
  • Fernweh
    1. Trust issues-you know they will forget you once you leave, so why bother investing in the relationship now anyway?

    2. Not belonging anywhere, but getting along with everyone one the surface.

    3.Contentment- face it, you KNOW there is somewhere better than where you are at. (Of course, nowhere is perfect and you have to choice your evil, but who thinks about that when they get the feverish wanderlust)
  • Carrie
    Has anyone here even found themselves being the informational "welcome wagon" to newcomers in your community? Much like the sponsor family for military families, I find myself giving out all kinds of helpful information about my community to new people that have moved here that I meet via the homeschool group I belong to or other forums or venues.
    I don't expect these people to befriend me, I just disseminate information to them to help them adust to living in my community. People did that for my family when we moved within the military so I seem to enjoy doing that for others now that I am an adult. I think it is because as a TCK, I learned to find out all the cool stuff about wherever I lived fast so I could adjust fast; most non-TCks just seem to have no clue how to do that so I help them. Anyone else here do this?
  • Carrie
    Nausika,

    Could you please explain what a "transactive relationship" is? I have tried looking it up but got no results. The term sounds interesting. Thanks in advance.
  • Carrie
    1. Unlike many TCKs, I have found a place I like living at and have wanted to stay here. I have been here, in Flagstaff, AZ USA for 11 years and I LOVE it. That's not to say I feel close to anyone. After 11 years I still have no close friends I can call up to comisserate with. People seem to either resent my different-ness or want to be like me so they attach to me like emotional vampires, trying to abuse my good nature until I am exhausted.

    2. Being a TCK means I have parented my kids very differently and as such, THEY don't have a lot of close friends, either, despite the fact that they have lived here in Flagstaff for most of their lives. I think like a European (meaning I lean democratic socialist) but I am a bit conservative so I don't push my kids to grow up too fast. I stay at home, unlike so many American women that work and I put my kids before my own desires, unlike a lot of American adults whose values seem to be "me, me, me." This preoccupation and focus on adult desires is why American education systems are so low compared to their European and Asian counterparts; in Asia and Europe, parents actually value their kids more and invest in them. I feel like my TCK-ness has affected my kids and I wonder if it is a good thing.

    3. I married a non-TCK but we are doing very well, so maybe it is because part of my life (from age 7-14) I was not a TCK and that made me slightly less TCK than many that spend their entire childhoods being TCKs. In my small town, I have not found any TCKs though I would like to network. I tried but my post was removed so I am going to have to try to find them another way. I am an older TCK (49) that still has kids (4 of them) at home that I am parenting (3 are teens, one a kid) so I don't fit in with my peers who have grown kids by now and are often in the grandparent stage. I just don't fit into ANY real category, not even TCKs totally. I feel so lonely a lot.
  • anonymoustck
    PS cf Ayako's comment: I have a French passport and my first language is English.... and it pisses me off that I have to take a Cambridge exam to prove it!
  • anonymoustck
    I think a lot of valid points have been made here. For me, two things stand out. The first is what Maija said about the phone bill problem. Haha. I mean, we should get our TCK butts into gear and start a damn international phone company and have it be easy to get free international calls (i know packages like this exist, but i need more than one country on my favourites list for inexpensive calls!) Secondly, I cannot imagine living in one place for more than 4 or 5 years. I am already restless after 2 years in Spain. I feel I have this constant thirst to immerse myself in totally other cultures, the more 'dépaysant' (disorientating, different) the better. I want to feel the culture shock!! NB I completely agree with the idea that TCKs relate best to other TCKs. All my best friends are TCKs. That's kind of my home, being with them, wherever we are.

    And sometimes I do feel guilty, or just sucky, about being so lucky and seeing so much. I've run into pure incomprehension of what being a TCK is, I've had a lot of people be envious... and more than once I've felt pity (which i also feel bad about, obviously) towards people who've lived in one place forever. But I don't feel as much pity for them as for people who have no curiosity about travelling. That's sad.

    Thanks for listening!
  • nausika
    Well, being a sojourner obviously has some trade-offs.
    Some of the drawbacks are
    1) Out of sight, Out of mind.
    For this reason, I lost many friends, including girl-friends.
    2) Feeling of unrootness.
    I feel I can belong anywhere but at the same time I feel I do not belong anywhere.
    3) Transactive relationship
    I am not sure whether this is attributable to being a TCK. but because the relationship tends to become a short one, I tend to have a transactive relationship with other people. and it is hard for me to build a long term relationship with others.
  • Cindy Zoe
    Mayling!!!!

    Wow!

    I LOVE ur three reasons!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!~~~~~~~~~~~

    BTW!!!~~ I have live in Nicaragua for SIX yrs!!!
    Been travelled to Costa Rica too XDD!!!

    JAJAAJAJ!!!~~

    I went to ANS, u know it?!

    Da American Nicaraguan School!!!!!!!

    So I know da Nica culture AND da American culture (while not fitting in totally in either!!!)

    BTW, my parents r from Taiwan
    It really SUCKS actually........
    Ppl here (i'm in Tw now!).... simply....... OMG!!!

    they driving me NUTS here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!XDDDDDDDDDDD

    Serious!!!!
  • Martin
    Ranilla, it´s a fact for us TCKs or ATCKs that when you look back and see all the things that have happened, that you tend to be regretful and say: "If only...." that is something that I experience constantly. I am (still) single and have hit the sixty mark two years ago and it is painful. So just to encourage you, I sympathize with you on the issue of relationships and belonging.
  • ranilla
    P.S. your parents sound like real selfish bastards, pardon my French
  • ranilla
    To DBJR (and all TCKs).

    In my opinion, you are on to possibly the most important thing of all. When I was moving around as a kid, I developed, as you say, REACTIONS to the constantly changing reality around me. As I grew older, I didn't know that I had developed these strategies for dealing with everything in my life. Even though they helped we through it all as a child, those strategies are unhealthy and I had to stop. I had to learn how to listen to the, as you say, INSIDE, real feelings, deep feelings, and from there take (as you say) ACTION according to what makes me happy. It's the most basic thing, but some of us didn't get the chance to learn that early on. Keep it up!
  • Twiga
    1. Short relationships and trouble with shallow ones
    Due to the fact that I constantly keep moving and never really seem to settle in one place, I always have to say goodbye to my friends. I tend to always greet people with a sense of openness, treating them as though I have always known them and expect deep and intense relationships to be established within weeks, instead of years which is usually the case.

    2. Not feeling at home anywhere (... but the world)
    Wherever I am, whether it be the country I grew up and where my dad is from, or the country where my mum is from, or the country I spent quite some childhood years, I call all of them my home and can't decide for a single one. I feel most at home when I am travelling.

    3. People don't understand me - I'm different, but they can't put a finger on the how
    The most recent example was, when a friend of mine introduced me to her friends who'd been living the city I currently live in all of their lives and I said to them "it must be really nice growing up in a certain city and having friendships there with people you have known all of your life." They looked at me rather puzzled -it was normal to them.
  • Martin Jaeschke
    All of the above comments make me feel I belong to this bunch of like-minded. My points are similar to those of the others, e.g John, Majia.
    1. You have to struggle with loneliness. I have had some good long-term friends. If they were mono-cultural, they by and large shared the same fate being marginalized, having some problems of their own past to content with. So you had some common denominator. However, they did not (and usually do not) understand your own pressing needs: unresolved grief, restlessness, not fitting in and the like.
    2. In bygone years I was troubled when people slighted me or shunned me altogether. This is a common recurrence even today. People, especially from your family or those you appreciate most, do tend to do or say things that open up old wounds of hurt and I sometimes don´t know how to deal with them. They are still hurting.
    3. Being embedded in a social group, feeling wanted or loved is one of my greatest challenges. Not because, it is so difficult but because I am helpless and don´t know what to do about it. This is where you need someone who will offer you a pair of crutches so you can kind of walk around and don´t have to feel utterly useless.
    4. The sense of loss of the environment where you grow up. I catch myself frequently going back to pictures from the times I spent in Papua New Guinea as an MK. My parents were missionaries there. I attended boarding school for MKs. I am especially disturbed by the fact that my current life has been so empty and unfulfilling. I simply have not been able to get my foot on the ground. It is like you have a junk of food in your mouth and just aren´t able to swallow it. It is kind of stuck in you throat and seems to be there for the long hall, maybe for the rest of my life. Some years, when it was the beginning of the week I found myself automatically thinking that this week will bring the necessary breakthrough and I will find a good job and calling. At the end of the week I saw myself in the same situation as I was on Monday. It was so tough and frustrating.
    Today I am emotionally so drained that sometimes I just let myself go and do as little as possible. After all, nobody wants me and that mediocre work that I do...who can be bothered. Oh yes, I put on my best mask when being around people, so that they don´t get to see my inner turmoil (anger, bitterness, frustration etc. but also sleeping disorders and the like.
  • Paul
    I am 52 now and work for a major airline. I was born in Florida and lived there until I was five. My dad went to work as an Electrical Engineer for the U.S. Civil Service when I was 4. We lived in Washington D.C. Paris, and Germany before ending up in Alabama in 1967 during the Civil rights movement. I become a great patriot of this country when I was overseas and love it more than most. I only wish it loved my as much as I love it.

    #1 Never feeling like people except you or you fit in. I live and Oklahoma and people I work with dont know how to take me. I use to ask a friend from Texas why they treated he and I so differant. He would always smile and say "its cause we aint from
    round here paul." I find I fit in better with people from other cultures than my own. I have even gone to family reunions with people I have known for years and felt like an outsider. It suck felling lonley all the time.

    #2 Trust issues I tend to trust people to much or not at all. #$%$ I just dont try anymore to make freinds with "normal people" most of the time. Because it ends up being a disater.

    # 3 Being thought of as weird or "gay" . Sorry if you are gay, no offence intended . But everyone in Oklahoma not like everyone else is consider "gay". I have always been a hetrosexual , however I often make mistakes in conversation in the past and say things that are commonly considered taboo or "Gay" then I get label as weird or "Gay" which is the kiss of death for any normal social life.
  • maria yabes
    1. You don't have long-lasting relationships with friends nor family; basically having no real best friends in the end.
    You always move a LOT. LOT LOT LOT.
    2. You feel lost even after bonding with your "foreign" culture friends, (whether local schools or international schools, you can't fit in) and also the language barrier/mentality of which to use.
    3. You wanna be so independent that you wanna fit in with your passport/birth certificate country but you still have the ways or habits of where you grew up in.
  • Sally
    I think one of the hardest challenges is that family is spread across the world my brother was nine (he is now 49), when we moved to Taiwan, then Malaysia he went to Uni in Haiwaii and has never really returned home to Australia. My sister has also become a gobal nomad. So all getting together is quite hard. But I would not change all my experinces.
  • Stephen
    The challenge of finding a place you fit. Any place can be your home if you find the right people (or person) For me at least, its the best I can find. Culture, nationality, all of those are so mixed up there's no way any person can be content with just one of them, not after everything.

    The biggest challenge... is staying positive, not letting that sense of feeling like you're alone, or have no 'home' eat you alive. For us, a sense of self is the only thing we have.
  • Cindy Zoe
    EVERYTHING!!! EVERYTHING!!! EVERYTHING!!!!

    GOSH!!!!!!!!!!!1

    1) PARENTS!!!(None of them is TCK and they get NOTHING absolutely!!!)

    2) Peers! Trends!

    3) B4 recently (19) I feel that I am just "weird", not knowing that I am actually NORMAL!

    More normal than non-TCKs actually!

    For they are the one that are too IGNORANT, OKAY!?!??!
  • beth
    OH man,
    I love reading these passages. I am 51 and have been in American well over 35 years now, however, I can honestly say, it is an issue I struggle with, still.
    It was not until this year when I was introduced and read TCK by Ruth that I finally had found myself in the pages of her wrting of essentially "our " expereinces. Her collection of thoughts and feelings, of the roads travelled by all of us, was so heartwarming.. the "ah" feeling rushed over me like a high I have never expereinced from any drug.

    Not having had a medium, such as the internet and immediate access via phones , and only having the use of snail mail was by and far the hardest thing I ever went through. I might as well have had an arm and leg taken away from me, my heart and soul ripped from my body.

    Today, as I look at my life, I understand that my choices have been such because of my background, but not consciously at all.
    I chose eventual work within the spectrum of Special education,
    these individuals NEVER feel comfortable or often never feel comfortable in their own skin until ( if they are able ) they are taught a means of coping,
    I also chose to work in a primarily Latino community... demographically very poor , and very transient.

    Today, and each day I am becoming more comfortable about sharing my experiences; however, one of my challanges is to educate those around me, including teachers who are educating children, about countries and continents, not american.
    I recently was stunned when a special ed teacher with a master's degree asked me what it was that they did in Africa to celebrate
    Thanksgiving.. for those of you unfamiluar with thanksgiving, this is an american tradition celebrating the founding of America..
    I was stunned
    so I think one challenge is not to be offended by such statements, and not to reverse the standoffishness ( for lack of a better word ) that was presented to me as a kid/adult, but instead to embrace that lack of knowledge and transform it to knowledge.. to educate the uneducated..in that area.
    The other challenge is to continue to allow myself to connect to
    other TCK believe it or not, simply because for the sake of survival I buried my past ..never to allow it to surface, accept when it came to my immediate famil
    Thirdly, to learn that is okay to like some things about this country, particularly now, with a new administration in place.
    I love this line:
    "The think I find the most challenging about being a TCK, is the part about being a foreigner in your own country and not belonging anyplace"
    I felt that way my whole life. I was a white skinned, with a somewhat british accent, from Africa..I did not belong anywhere.
    As an adult, this was confirmed when i went to get a copy of my social security card.. I could not get one, they said, until I found my birth certificate ( I, like many of you was registered as an American Citizen at the Embassy in Mali, West Africa ) becuase they said, I was a "citizen of nowhere". I politely smiled and thought , I have none this my hole life, lol
    I then asked them for all my money back :)
    In america we pay into SS from the day we begin working.. they have alot of money from me, :)
    They politely said, no.

    Being a third cultured kid is not easy, but i am finding now, that I have at 51 begun to embrace it. I am now trying to start a group at my college, where so many students are actually TCK 's and probably don't know they are. They deserve that, "ah" feeling too
  • Molly
    My biggest burden would have to be continually mourning the losses I have had through growing up overseas. I will always miss each place I have lived and this homesickness will never go away. I do not know how to get rid of it, and I forever feel as though I wont be complete since each place has a part of me now. I wish I could live everywhere I grew up to satisfy that need, but I know that's not realistic. Due to this I am never satisfied with life, once I do something, I'm ready to move on to the next thing. I've recently moved back to Texas after being in college in Rhode Island, and now I'm ready for the next thing, which for me is teaching English in Thailand. I am only nervous because I worry I will grow restless there, too...
  • Ayako
    1.. I can't work in countries where my best language (English) is the main language because of my passport.

    2. I can't live in a country where I'm comfortable with the culture because of my passport.

    3. When well-meaning people 'racial profile' me in an attempt to strike-up a friendly conversation or understand me - everything is WRONG and I don't know what to say.
  • Martin Jaeschke
    It´s good to hear all those voices of like-minded people, (A)TCKs, and discover that there are things we certainly share in common. Looking back over the past 40 odd years I could not really enjoy being TCK because I was most of the time busy in trying (at least making an attempt) to accommodate myself to a society which had no incentive to reach out to you, no matter where you came from and how long you stayed their. They never paid much attention to it. So I was basically left to myself without really understanding what was going on in me and why people looked and took you as though you were pathologically different.
    Today I know more about being a TCK but the situation still remains the same: noone to talk to and exchange ideas; the grief still deep down in my heart and having no idea how to resolve it if ever. One thing that makes me feel a little better is that I have other TCKs/ATCKs who share the same dilemma. I appreciate this especially after having been treated as a contaminated human being. Occasionally I come across people who might have seen some positive traits in me and are willing to enter some sort of (limited) dialogue.
  • tck123
    1.) not being able to really be myself in my home country because no one understands that is how i really am, they think i am putting on an act to seem cool/different, but they do not understand i just grew up in a different culture from them, although I look american, I do not identify with american culture at all

    2.) being honest with myself and relationships about what i really want - what happens when you find a relationship you are super happy with, but they do not want to ever live outside the states for more than 1 year?

    3.) Not being sure what I want myself or who I am
  • Elisa
    The think I find the most challenging about being a TCK, is the part about being a foreigner in your own country and not belonging anyplace. For example: as soon as I tell non TCK Americans that I grew up abroad, they start treating me in bizarre ways, they start speaking condescendingly to me or say things about me not being a "Real American", hearing this pains me because I don't feel anything but American, and it makes me think: "If I'm not American, what am I? Where do I belong?"
  • ikaruga
    Feeling frustrated and even angry, trying to fit into American groups---I can very much relate to that! I work for a very small organization in the US where I am the only "foreigner"/TCK. It's tough. A long period of confusion about who I am (Japanese or American) was followed by adding more flavors to it (stints in Africa, Asia and Europe), and at that point, I realized that I can only be what I am, I do not have to squeeze myself into a pre-made box and I will still be okay. Frankly, my colleagues' behavior and conversations do not make sense to me, particularly their reference to things foreign and American pop culture (which I have scant knowledge of). I try to be polite and friendly (of course, it does not mean that I am indeed polite and friendly...), but because they do not make too much sense to me, I keep a courteous distance. I do not want to pass judgment; if I do, I want to keep it to myself. However, I get a strong feeling that they think I am stuck-up. That itself is not that bad (really!). The bad part is that they do not understand that I am comfortable in my own way. They seem to think that I would be a back-slapping type, just as they are, if I am feeling comfortable, but I cannot bring myself to be one and I don't want to be one. And, they hold it against me. Why can't we have good professional relationships *independent of* personal feelings? Yes, it was bad at work, today...
  • A.D.Watkins
    Here are my three reasons.

    1. Lack of Absolutes and Taboos

    A child who grew up around nudists would not have the same body and clothing taboos that most of "civilised society" does. As someone who grew up and through many cultures I lack a lot of the moral absolutes and taboos that those around me consider normal because I didn't get that same cultural brainwashing. To some drinking alcohol at every meal is completely normal, to others its a serious problem that I should address. Some cultures insult your "manliness" some insult your ancestry and some insult your mother. I occasionally give "playful ribbing" that is seen by others as "scathing attack". In short though I live in the culture, I am not always of the culture and it shows.

    2. Tangled webs of obligation and debt.

    Everyone agrees that if someone helps you, you should help them in return. It's the basis of polite society, but how exactly you are obliged to repay them and to what extent varies wildly and I can never quite get it right. If someone loans me ten dollars... Thats easy, its a nice abstract number. But if they give me a ride to the airport, what is the equivalent in lunches or drinks at the bar to repay the favor? A poor example maybe but differing value systems make it hard to nail down.

    3. Being one of a kind.

    I've seen tshirts that say, "I live in my own little world, but it's ok, they know me there." A lot of times I feel I do live in my own little world. I'm the only one exactly like me. People make friends and form associations based on shared experiences and shared pain. No one else has been through the same things I have so how can I really belong? I understand intellectually of course that other people have similar experiences, but they didn't go through them with me. The people who were "there" aren't here and the people who are here weren't "there".
  • KikiC
    Wow. It was good to come to this forum today and read some of these entries. At least there is a "safe" place where it is okay to be a TCK.

    It's been a rough day--actually a rough season--where I have felt pigeonholed and misunderstood. Sometimes it's tough being a TCK married to a non-TCK. The Christmas holidays with extended family were brutal. I often feel confused and unable to understand or fit into this culture. To be honest, I'm not even sure I LIKE American culture. I find it somewhat consumeristic, self-absorbed, and ethno-centric.

    And yet I'm not fully African either, especially since my skin is white. I was born in Zimbabwe, spending 8 of my 17 years in the bush, and attended International School in South Africa for two years as well. Culturally, I think I'm more African that I am American.

    But my parents were missionaries, which brings prejudice against me from the African side. I know the hearts of my parents, and that they love the people of Zimbabwe and went there with the purest of intentions---even risking their own lives through the war to do the best they could to fight injustice.

    However.....it doesn't make a difference in Zimbabwean circles. When I've tried to join in with Zimbabwean groups, I'm ostracized for being white and an MK. Some of the hateful comments I hear by people who don't even know my parents hurt deeply. They were not white colonialists. My dad was even on a hit list for two years, and two of my homes were mortared after we managed to safely evacuate. We were targeted there for being American.

    But when I try to fit into American groups, I just don't fit culturally. I get frustrated.....even angry......that they seem to care so little about the rest of the world.....especially Zimbabwe.... since the crisis there is on the forefront of my mind. I've tried to raise support, political intervention, money, and awareness for Zimbabwe---yet only a handful of people seem to care enough to respond. Even my closest acquaintances just don't get it.

    I've found that my best friends are TCKs from completely different cultures. My closest friends in the last three places I've lived have been from Uganda, Taiwan and Indonesia. The only frustrating thing with that is they seem able to find communities from their own cultural background, and I can never find mine. So while they are typically my "best" friend, I'm further down on their friend list after those from their own cultural group.

    It just feels like I'm stuck in limbo somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean and will never fit anywhere.
  • I fully agree with the writing thing. Whether or not anyone ever reads it is irrelevant. It does the same as using someone as a sounding board only you dont' feel any level of restriction. As for being a TCK, while it's introduced unique personality challenges I wouldn't trade it for the world because I've done things most haven't. Most importantly, I likely wouldn't have gotten as far mental maturity wise in life as I have. I've said it before and I'll say it again, American schools suck in general and this country's values are so bassackwards to the point that we focus on winning the lottery or building up our bank accounts well before we consider helping the healthcare and education systems. Doctors should NOT be afraid of their patients because something happened, but if they screw up they should help resolve it. Teachers should CARE and not be afraid to look at a student wrong for fear of sexual abuse accusations or being shot by a gang banger....I'm sure there is more but it's 2am :-p
  • cami
    Great topic!! When we repatriated to the Philippines from the US (I was 13 and angry that I didn't get to go to high school with my friends) my mother told me I'd thank her someday; and that my brothers and sisters and I would be more open-minded than people who never got to travel like we did.

    Thirty years and several cities and countries later, I am grateful for my upbringing, but am aware of some challenges:

    1. Keeping feelings to myself and not allowing myself to get too attached to things or people. I've lost a few friends because they couldn't understand my tendency to withdraw whenever I started feeling "suffocated" (having said that though, I really love being alone sometimes)

    2. I can't stay put for more than six weeks at a time, even if it means just hopping on a 40-minute ferry ride to Indonesia for a day.

    3. When I'm in the US or Europe visiting, I'm perceived as "Asian"; when I'm in Asia my Asian and European friends think I'm "too American". I don't fit in completely but I'm totally ok with it now.

    I've just finished reading Ruth's book and I can't tell you how many times I had to stop just to have a good cry. It's probably saved me thousands in therapy ;-)
  • Charles
    WE ARE X-MEN!! OR TCK-MEN

    *THEME MUSIC with graphics*

    But yes, it's not easy being us. We ourselves are so diverse i wonder if even we can understand ourselves? THe world is really a huge place, what are the chances of us being in the same place in the same situation?

    3 reasons:

    1. No 1 understand or is in the exact same situation as you; majority of people you meet who are not TCK-Men (women). Even among us TCKs, can we relate to each other? I am new, so can someone enlighten me?

    2. You start doubting yourself as a person and it can become self loathing when you are disconnected from your people, your nationality/culture, and it may be a long time before you return to your homeland. And even if you do... your homeland (where u were born) has probably changed through immigration, e.g. Britain or parts of Europe... making you feel more like a foreigner.

    3. Even within your household/home, though it may be culturally and aesthetically british or chinese or wherever you are from or whatever you are. THe fact remains that there is only YOU in that home, and local friends feel like they are going into another world when they come over, a world they are not and can not be part of realistically (though there are few exceptions). You are alone within your shell. Whilst you do develop as a person connected with your people/culture, you do so on your own.. and it is lonely

    = Depression can set it. I used to be depressed until I learned to rise above it my believing in my inherent superiority to those locals around me until i returned to where i felt home is.
  • DBJR
    I haven't had time to read through all of the posts above (though I'm getting there!)

    For me probably the biggest negative at the moment is about "control". Like many others in this community I lived a significant portion of my formative years not just in different cultures; but also moving so frequently, and experiencing such a high degree of dislocation, that I wasn't able to properly "function" as a child in any real or meaningfull sense.

    I Moved from a primary school in England (not my parents home country), to an american school in India, to a French school in India, to a bilingual school in Canada, to a monolingual school in Canada, to a state school in rural England, to a posh British boarding school... and I did that in the 5 years before I turned 9.

    Having no control over what happened next, I learned to survive; learned to change the way I behaved, spoke and dressed in response to what was going on around me; learned to accept that much of what I had learned in the past was worthless in the present; and when things got really bad I learned to just click off and create an alternate reality for myself and wait it out.

    All of this was a REACTION to the turmoil on the OUTSIDE; as an adult I have found it hard to take ACTION in a way that respects what I have on the INSIDE i.e. my opinions, feelings, desires and beliefs.

    Practically speaking this means that I will carry on doing something to the best of my abilities until something beyond my control stops me; regardless of how unpleasant, unfair or damaging it is. I am always putting myself in the position of trying to make the best of a desperate situation.

    I can feel myself falling (hopelessly) in love with this site!
  • Wow,

    It is pretty amazing to know that there are so many of us out there, facing the same difficulties. I can definitely relate to all the post that have been made so far. The restlessness seems to be a pretty dominant issue at the moment. I'm guessing it's escalated by the fact that, after I moved from my "comfort zone" of an international school to the West, my parents decided to experience their all-too-common mid-life crises. So, on top of having to re-adjust to a Western country that I SHOULD have been comfortable with, I had to deal with university life, as well as a broken home and family.

    Although I was able to make friends and socialize with anyone and everyone, I made sure I chose my friends wisely. I was fortunate to have some of my friends from high school, but I found myself reminiscing about my "golden years" way too often. I was so used to traveling every six months, that I found it difficult to "settle down." I simply didn't want to.

    Four years later, I'm still experiencing restlessness and I'm noticing how it is affecting my relationships. I get frustrated when people can't accept each others' differences, especially when it comes to culture and religion. Perhaps I lived my important years in a Utopian environment, but I distinctly remember being taught and shown tolerance of differences.

    *sigh* There's a lot more to rant about but I think this should do for now. Thanks for this wonderful site, and greetings to all other TCKs!
  • Rob
    It sucks to be a parent who dragged your kids into this life and they did not choose it. Having lived a very sheltered life as a kid I think it is wonderful for my kids to have a chance to be so global....Imena the kids I grew up with have NO CLUE.....but I know deep down there are up and down sides to all of this..especially as my kids get older....I just try to be a supportive parents and make the best of it...
  • Rayan
    It hurts when u finally start making friends and developing relationships and then you just have to let go all these beatiful relationships, you try to stay in touch, but secretly u know you will move on and they too will move on. I',m currently studying abroad, and i cherish my friendships here, but i know its just a matter of time, when i'll move again and leave everything behind.
  • Maiija,
    "And now, finding most of the people I have met and will meet cannnot relate to my life, sometimes all I can do is call someone who understands to keep from getting depressed."
    -> This must be really hard. I need reminders from someone who understands me too that it's okay to not fit in, that it's not my fault that it's supposed to be difficult. The local people come from a different world--it is not a world that is familiar to me.

    John123,
    "I have no problem opening up but then when it comes to deeper issues I tend to have trust issues and feel a need to move on and make new relationships."
    -> I can make friends very fast and relate to many but I too struggle with opening up when it comes to deeper issues. I truly care about my friendships and I mean well for them but at times when none of my friends seem to get my struggles and I feel left all alone (though that is not their intention. They simply cannot understand me) I feel disconnected and it gets really hard. I think it's good to acknowledge this feeling and frustration because by acknowledging there's healing taking place. When I am in this community, I know I am not alone in this walk and it's healing to hear others' honest stories.
  • asmamer
    OMG i totally agree with 'maija's 'guilt' about complaining about your privileged life! and oh yeah do i hate being asked 'where i am from' or 'what's my native language' or 'where's home' or even 'what's my race'(i find quite disturbing that they ask these questions on almost all application forms in US). because it makes me ask these questions to myself and trying to come up w/ shortcut answers to just shut people off without feeling like i'm lying...
    I really do think that i'm at the stage of my life where i think being a tck/cck SUCKS big time, maybe just 'cause I've been depressed lately...
    but it's a relief to know that some of my feelings are common among this 'hidden minority' as someone on this site put it.
  • Hi trimama, I can relate to 1) and 3) so much!
  • 1) Never feeling understood. A good friend of mine only became a good friend when I confessed a big weakness and she was shocked, as until then she'd always thought of me as this perfect woman who had a perfect family and perfect life. And it turned out that under that facade (which comes naturally, it's not as if I'm purposely constructing a barricade) I am a restless, ever-seeking woman who craves a deep connection with someone and rarely achieves it.

    2) Having a shitty week like I just had, and not being able to call an old friend and get together for drinks and commiserating, because I've been here for 7 years and although I'm very popular, I don't have any true friends because I can't relate to people who are from here (CT), grew up here, and stayed here, and think that taking their kids to New York City is a scary experience - so they don't.

    3) Raising my children, first-generation Americans, according to the local culture. I am from Belgium, Sweden, England and Mexico and my parenting style reflects that combination - and at times it clashes with the American style (values).

    4) I have a hard time not being judgmental of people who are content with the status quo, which I feel is mediocre. They feel content to cease growing because they have reached adulthood, or parenthood, or both. They lack curiosity and drive, and I find myself very intolerant of that.
  • Bethelia73
    always feeling absolutely alone in a crowd.
    when what gets you through another day of routine is thinking about the next time you can go on a train or airplane.
    having no attachments to people or belongings.
  • Mayling
    John123: I think your parents thought you'd be better off staying with them. Had they left you with a family member or something maybe today you'd resent them for abandoning you. It's a catch-22 and I think they did what they thought was best for you.

    Also, don't let the down sides of tckness outweight the good, because the good is amazing. It is hard, but try not to discard the entire experience, that'll make it worse for you.
  • John123
    1. Lack of identity (not knowing who I am)

    I go through day to day not knowing who I am and in the process not realizing what I want and need. I therefore have a tendency to always look at what others do and try mirror their behaviour to compensate for this lack in self-identity. I was born in Singapore, Went back to my home country, Denmark till I was 5 and then I moved with my parents and sister to malaysia untill I was 9. After this I moved to Cambodia for another 6 years till I was 15. When i turned 15 I moved back to denmark and here I am now. I started getting feelings of lack of self during my early teenage years and never understood why I had them. When my best friend left thats when it really hit me. I started feeling frustrated, alone, angry, depressed and mad at the world for leaving me like this. I spent atleast 2-3 years with these feelings. Am able to control them better today but whenever I face them I end up in the same condition.

    2. Relationship issues (especially group talk)

    I am really good in starting a relationship and consider myself and Extrovert. I have many friends, almost too many, but almost all of them aren't deep and are just casual relationships.. I have no problem opening up but then when it comes to deeper issues I tend to have trust issues and feel a need to move on and make new relationships. My lack of identity is probably also what contributes to this. Especially when I am in a group that is having fun I tend to feel these feelings intensely because I feel my identity being threatened, and since I do not know who I am I do not know what to contribute with.

    3. Restlessness

    I have a constant feeling of restlessness which I believe stems from all the traveling I did during my childhood.

    being a TCK is probably the worst thing that can happen to you. I am really angry with my parents for bringing me up in such an unstable environment and I do not think I will ever be able to forgive them. They are still yet to realize the kind of pain and effect it has had on me.
  • Mayling
    1. Identity related issues

    -"Where are you from?" requires I simplify my life and identity in order not to be an inconvenience during any type of conversation.

    -Everyone expects you to be a different person. I think and feel in 3 cultures and 2 languages, I can't just be one thing. It's confusing when at school I must be American, with my family and sister I must be Costa Rican, and with my mom I must be Nicaraguan.

    -Sharing life experiences must always be filtered or censored somehow so that you don't come off as a show off or insensitive towards your mono-cultured friends.

    -You're not a true foreigner so you're expected to fit in, without any chance of dealing with cultural differences.

    -I'm not best at anything therefore I can't see my self through any type of hobby/career/occupation (yet? ..hopefully.)

    -Because of the TCK restless issue I have no idea where I'll end up (or even where I want to end up). I know that eventually I'll hate it and want to move, no matter where I am.

    -Memories get sorted out through places. These are not always completely attached in my head, so it brings confusion and weirdness when I have to piece them back together in order to make sense of a thought.



    2. Lack of continuity.

    -Having no home.

    -Having to constantly "get rid" of friends and objects (not literally with friends, but you know what I mean, haha.)

    -Being out of sync with whatever societies you feel connected to once you leave.



    3. The past and future always look better than the present.

    -I long for my childhood and at the same time for the moment I get to leave this place for a new one.



    I don't know if I kind of cheated haha... =P
  • Alina
    Reading some of the posts here kind of made me sad and secure at the same time. I have moved yet again just after 2 years. So right now I'm feeling particularly vulnerable.
    Which brings me to my first point.

    1) Vulnerable. It's all well not to try and be a chameleon but when you have a room full of people talking about some childhood experience they all shared, makes you feel like an alien. For example, the other day I was sitting in our apartment with my roommate and two of my other friends and they started talking about computer games they played in elementary school. I had no idea what they were talking about. These are the people I just moved with, they are supposed to be my link to my old world, not so much.

    2) Language. My "mother tongue" is Bengali. I speak English obviously and some French and Hindi. But jumping from country to country took a toll on my vocab. Starting from (mis)pronunciation of words to using different slang. When you are taken out of your comfort zone that you create, these are the things you really notice.

    3) Culture. I'm Bengali. When other's talk about their culture. You wonder what your culture really does. I mean you know what your culture is, but it's not really YOUR culture as you've never done any of it. Parents of TCKs are never exactly conventional.

    I'm very grateful to have found this blog.
  • Maija
    NB:

    number 2 didn't come out quite like I meant it. What I was trying to say was that i feel like ppl here expect me to be another poor African who's come here in hope of a better life, when I'm more of a poor Finn who wants to go to back to Africa for a better life.

    N i guess it's just that feeling that people here see the whole continent as a country, and I'm just another kids from Africa who speaks African at home.

    ARGH.drives me mad when people say, yeah, I know someone from Africa, or I've been to Africa.

    Do people say, yeah I'm going to Asia? I know people from the Americas? I knew a Latino once? LOL.
  • Maija
    Wow. I have never had found so many others that share the same kind of feelings. I mean I knew there were ppl out there somewhere, but I guess we're a hidden minority...

    1. Everything is temporary. I guess, well yeah, everything in life is indeed temporary but as I child I wish I'd had more continuity. I feel it would've given me some stability and provided a sense of security.

    2. I hate when ppl as me where I'm from. It's always that same long explanation that comes out: ...Well, my mom's from here, dad's from there, but I lived here and there and there, before moving to bla bla bla.

    Especially in Finland, most foreigners are refugees or students. Having lived in Ethiopia, everyone assumes I'm Ethiopian, and I always have to correct them that no no, my dad is Tanzanian.

    Cos that's the thing. My dad is Tanzanian. My mother's Finnish. I'm both and neither.

    3. My phonebill. As a result of growing up as a TCK, my friends (or the few I never lost touch with) are scattered across the world. But seems everytime I go out to have fun with all these finnish kids, there's a point where I need to call someone who can remind me of who I really am, because I just feel so fake and uncomfortable here. I try hard to adapt, n make friends like I used to, but it just doesn't work.

    In an international school, everyone has moved and traveled. I never knew there was any other way to live. And now, finding most of the people I have met and will meet cannnot relate to my life, sometimes all I can do is call someone who understands to keep from getting depressed.

    Luckily there's lots more ppl here who understand.

    Oh, n lemme add a one more thing.

    4. GUILT. I feel so bad complaining about my privileged life. Other's physically do not have a home, when I had many. I've learned so many languages that my head is confused, but some ppl never get the chance. I think the worse thing is that I don't feel like I am entitled to feel so sad, when nothing is wrong.
  • anonymoustck
    A conversion repeated endlessly.

    "Where you from?" they ask almost routinely, as a reflex to meeting a new person.

    "I'm from DC, right up Connecticut"
    But that's a lie constructed to avoid the long explanation about my upbringing abroad. I don't know anything about DC.

    The truth is, I don't have a hometown. I've never lived anywhere longer than 4 years. I've never cheered for the hometeam, I've never felt the comforting feeling of being a native. I've always felt like a visitor, like a foreigner even in the country that's written on my passport.

    My passport's worn out and used. I crossed the Polish-Slovak border once and it took them a half an hour to read it, what with all the stamps.

    My wife's slovak, we speak slovak at home. I find it easier to describe things in her language than my own. People at work laugh at the way I inflect my sentences.

    I don't always know where I belong. I'm constantly talking about moving somewhere else. We've been here 1 year and a half and I am ready to move again.

    It's just a restlessness that I've always felt.
  • TheATCK,

    I am still learning what it means to be a person. We all have emotional needs and to be comforted for what happened, especially for the losses that we've had. The hidden grief after saying good-byes to so many of our friends, important ones, families... When the very good memories seem few and divided into pieces and we are angry at our past.. angry with what happened, i think it is bittersweet to think about all the blessings we've had due to these experiences.

    Where do you reside now? I hope you will find this online community a place to freely express how you feel.

    Thank you once again for sharing this with us.
  • TheATCK
    I lived 'abroad' between the ages 3-18. Basically when I ´returned´ to Holland it was a completely foreign country to me. I have lived in Denmark, Singapore, Hong Kong and now Holland.

    My top 3:
    #1 Identity issues. With every move I reinvented myself to fit in. Who am I and what's important to me?

    #2 Grief; unresolved grief. With regards to several different areas, but esp. friendships. Friends have always been my life. I have had many really good friendships and, even though I have also had to say goodbye to so very many of them, I can't live without good friends. I need them like I need water. But saying goodbye has really hurt me deeply and also left me with a lot of ANGER.

    #3 Memories. I´ve had a great childhood, lots of fantastic experiences and yet so few memories of it all. Which is weird and disconcerting. Also makes it more difficult to understand me past, explain anything to others, find unresolved grief etc.
  • mmmmmm, paradigm is one of my favorite words too. Paradigm shift happens so often when I adopt myself into a new environment. It applies to the high mobility life that I have as a TCK and also it is apparent when I get insights from readings. hehe
  • bdbhaiti, you said,
    "But when those worlds MIX - I completely shut down. If family or friends visit from the States... I don't know what to do. If I encounter poverty or suffering or if there's a power outage in the U.S., I either shut down or get extremely angry. It's because my worlds don't justify themselves to each other. They only exist in their own paradigm."

    It must be so devastating to see the different worlds crush before your eyes, the worlds that haunt bad memories in the past and bring mixed feelings that provoke anger. It must be difficult to go through all this. I wished before that they included TCK in the psych textbooks. Someday there will come a time when TCKs need not explain why we feel so different from non-TCKs and that many of us feel post-traumatic stress that burdens and eats our heart.

    Bless your soul, bdhaiti. We all need healing don't we?
  • Jan,
    I am glad that you had those 4 girls who are TCKs when you were in high school. Back then you didn't know you were TCKs but it must have been so invaluable to have understanding friends to support one another.

    It looks like your memory from before 13 has been blurred and mixed and you seem to have frustrations not remembering well. And you have come to the authentic self through the alone times when you were isolated from many others and came into meditation. These times must have been both good and bad. While having so much that is lost and cannot be grasped from the past, you are becoming true to yourself and finding the real person you are..not to please anyone else, not to become a chameleon. I find these very vital to coming to good terms with the past memories and forgiving those people in the past and even to forgive ourselves. I am grateful that you are sharing this and I can resonate with you.

    Thank you.
  • Jan
    First off, I want to say that I believe this is a valuable exercise which will lead to more writing and a proactive healing experience. I have done a lot of writing and burning but not specifically for grief and loss. I think it's a good time to begin.

    1. LACK OF CONTINUITY

    My memories are very scrambled. I often can't remember what happened when or where, when looking back toward a particular event or period of my life. This very disconcerting. Yep, it definitely sucks. I have trouble actually making sense of my life for the 13 years I experienced the military brat lifestyle.

    When I am visiting my family, there are times when I talk about something and my mother will say, "that didn't happen there, it happened in _______." Or, "you've got such a bad memory!" I try to explain that my memories were those of a child and that hers were from an adult perspective. (Of course there may be differences in what we remember, but I don't like getting caught up in right or wrong thinking, either.) There was an objective timeline that that period spans, but human memory has great subjectivity, no matter the age. That doesn't mean we would *agree* on the memories, anyway, because our personal truths about specific things may differ or did differ.

    So, someone nailing me because of my 'poor memory' is a pet peeve. My memory after 13 is fairly constant and that says plenty. So, it is very hard for me to simply *have* a scrambled memory, aside from others who disagree with what I do or don't remember. It makes me feel ungrounded. I've written down a chronology of all the places I've lived and the individual house in each state or country, but I don't always refer to it. Sometimes I'm not around the list when a memory hits or I don't think of the list and there I am...stuck with another porous memory or question mark about what or where or when.

    When I heard Donna Musil speak during the teleconference, she said something about the brat lifestyle and PTSD. I think that must have been the onset of mine, some time back then. I remember when I was 13, but I have no memory at all of repatriation or its effect on me. That makes me realize I may well have blocked the memory. I know stress has a strong effect on memory.

    I have steady access to a series of vignettes and I can remember these clearly, but the order is iffy and the connections are absent. Yep, that definitely sucks.

    2. FLEETING CHILDHOOD FRIENDSHIPS

    Who were all those people and where are they?

    I wonder where Charlie and his sisters are and what about Michtilde and Hans, and Vickie - the one in Florida and the one in Germany; where's Bailey and Danato?

    I think about all those children I knew up until I was 13 and it seems like they are like sand running through my fingers. Yet, we had fun experiences, strong experiences, were friends, good ones, and our friendships were graced with tangibility and continuity *while we were there*.

    Evidently, I need to mourn the loss of them, to connect with and honor that part of myself. Then let it go. And forgive anything needing forgiveness and then accept. The five stages of grief that Elizabeth Kubler Ross made known. Here, I just looked them up: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.

    When I was in high school, I became friends with four girls. To this day, I am still friends with them. Decades have past and we are still connected. They are TCKs, a fact we learned some time after we'd become friends. We were the ones we were attracted to for friendship, the ones where the friendship offered the most and where the friendship 'stuck' and cemented. I am very grateful for this experience and don't really know where I would have been without it. My angels were watching over me....

    But, I sometimes wonder about the ghosts...the children and adults, I guess, who came before... the ones who are now actually living and breathing through their existences elsewhere...and, perhaps, at times wondering about me.

    3. PEOPLE PLEASING & LACK OF AUTHENTICITY

    I have to be very careful with myself, careful to not be a chameleon, to not deny who I am and where I've been. To not tell people who we are, when it's time to appropriately share that information, is so Third Culture. Instead, easily and automatically, we tend to try to to fit in. We are hardwired to arrive, then blend in. Arrive, then blend in.

    The key word is *trying* to fit in, instead of being. Simply being...being authentic.

    I am constantly working on the issue of not trying to please other people...and it was during one of the teleconferences where the speaker, maybe it was Donna Musil, identified that lifestyle issues/ways of being related to alcoholics or drug addicts are also pertinent to military. I think she was pointing out, at least in part, codependency. I don't know if this is a full spectrum TCK issue, but it's worth investigating.

    So, one of my main values is authenticity and I pursue it and strive to live it because my military brat self learned to strip that away and makes me a chameleon. If we are chameleons too long or too habitually, we don't even know who we are. Our identity is unclear, fragmented.

    Someone posted their Myers Briggs type and that brings me to mine, INFP. According to David Keirsey, the goal of the INFP is *to become*.

    I identify strongly with what he said and recognize my own pattern of becoming that I've been doing that my entire life. The pursuit of becoming is fundementally related to my TCK self and issues. To not become what others want me to be, to not become trapped in others' definitions of me.

    There have been several times in my life when I've lived alone. I don't mean lived by myself, I mean gotten away from it all. Completely alone. Once, in my 20s, I was the caretaker of a small horse ranch in the mountains. During that time, I started coming home to myself because no one else was there. The owners were absent and groceries were brought to me from the city every other weekend and dropped off. I didn't realize that the experience I'd signed on to meant I would face myself in a primal way. I thought the job would only entail the physical aspects. I was a period of extremely painful self-confrontation, as it was the first time I'd ever been completely alone and I was forced to reckon with myself, who I was. By myself and on my own terms.

    About ten years ago, I spent a half a year alone in a cabin on a lake. I spent my time doing yoga and meditation. I really went within and I came home to myself.

    The TCK life are the cards that were dealt and the porosity and chameleon nature, the tendency toward blending in really sucks. Without the root that tied me to a particular patch of dirt, my work has been cut out for me...becoming authentic.
  • MajorTom
    Hmmmm... where to begin...

    Welp

    1) Repatriating - Yeah, it sounds like a broken record at this point, but that doesn't keep it from sucking. I mean, you've gotta love being the novelty kid in the class, with everyone asking you dumbass questions like "Did you have a pet kangaroo???" and such.

    2) Directions - Picture this in your mind, if you will: Two people on opposite ends of a hallway walking towards each other. When they get to each other, they'd usually walk to their right, thus avoiding smacking into one another. Well well well, growing up with driving on the left hand side of the road for the first 12 years of my life screws with that instinct for me. Lead to many an awkward situation, it did.

    3) Food - I MISS YOU SO MUCH, TIM TAMS.
  • mmmmmm
    LOL paradigm is my favorite word! I use it literally everywhere hahahaha such a TCK vocabulary...

    i dunt remember if i did this b4 but here goes again.
    1. I am more heartbroken than non-TCKs from even the shortest travelling. Because I get attached too easily.
    2. We are almost ALWAYS misunderstood.
    3. There's a general feeling of insecurity haunting us inside all the time.
  • Top three things that suck about being a TCK:

    1) Repatriation. Doesn't matter if you speak the same language, or not. Doesn't matter if you look the same, or not. Doesn't matter if you talk a lot or a little, doesn't matter if your family's with you or not, Repatriation is, in every way, a MotherDog.

    2) When worlds mix. My mind deals well when my Haiti-world stays in Haiti, along with its friends and power-outages and difficult driving and corrupt authority and poverty. My U.S.-world sits nicely as well all by itself, with everyone complacent and naive and good-natured and not very globally savvy. But when those worlds MIX - I completely shut down. If family or friends visit from the States... I don't know what to do. If I encounter poverty or suffering or if there's a power outage in the U.S., I either shut down or get extremely angry. It's because my worlds don't justify themselves to each other. They only exist in their own paradigm.

    Wow, "paradigm." My $100-word-for-the-day.

    3) Psych 101. Hearing terms like "panic attack" and "post-traumatic stress" defined and thinking - "Gee, that's what I'm experiencing. How nice that they have clinical terms for that stuff. Doesn't really make it any easier, but hey I'm glad that my symptoms are neatly classified here in my psych textbook next to Vietnam vets and victims of s*xual abuse." By the way, they did not include the term "TCK" in my textbook, though, so I'll be dealing with all these without anyone knowing it. Then I'll walk into a counselor's office and go through the ordeal of working up to these huge revelations over and over again. I want to just come in and give him a list - "here's the mess we have to deal with. I've outlined all my trigger points and coping mechanisms and graphed my cycles of depression. It's in bullet-point form and I included a legend and a timeline."
  • Top three things that suck about being a TCK:

    1) Repatriation. Doesn't matter if you speak the same language, or not. Doesn't matter if you look the same, or not. Doesn't matter if you talk a lot or a little, doesn't matter if your family's with you or not, Repatriation is, in every way, a MotherDog.

    2) When worlds mix. My mind deals well when my Haiti-world stays in Haiti, along with its friends and power-outages and difficult driving and corrupt authority and poverty. My U.S.-world sits nicely as well all by itself, with everyone complacent and naive and good-natured and not very globally savvy. But when those worlds MIX - I completely shut down. If family or friends visit from the States... I don't know what to do. If I encounter poverty or suffering or if there's a power outage in the U.S., I either shut down or get extremely angry. It's because my worlds don't justify themselves to each other. They only exist in their own paradigm.

    Wow, "paradigm." My $100-word-for-the-day.

    3) Psych 101. Hearing terms like "panic attack" and "post-traumatic stress" defined and thinking - "Gee, that's what I'm experiencing. How nice that they have clinical terms for that stuff. Doesn't really make it any easier, but hey I'm glad that my symptoms are neatly classified here in my psych textbook next to Vietnam vets and victims of se.xual abuse." By the way, they did not include the term "TCK" in my textbook, though, so I'll be dealing with all these without anyone knowing it. Then I'll walk into a counselor's office and go through the ordeal of working up to these huge revelations over and over again. I want to just come in and give him a list - "here's the mess we have to deal with. I've outlined all my trigger points and coping mechanisms and graphed my cycles of depression. It's in bullet-point form and I included a legend and a timeline."
  • Ayako
    "And it gets really confusing having to adapt myself everytime i move." (dhriti)

    In fact I think because we have been forced into situations where we had to change the fundamental way we thought or behaved - I find that I am resistant to people trying to 'change me' or telling me to 'how to behave' when 'culture' isn't involved.

    I have some good habits and some bad habits and some habits that are a matter of opinion but I drag my feet about changing some of these things because it's a part of my identity.

    I dislike going to self-help classes or reading self-help books because, I feel in essence, these classes/books are telling me to change the one part of me that still remains intact from moving cultures and changing myself in many ways.

    I feel that if I changed that part of me there would be nothing left of me anymore.
  • dhriti
    I feel like I have a connection to everyone here. I mean I think being a TCK definitely has it's positive points but some parts really do suck.
    1) I get antsy when I live somewhere over a year (which is rare enough). Things will be going seemingly well. I would have established a group of friends, gotten used to my house school, etc. And then, I'll feel uncomfortably comfortable if that makes any sense at all. The need to pack my bags and move on is constant. I lived in Chicago for five years which is the longest I have lived anywhere, the last 3-4 years of living there were extremely uneasy for me I can never really form roots to any one place.
    2) My life-style and value system is such a combination of what I've picked up from the places i've lived that it often clashes internally. I'm not really sure where I stand on a lot of things, or at least it keeps changing depending on where I am at the moment. And it's pretty much impossible for people to understand where I'm coming from which is a blend of extreme liberalism and tolerance with a touch of conservatism that I picked up from having lived in India.
    3)Despite being quite social, I'm not sure of what to do or what's acceptable at times. Just because people are different everywhere, even when you compare different parts of a country. And it gets really confusing having to adapt myself everytime i move.
  • curtis
    I'm sure I am repeating much of what people have said, I have not gone back and read all nine pages of comments.

    I don't think I would ever willing want to change my TCK status--it has made me into who I am today: the good and the bad. I truly can't even begin to imagine myself not having grown up in Brasil. However, like I mentioned there is good and bad.

    The bad, in no particular order:

    I'm a social misfit. I am an introvert by nature and then that coupled with my TCK'ness, I hate social situations. Along with that, I don't make friends very easy. Close friends. I can work with almost anyone, but truly getting to know them and open up to them is VERY hard for me to do. I blame it on the fact that I made really good friend then left them 3 years later. I remember them, but will probably never see them again. As an adult I think I have become more guarded against that.

    #2...I have had a really time since I was in high school/college in really developing a sense of identity. It has gotten better as I have found my niche in my field of work, but that didn't really happen until I was working on my Masters.

    #3...There is a word in Portuguese that describes a deep longing for something: Saudades. I have this constant longing for things Brasilian. Luckily, I live close to Tampa and Orlando where there are large Brasilian communities, but the feeling of longing and yearning never goes away. I don't think it would unless I went back to Brasil.

    So, my 3.

    CR
  • Ayako
    Alessandra: I think some mothers have this way of asking their kids to throw away stuff out. My mom was like that too. But then again maybe this has something to do with having a messy kid because I sure was messy. That said some moms have a gentler approach to this. I've heard that some moms will sit down with their kids and teach/help them how to be tidy versus just ordering the kid to throw out stuff.

    I've read that Stephen King had an aunt (I think it was an aunt - but don't remember exactly as it was decades ago I read this) who took the copies of his Fantasy & Science Fiction among other things and threw them all out too.

    The throwing away things seems like a common occurrence whether one is a TCK or not.

    I guess some people are just more tolerant of other people's needs to keep things they themselves feel are useless or 'evil' or in some way negative. Others just can't see things from other people's shoes so they do 'terrible' things like throw out a box full of letters you wanted to keep. I'm not sure you can even explain to them how much of a loss this was to you in some cases.

    Sometimes we assume people are more similar to us than they are but even your own parents can be very different. Their brain just works in a different way and sometimes understanding this helps you to brush off 'terrible' things that they did to you - when you realize they didn't know what they were doing and can never even understand the impact of what they did to you. But it can still be annoying if you are around them too much and they do these things too often. Ditto for acquaintances who fall into this category.

    Knowledge can help you rationalize the situation but sometimes it makes you irritable anyway. :p

    To get back to the TCK thing - I think the number of differences can increase when you are a TCK with non-TCK expat parents versus a mono-culture kid with mono-culture parents.

    If you couple this with individual differences, then in some cases the TCK and his mom will be so well-matched personality wise that the TCK differences don't make much of a difference. In some cases, the mono-culture kid and mother have such huge differences their mono-culture isn't helping them get along at all.

    However I think that when the personality types aren't that different, it can seem that way with a TCK and his mom for example, because the cultural differences exacerbate this problem.

    I hope this makes sense.
  • Marie
    Alessandra, it's the complete opposite w/ me and my mom... she's a bit of a tCK too but she keeps EVERYTHING...I hate having "stuff"...so I get rid of everything (mostly)...sometimes my mom will find stuff ppl gave me and it'll turn up 5 or 10 years later which is cool... but I still don't really keep things (if it's electronic I do...but actual stuff annoys me).
  • anonymoustck
    michaeltam, I really know where you are coming from. I grew up mostly in Hongkong with British parents (dad from a TCK famil)and went 'back' to Britain age 14 - talk about culture shock! Both at a girls boarding school then again on a mostly male uni course, it was like being on another planet. I knew the words they were saying but had no idea what they really meant, and there were so many cultural references that just had me lost every time. I reacted with anger, saying 'I hate this country, I'll leave' - but no-one ever understood why - and I did leave as soon as I finished college.

    The question that I hated most was 'where are you from?' - I never knew how to answer it honestly or briefly. For years it made me angry, then it used to make me tearful because the only true answer was 'nowhere'.

    I ended up teaching English around the world, always packing up and leaving again after 1 or 2 contracts...I made friends more easily when I was younger but always kept a bit of myself back for safety. There are so many people in a dozen countries I think of as 'good friends' but we haven't been in touch for years and probably never will again.

    The people I related to best were mostly locals who had lived overseas and found reentry hard, or other TCKs (as I recently found out we are called), it's surprisng how many ESL teachers grew up as TCKs and do that job to have an excuse to keep moving. Quite a few attempt to solve the problem by marrying a local and trying to become Chinese/Indian or whatever but that doesn't quite work either, especially if the partner is well grounded in their own culture; the partner will never be able to truly get where the TCK is coming from. Now that I'm in my 40s I realise I would have done a lot better if I'd married an outsider like myself. My husband and I are both migrants, but I'm trying to belong here while he - not a TCK - doesn't need to. Often I feel only my TCK brother really understands me, but he's back in Britain doing his best to be British.

    I found this site in passing and only meant to have a quick look but an hour later I'm realising I have more issues to deal with than I thought, just reading these posts makes me tearful. A lot of stuff sudddenly makes sense.

    Good luck everyone. We have a lot of potential but I think we need to link up with each other to know what it feels like to be amongst your own kind.
  • michaeltam
    Hey there!

    I am an Chimerinadian Spanglish (Chinese ethnicity/ Live in America with Green Card/Canadian passport/Spanish passport/ British passport...don't ask me how, PLEASE)that is currently living and studying in switzerland after having been to boarding school in England for 4 years after having been to an international school in Hong Kong for my childhood!

    1. Identidy Crisis: I can't fit in with the native people in which ever country I am in, niether can I fit in with my fellow Chinese people. And that gets really frustrating because you can never relate to anyone. I hate being treated like a foreigner wherever I go and it gets really tedious and tiring trying to understand the local culture ALL over again.

    2. Parents: I love my parents very much, but since they are Non-TCK I find it very frustrating to explain them my problems sometimes. I sometimes tell my parents that I am not enjoying myself in boarding school because I find it lonely or that I miss my old friends in Hong Kong very much- but the usual answers are, "Michael! We are doing this for your own good!", or the ever common, "Michael! You should be more grateful!"...SIGH- I AM!

    I am angry at the fact that I left Hong Kong at the age of 14....I missed out on ALOT of my teenage years, during the time when all my friends were starting to party and explore the opposite sex, I was twiddling my thumb in crowded airports glaring with rage at the 'FLIGHT DELAYED' message on the info screen! Or getting shouted at by a teacher for not doing my tie properly or tucking in my shirt! (And to add to injury, I went to an ALL-MALES CATHOLIC BOARDING SCHOOL IN ENGLAND!!!) Or trying to settle into a new mono-cultural group of people that have nothing in common with me that I can't relate to!!

    OMG, this is such an EMO moment! LOL, sorry, I must sound like a little brat =(

    3. Trying to be something that I am not: Whenver I try to understand the slang, or popculture of whatever group I am in contact with- I am just completely lost and whenever I try to join in and try my best to enjoy myself.....I just don't end up enjoying myself because:

    a. I end up looking/sounding awkward when I try to be accepted.

    b. I know that i have absoutely no interest in these activities, hence- I feel fake when I do it.

    I hate trying to be something that I am not!

    4. (Im gonna add another one ¬kekeke!), That feeling of, "Im never gonna see em' again anyways, whats the point?": I have a natural defence mechanism and I dont enjoy getting too close to people, because I know i'll just have my good friends torn away from me once I leave- alot of people think I am a reclusive and anti-social hermit because I'm not friendly with them. It's not because I am anti-social or that I am a hermit, it's just because once I get to the point of being good friends with them....it's time to pack up and go.

    I HATE IT!!!

    Thanks for being patient! You guys are awesome!! xD!!
  • alessandra
    All I can say is yes.

    yes yes yes. That is me, too. I could have written it word for word.
  • alessandra
    I completely understand. My mom's a TCK, too, but she's a bit in denial and hates keeping things from the places we've lived. She's also a neat freak, and doesn't understand why I need to keep notes written to me when I was 14.
    She's always trying to get me to throw out the things I've saved...

    The box of drawings, letters, and tiny momentos I have will always be something I need to grab if the house catches fire.
  • alessandra
    yay for my therapist, otherwise I don't know what I'd do... But she asked me why I went to college in the States (my "home" country?). I'm a dual citizen with Italy, so I could have gone anywhere in Europe. But I wanted to feel somehow more American. Like if i went to university in the States, it would make me more like everyone else. Turns out, that's not how it works, and now, I'm almost more miserable than before.
  • Desi
    I don't view being a TCK negatively really, in fact I love it, but some things, I must say, are tiring :P

    1. I am usually really introverted, so I don't like first days at school. And changing schools about 6 or 7 times by now (if you count kindergarten), I've been the new girl quite often...

    2. I'm rather nervous of going to university in (probably) Switzerland in two years' time - it's a completely foreign country to me, Chinese restaurants there just aren't like the real thing here in Taiwan, the culture is strange to me (I have a very Taiwanese mindset when it comes to some things...) and life just runs completely differently.

    3. The worst thing, I actually think, is not just the identity crisis, but that others refuse to accept it. If I tell my classmates I'm Taiwanese, or comment on Taiwan politics or similar, they say I shouldn't care, or say, "oh, you're blond, you can't be Taiwanese". Even my best friends have never come to accept the fact that I feel like Taiwan is my home, and this has actually only intensified my identity crisis because now I'm beginning to feel like I don't belong here either. :(


    But then, in my opinion, there's 3 really good things too ;)

    1. I can make crazy comments about any of my 3 countries (though mainly Switzerland and Taiwan only), not needing to worry about national ties. If more people knew what it's like not to belong to any one particular place, there would be less wars because of nationalism and 'king-and-country' mentality. You have no country, why should you fight for it? :P I have come to believe that nationality is unnecessary - to me, the culture, people and landscapes are where I belong most, not the flying flag.

    2. One gets to know lots of different types of food ;P As well as other cultural things that I have learnt to appreciate much better and more realistically than people in Europe do. When I lived in Germany, I hated it when other children my age thought Chinese go 'shing shang shong' - that made me so mad!!! I'm glad I've never seen other cultures that way.

    3. I find that being a TCK has taught me to deal with the fact that people aren't always around. I only see my grandparents once every two years! My great-grandmother I only saw I think twice in my whole life because she lived so far away. Maybe it makes me appear heartless, but whenever I change school, it's my friends crying and not me. It's not that I don't care about them, but I have become used to it.
  • Peter
    1) No friends
    2) No identity
    3) A world which doesn't understand your situation
  • Kirk
    1. Reassimilation. That was definitely the worst part of being a TCK. Pain, depression, realizing that the country you thought was home for so many years really isn't. And on the flip side, always longing for a home that you know you could never really go back to live in as adult. Without question the worst time in my life thus far.

    2. Relationship problems. I'm very shy and wary of making new friends. I remember starting high school just returning to the US thinking, "why bother, these people are stupid and weird, and even if I did make friends I'd have to leave them again when we all graduate." Then starting undergrad, having made good friends in high school, thinking, "Why bother? We're only going to leave each other after four years anyway. So why should I go through that pain again?" And now, starting med school, I am thinking the same thing, "Why bother? We're all going back to different countries and different parts of the US, so why should I bother when we're just going to leave each other after a few years?" So far in Mexico I've been slow to accept invitations to parties, dinners, movies, etc because of this. Kind of like a farmer getting attached to an animal he knows one day he'll have to kill. Why bother when it's all going to end suddenly and horribly?

    3. Resentment toward my parents. Don't get me wrong, I love my parents and living this far from them is gut-wrenching, but deep down, I know it's there. I know that my father did what he had to to support his family and to improve our life style, which he achieved and I am thankful for, but nevertheless, the resentment is there...

    -Kirk
  • wanderinghelen
    1- People not getting that close to you because they assume you'll leave. And just when you make really good friends, you do have to leave.
    2- I have to take an extra year of school because I moved to England from America in the middle of my GCSEs and hadn't taken any before, so I am a year older than everyone in my class.
    3- People in the states think England is just like America, except they drive on the other side of the road. It takes years of living here to even realise the extent of the differences, that people think differently at a base level, therefore process everything differently. Also, I've been completely changed by my experience but people don't understand why I don't want to move back to the South in America. I would hate it there now, it seems very backward, conservative, way too hot, old-fashioned, claustrophobic. Yet I don't know where to go, because no place seems like home and wherever I am, I'm missing tons of friends and family.
  • Clara01
    1) i'm out of sync with my non TCK peers, now in college i'm not in international schools any longer, and people are just not accustomed to hearing I have NO home!
    2) Grief from leaving so many people/family/cultures/houses behind- I hold on to whatever I can from the past, tickets to Disneyland paris, train tickets from Egypt or Morrocco, maps from Bangkok...
    3) A feeling of loss of control over my life (my father's company always decided where we went, how big our house was...)
  • Clara01
    right on.
  • Clara01
    im one of those people who are "always busy". actually, i'm not. it's not even that i'm "bad at keeping in touch". sometimes it hurts too much to stay connected. i'll be reminded of all the friends i can't see anymore. it's been a defensive mechanism for me...
  • 1). Feeling no connection to my passport country OR my "heritage" country. In fact, I get along well with Bosnians and Serbs but have never made a Croatian friend lol

    2). Always being viewed as "weird". People tell me "You should have been.. (insert country or culture or race)". I like who I am, I just am confused on how to deal with the world around me who are always declaring who I am and who I should be instead of just treating me like a human being...

    3). Fragmented families. I definately resent my parents. In fact, I have not seen them in 12 years and doubt I will ever visit them. But um, if they choose to come see me, that's cool. All my brothers and sisters live in different cities, states & countries. My parents have no idea of what damage they have done to us, lol...
  • Omar, I feel your pain. You are trying to connect yourself with people and being friendly towards them but they seem apathetic. It must be hurtful especially when even TCK's go away. I've had moments when other TCK's didn't get my struggles and left me frustrated (Back then, I had no concept of TCK. So actually you are better off because you are here on this forum! yay! You have people to understand you here! hehe Whoa...doesn't that lighten up your heart?)

    Here's my honest thought on this topic of religions and politics. Even TCKs with what I consider to be a high degree of open-mindedness and tolerance could be made uncomfortable by certain norms of other cultures that challenge their value systems.

    A topic of religions and politics could be a normal conversation in one place (and thus a norm) but this could also challenge the comfort zones of people in other places.

    You said, "you have fallen from the intellectual realm into the realm of the epitome of the layman"
    -> I understand. I live in the US and I've noticed the general American public are different from what I'm used to seeing in other countries.

    But you know what, I honestly am challenged myself when a normal conversation leads to a talk on politics and religions in a hot topic manner. Mostly it is because I lack information on the issue (intelligence challenged!) but more so because the person who talks about it gets pretty emotional (looks hot-tempered, for instance, and has a potential to provoke other people's defense mechanism whether or not it was his intension).

    Once in a while, the talk of politics and religions is okay but honestly it would still be hard for me to make it a daily conversation. >_<

    But Omar, I've met Americans who are pretty into politics. Wouldn't it be a relief of stress to participate in a political discussions group/club in your school or in the community setting? (Local librarians might have information on the local meetings).

    I sure hope that you will find someone to discuss the topics of your interest, Omar! If you can't find one, focus on other things you can connect with other Americans. ex) your hobbies and debate team (maybe?)

    You can do so while participating in a political forum online. Feel free to rant here too. haha. Whenever stress comes in your way, write write write.
  • Kristina J. Adams
    Hi Miyon,

    Just came across your comments!

    I do find that the ability to relate in some way (be it ever so small) to someone new helps in bridging potentially awkward situations.

    And yeah, my husband is not one to gossip, which helps with trust, A LOT! Esp., since we went to small Christian college, where, believe it or not, gossip was at a premium, b/c "news" was shared sometimes in guise of a "prayer request", etc. Nice, huh?! Happens in churches too, unfortunately.
  • omar
    It's true that the positive of being a TCK outweighs the negative, but those few negatives are the hardest hurdles to overcome, more so often when you come back "home". In lands that are not native to you, your awkwardness and emotions are expected due to you being a forginer and more so often you'll be among people who have gone through the same experience. But once you're in your country of origin these emotions are magnified. In your home country you expected to fit in, no one gives you the benefit of the doubt and whatever emotions you're going through very few people understand. The land you once thought you can call home is now the farthest thing from it.
    This is how I feel at the moment in the USA, after living for 13 years in Arabia. I came here thinking that I would fit in some way in a culture more native to me. God I was wrong. I guess also being a TCK you tend to develop a norm that for some reason or another in your native country is a pretty high standard. Where I lived talks of religion, politics and culture were a common discussion (even with my stoner friends!), here nothing. It feels that you have fallen from the intellectual realm into the realm of the epitimy of the layman. I keep trying to adapt and lower the intensity of conversation, but I kills me anytime I try to be something I'm not. But with these high expectations that come naturally to TCK's will limit their social life. I find I have no real interest in dating over here, or even merely having a friendship. Some say that the basses of friendship is commonality and cant seen any over here.
    I do find TCK's here and there, but as always history repeats its self. They always go away. I meet them and it turns out in a week I lose them from that ever expanding sea that separates hearts and emotions to all.
  • 1. Not having a place that feels like 'home': I don't actually have a home country. My mother is Danish, my father Irish, but I was born in Luxembourg, where I lived till I was nine. I tried living in Ireland for a few years, but I never felt the connection there. I now live in Denmark, but that connection of 'home' is just not there.
    Ironically, living in Ireland made me feel less irish, and living in Denmark has made me feel less danish.
    I have revisted Luxembourg many times since I left, because my father used to live there and I still have one or two friends there, and as much as I lived there till I was 9, I never thought of Luxembourg as home, and I still don't. I have never felt much of a connection to Luxembourg, other than an old familiar place that I know well.

    2. Having to explain all the time in great detail where I am from: When people ask me where I am from I just tell them "According to the paperwork I am half irish half danish."
    I can't understand WHY people have this need to categorise others. When you can't give them a foolproof answer, they get irritated, and then when we have to keep explaining where we are from, we get so irritated that we give up, then THEY think we are rude for not wanting to give them a chance to bloody well categorise us!?!?!
    It makes me fume! The funny thing is, they don't realise how much they ask where people are from, but when you can't give a single worded concrete answer, then it's hard not to notice.
    It's such a catch-22 situation! When you explain your background, your arrogant and a show off, when you don't your rude and reticent!

    3. Food cravings from other countries: When you live in a country, you get used to all the food there, and the sweets, like in asia you can get milo, or switzerland catatonia ( i think thats how it is spelled) or in most of europe you can get cadburys, but then you move to another place and they don't have any of your favourites! so you make favourites all over the globe, only to be denied them when you move again... it makes me very sad... When I was in switzerland it was the worst, NO creme eggs!?!?! It was terrible! Then, in Denmark they have loads of little things you can't get outside of scandinavia which are AMAZING! (To be perfectly honest part of why i moved was partially for the sweets...heheh) or in Luxembourg they have really nice huit's in the bakeries, or apfeltasch!
    and, the worst, the absolute worst for me, is that they don't sell Bourisn in Denmark... I'M DYING of withdrawal symptoms!
    Ok, I know it's great for my hips this forced diet of none of my fav cheese spread... but STILL! It's torture...


    To be honest, I love being a TCK, I wouldn't change it for the world, but those would be the biggest drawbacks for me...
  • Well I am in my 1/4 life crisis right now at 21. I would say for the first 1/2 of my life I LOVED being a TCK. BUt now I am not so sure...

    1) I am VERY willing to open up and rush into friendships, but this severely impairs my judgment into what kind of person I SHOULD be friends with. One can find themselves in pretty terrible company because they are just happy to make a new friend NOT MATTER WHO IT IS THAT's INTERESTED

    2) You can float forever (it feels like). I am currently doing correspondences courses for Indiana University. It is terribly unfulfilling. I am a bit of a social butterfly, but I can't get a Job in the country I am currently living in because there are too many factors I don't know about. When will I move, where will I move, how will I save enough money, what will my parents assist me in and approve of... ect.

    3) I am an affection and attention fiend. And when I don't get it... I have a tendency to be an extremist. I don't really know what it is like for a friend to ALWAYS be there for me. So the SECOND I think someone has lost interest in our friendship... I can say some pretty harsh things...which could potentially end the friendship or put rifts in it, even if it's just over a stupid misunderstanding/miscommunication. Where do you stand? You know? How can you build confidence in a friendship if you never really had the time or know how to have a successful one?

    *4) This may pertain only to me BUT- My parents aren't TCK's. They are both from Solid Family Backgrounds so they don't really understand what kind of psychological affects are going on at these critical points in your life when you are always on the move. Most of the time they just tell me I am a whiner :(. SO I am torn between feeling GUILTY for having so much trouble and wanting to just suck it up and be happyl... and Whine about how I have a certain emotional handicap from some bad experiences along the way.... I guess I do whine... a little ;)
  • lauren
    ....So true....!!!!
  • I am glad you have found something you will stick to =)
    It's not easy when linguistically challenged but I am looking forward to seeing you become a success, Anayawa.
  • I am not sure how helpful this may be, but have you considered posting fliers that will catch the attention of the TCK? This is an idea that has come up to me recently and that is to post a question "Do you hate the question "Where are you from?"" and maybe include one more question that reflects typical TCK and then say, "If so, find out more at ____(place name e.g. coffee shop) on _____(day and time). I think this might be an interesting way to meet other TCKs. Also, another idea is to have your contact information say email underneath the flier so people can email you of their interests in the meeting.
  • I wish I could be there for you, Aisyah.
    Here is my (((hug)))
  • Constanza,

    You seem like a good person :)

    this is my broken Spanish but..

    Estoy apesadumbrado para su situación. Le mantendré mis rezos.

    Hoping you the best
  • Lauren, you have touched my heart deeply. People around me see me as a happy love life type of person, too. I may look and act hyper but many a times when I am alone in my room, I crash down uncontrollably. I just wish the best for my friends--to be happy and not have them involved with my problems. When I do share my struggles with them, I feel misunderstood and hurt that I have learned to be more reserved about sharing the deepest feelings.
  • yay! i agree! "a gamut of experiences from which to pull a connection."

    also, I am happy for you to have met your husband who has a high degree of "closemouthedness." ;)
  • That made sense, Isabella. Thanks for sharing with us. I can relate to all three!
  • anonymoustck
    "No matter how you phrase it, it sounds very strange and pathetic when you try to explain that blanket means home. The blanket is still there."
    -> I almost always keep all the notes/letters/small presents from friends even if they are small things like Post-its. I have difficulties letting these objects go (I have considered at some point in my life that when my house got on fire, the box of letters from friends will be one of the first objects to come into rescue!). This is as though "love" of my friends and "home" are embedded in them. =)
  • 3) not knowing -> I think I have become stronger by "knowing" the typical TCK struggles. "Knowing" is analogical to fighting a battle. If you know that there is a battle and what is going on, you can fight. But in the case where you sense there is a battle but cannot discern what is happening, you can be confused and have less strength to fight--for you do lack the big picture. I am sure you are already aware of this but thought of sharing. hehe :)
  • 3) -> haha.. I don't want to start on this one, either. It's too much on my plate to think about right now.
  • Matthew,

    I can relate to 1) and 2) although I did not grow up in an isolated small village like you have. I spent my high school lonely, not that I want to have self-pity on myself but the loneliness has made me a more out-going person. Please do know that there are people out there that understand you and feel for you. I wish I could do one thing that will make you happy today. hehe. Welcome to TCKID!
  • I am sorry to hear that, USAFinn.

    It sure must have been hard for you to have finally gained something near to a sense of home and friends and having to lose them again.
  • anonymoustck
    I am not sure as to whether this will pertain to your struggles, but to share with you what has happened to me lately is that when I had interests in someone and he also showed interests in me, I did not take it to the next level. For a couple of days, I was hurting so much inside by the thought of getting together with him that I stopped having any feelings for him. It was some sort of defense mechanism that shut me down from seeking any relationships--and I think it was not necessarily about him and also to many of my good friends I've found it difficult to open up.

    The pain was big enough for me to pursue any more friendships. I thought I had so much love and care for my friends...but then I want to stop caring and just be numb towards them. ::sigh::
  • anayawa
    Being a TCK Sucks because:-
    1. Repatriation and Identity: I thought going back to my home country would be incredible and I would fit in easily. Unfortunately it wasn't like that. I couldn't fit in and even now I still don't fit in with my country mates living abroad. I do love my country but somehow I feel my country does not love me.

    There were times I would cry because I didn't know my local languages (I don't know why it seems like being African is synonymous with the languages that you speak). Now I know Czech (like intermediate level) and I'm learning Spanish (still a beginner). I feel stateless.

    2. Relationships: I don't like people getting to close to me. I cannot keep a boyfriend and all my friendships have ended because someone moved away. I have only managed to keep one friend from childhood.

    3. Inferiority and focus: Some people say that my life is interesting. I never saw it that way and I seldom talk about my past or life willingly. I used to be suicidal between the ages of 14-18. I used to bottle all my feelings up inside me because no one understood.
    In secondary school I would have been voted most likely to succeed and most focused student. But since then I've been changing courses ever so often. But I will stick to what I am doing now, Public Health (I guess I found what I like, finally)
  • carrie
    For me it was several things.

    1. repatriation. I returned from Germany when I was almost 7 and I hated it that there were no flower boxes, magical castles and beautiful little shops and forests. In less than a year, my parents divorced so that didn't help. I hated my home country and didn't fit in.

    2. Not fitting in. I used to think this was because my mother taught me to think for myself, but I think it has more to do with being a TCK because too many TCK's don't fit in either. My youngest brother only spent a year when he was 3 and 4 in Okinawa but then was in his home country for most of the rest of his growing up. He is the only one of my siblings that lived in one country from kindergarten through college and he fits in so much better than my older brother and I who are both TCK/CCK/Army Brats.

    3. No friends and as such, no one to rely on when times get tough. I hear other people talking about their close friends that were there for them and I feel so alone and alienated. Even though it has made me more self sufficient, it is very lonly in here. There's no network for support and friendship.

    4. When I am in my home country I don't fit in, but when I travel and stay for a while in another country, I still don't fit in. Oh for a while I was able to sort of dive under the foreign culture and blend in, but eventually my home culture creeps in to make me feel different. Being in a foreign culture feels good and is like hiding behind an identity for a while....it helps me forget that I am lonly.

    What I would like MOST is to find other TCK/CCK/and or Army Brats here in Flagstaff. I don't know how to start a network.
  • katy
    1. Always feeling out of place, both in my culture of origin and in the current culture.

    2. Not being able to explain to the non-TCK world that "yes! It does make a difference!"

    3. Loss of friendships.
  • Aisyah
    I can't think of three things but here's my major issue with the TCK life.

    FRIENDS
    I've developed very close bonds with several people over the last 7 years and it really sucks not knowing if/when I'll ever see them again as they're living so far away from me. I'd love to go visit them but my current financial state doesn't allow for that to happen and that won't change for at least another few years. I'm pretty good at keeping in touch with them but I miss my very good friends a lot, they're in my mind so often and sometimes I can go on for a few months without having an actual conversation with any of them - emails can only express so much - which frustrates me and more often than not makes me depressed.
    I miss having them around to hang out with. Sometimes I just wanna have dinner or watch a movie with them. I've been struggling quite a bit these past couple of months with not having someone who understands me around, especially because work has been stressful and all I would need is just a big hug from a very close friend to make me feel better. It gets really hard.
  • anonymoustck
    1. whenever i suggest moving somewhere else to my parents, i always get "DO YOU EXPECT US TO PACK UP AND MOVE AGAIN?
  • Constanza
    Hola Asha,
    que genial encontrar a alguien mas de chile por aqui!
    por que vives en brasil? trabajas alla o vives con tu familia?
    si usas msn agregame! (constanza.gv@hotmail.com)
    :)
    y mil gracias por la buena disposicion.
  • Hola Constanza,

    Yo también soy de Chile, en este momento estoy viviendo en Brasil pero en septiembre vuelvo a Santiago. Cualquier cosa que necesites, ponte en contacto.

    Animo y cariños.
  • Constanza
    thank you so much Ayako.
    this is something i like about this community..people take me seriously and don't think that i'm over-reacting to stuff
    :)
    i have 2 months of school left so i think i can push myself to finish this semester. after that i'm not sure what i'm going to do. i've been talking to my parents and i think i want to go to chile for the summer and get "therapy" while im there..at least see a counselor and have time to see my relatives (who i haven't seen for 6 years) and childhood friends. it'll be nice to go to my passport country and see how things have changed, relax, etc.etc.

    my most recent idea is to take next school year off and go to spain or england to work (i have a good friend in spain and an uncle in england) and save up some money to pay for school. right now my parents are in no conditions of helping me and because im not a US resident or citizen i can't get any financial aid. i do have a scholarship from my university, but it doesn't cover everything. so i don't quiet know what i'm going to do...but i don't even want to think of coming back to school next year with no money. it's just too hard! i never get a break because i work during the school year and i work full time at an office during breaks, and if i can i clean houses on the weekends.
    so anyways :)
    glad to know that sondra and ayako cared.
    THANKS A LOT!!!
    i feel better already.
    at least i know some people understand.
    :)
  • Ayako
    Constanza: I think you have way too much commitments right now - as in working to pay for your schooling & living. Some people can handle this workload very well but it's not for everyone.

    You are overworked and way too tired and that I think in itself can make you depressed and unbalanced. It can also make you lose your appetite.

    When I moved from conference interpreting to account management and had a lot of catching up to do in terms of studying marketing. I used to read marketing books every waking moment when I wasn't doing my job...and I lost my appetite and lost 6-7 kg...or was it even more? When my weight hit 43 kg I knew I had to eat or end up in the hospital for anorexia, so I ate a lot of high calorie food in the evenings. But guess what? Once there's a down hill momentum it takes a few days for the weight gain to kick in again - so after eating A LOT - I was down to 42 kg the next day and I thought: arrrgh I've gotta eat! So I continued eating until my weight started creeping upward to 45 kg again.

    Our work hours were 14-16 hour days by the way. And I was thinking: No wonder people die from Karooshi in Japan and no wonder there's a word for it!

    I think trying to eat healthy and trying to get at least 7-8 hours of sleep at night will help you feel better (even though it doesn't make all your problems go away), but I don't know if you can afford to do that :S

    Hope you feel better soon - and remember that by trying to get better education you're doing the right thing to make your future a brighter one! You are going through a very tough time now and nobody should brush this aside and say everyone goes through it because not everyone has it this hard.
  • Constanza
    yea..i actually went to the conseling center of my school and they'll find me someone to talk to.
    they're supposed to call me tomorrow..so i guess that's something good.
    thanks for your concern sondra!
  • sondra
    Constanza, is there a counselor at your school you can talk to? That might be more comfortable than going to an "official" psychologist. Y'know, start small and work your way up to the real deal.:) Please do try to find someone to talk to in person.
  • Constanza
    woops..i hate being a TCK.
    i'll get better eventually..
    i hope.
  • Constanza
    I'm 19 and i've moved 12 times in my life..the longest i lived anywhere was 4 years and that was ONCE, when i was in elementary school...after that i've basically moved every 11 months.
    being a TCK sucks right now because well....i just have NOT IDEA who i am. i feel like all i've been doing in my life is adjusting to this place or the other..this culture, that culture, this person, that person..all to fit in, make "friends" and get by.
    i'm sick of not knowing whether i am somebody...
    i also feel very lonely all the time. i get sick of trying to explain my issues to people because their answers make me feel like "everybody" goes through them...and i know that's not the case. it feels like friends simply minimize and underestimate whatever im going through...and i mean..i cant blame them. they dont know what it is like.
    i guess the worse thing is being depressed right now. i'm alone in the US, my younger brother is in Chile and my parents are in the Philippines. i haven't seen my family for over 14 months and i dont know when i'll see them again. i'm going through a rough time financially, so i work part time in order to pay for school, but it's way too much. i can't really do both..but i dont hava much of a choice if i want to go to college...so yea. i can't sleep but once i fall asleep i dont want to wake up again (EVER). i don't eat cause im never hungry...i mean..i do eat once a day cause i know i have to, but most of the time i feel like NOT EATING. lately i've been thinking of not eating anything for a couple of days to faint in class/work or something..i just wanna do anything that will let me stop working and studying. i need a break..i feel like i have no space to breathe anymore.
    my parents keep on telling me to go see a psychologist, but i dont want to. i was supposed to go this morning, but i felt like crap so i didnt show up.


    so i guess right now i HATE
  • sophia
    1. The Beginning

    When you arrive in a new country and you look out your window and see a city you don't know, like, or are interested in, and yet you know you'll have to live here for at least a year. When you get to school and you just feel sick in your stomach for the 1st few days because the kids ignore you, the teachers patronize you, and when you get home you have nothing to do. When you miss your old friends and home so much you want to cry.

    2. The Middle

    When you look around at your classmates and wonder why you can't laugh like they do, why you don't know all the stuff they know, why you can't get as good friends with others as other get with their friends. When you feel so different, not as happy, and older.

    3. The End

    When, despite everything, you get to become good buddies with people, you like the culture, the school has grown on you, and you learn you'll be moving in a few months. The pain of saying goodbye to everyone and knowing most of them you'll never see again, you won't stay friends with, and that you might never come back to the place you spent a whole year or two in.
  • sondra
    Now, as an adult, I love being a TCK. But "reentry" at age 12 sucked! It wasn't reentry -- I had never lived in Canada before.
    1. Change in climate. I hate cold, rainy places. I had always had sunshine and heat.

    2. Being "stupid". I didn't know the pop culture, the slang, the styles. I had never ridden a school bus, used a drinking fountain or a phone, had a street address to memorize, been to a mall... The things I knew had nothing to do with the new life I was in. No one cared that I knew how to shop in three languages, how to bargain, how to find my way in most major airports, how to recognize the signs of typhoid and malaria... Even today in grad school, I find I don't know as much of the culture as I thought I did. I'm totally confused when they talk about tv shows from my childhood; we didn't have tv overseas.

    3. Losing friends. I have met most of them again since we left home, but my best childhood friend I have never found again. It took a long time to make a lasting friendship.

    I had depression, grief, suicidal tendencies, rage, and loneliness. It took a lot of work to deal with, but now that I am on the "other side", I am so grateful for my growing up. I know that there is life outside of "Hickville, USA"; I speak at least a little of several languages, and quickly pick up new ones; I can relate to many cultures and don't have issues with racism (except Canadians!); I travel overseas a lot, something I've discovered my US friends are nervous about doing; when countries are on the news, I know where they are and usually a little about the nation; I know that North America is not the center of the universe!
  • Uncle Dan
    Personally I think the title makes a fairly big assumption that being a TCK sucks in the first place.

    Being a TCK doesn't suck. It's just human. If we were mono-cultural we'd still find things to suck about, and that would just be being human too.

    It just seems to have an overwhelmingly negative slant. As if it were a curse.

    It's not a blessing or a curse, because we're human and are the product of ourselves and our environments. You just learn to make the most of it, just like everything else.
  • Uncle Dan
    That's true for me too. Our friendships might be short, but they can be very intense, and extremely rewarding.
  • camilla
    I think I might be in a very minority group of people that think this way, but I actually think that being a TCK has helped me form better relationships! Because I am used to saying goodbye, I open up a lot easier and faster so that no time is wasted! I don't want to miss out on what could be an amazing friendship simply because I was too shy for the first year to actually let them know who the real me is! To me, it is like the saying, "Its better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all". Yes, you might leave them behind or they might leave you behind and never see each other again but the friendship and connection you shared for even the briefest time will always be with you in your memories, and you will always have the knowledge that you are always in their memories. That connection, is to me, what being human is all about and because TCK's tend to have to build this connection with more people than a 'normal' person would, makes us privileged!
  • MarieCPH
    1. Friends: Having lost touch with my childhood friends means I don't have any friends that I've known more than a couple of years. I moved from Brussels 12 years ago to a small village in northern Denmark - you would get beat up for wearing the wrong sweater: imagine being from another country. Basically, this made my transition living hell, and I'm still recovering twelve years later.

    2. People who Downplay The Importance of Cultures: a lot of my closest friends have absolutely no idea that there is a disadvantage in having lived different places. Knowing langages/cultures is a plus, but going through a lot of your life feeling like a freak is not one of them! Also - if you're monocultural, you have no idea what it actually MEANS to have been imerged in diff. culture. Yes, we're all human, no we're not all alike.

    3. Playing the Chameleon: If you constantly hurt yourself to the values of the New Culture, you end up thinking that there's something wrong with you, because a lot of their behaviour hurts your feelings and your beliefs at the same time. Thus, you end up having relations with people that somehow feel "fake" - because you can never really tell them how you feel.

    Although being intercultural has many, many advantages, I think we only fully realise it later in life, once we've acquired some perspective to what actually happened.
  • mmmmmm
    1. It's always me who has to look strong, reliable and smile all the time, just because I am apparently the "more experienced and open-minded" person. So I should always be understanding toward other people's pathetic complaints about life that's honestly not half as problematic as my own.
    2. It's ok if they always want me to be all understanding because obviously I should be, but it's SICKENING when they never try to understand you and they feel like you were born to be different and not understood, and they think we don't need to be understood and we are not human or sumthing.
    3. Sometimes, we get those moments when we look at mono-culture people and just get reli sick. Obviously we understand that's how they grew up but the way they act like no other races exist in the world and don't give a damn about global issues and actually say the most DISCRIMINATING things ever while thinking they are totally being reasonable DRIVES ME INSANE! CUZ THEY ARE NOT! Esepecially annoying when your whole family is mono-culture. And since I am Chinese I hear a lot of rude comment toward homosexuality from family and people. I get so angry because some of my best frds are les, and i want to punch ppl for insulting them but i Can't cuz they would be like "OMG U SUPPORT HOMOSEXUALITY OMG THIS KID IS BRAINWASHED SAVER HER!" so yah in situations like this I can only hurt myself to release anger, bite my fist so I don't scream out insults or punch them in the face.

    wow that was quite a rant.
  • lauren
    Restlessness and uncertainty
    I Dont sleep very well, want to move all the time.I Love airports but hate going to them because I have this unresloved conflict of weather I should just blow all my money and fly away to some other place! I can never settle, which is really bad now that I am in college because I cant decide if I have the right major, or if I am in the right place or if I should transfer to a german Uni. Also this situation is not helped by my father who emails me at least onece a week with links to different Uni's in Europe. How annoying.But mostly not knowing weather I want to do with my life and where I want to spend it. I never stop thinking about this. The idea that I may not be able to make it as a classical musician or ever get a job teaching at an international school makes me so anxious!

    2. Hiding emotions 3. fear of opening up and having relationships
    I am really good at hiding my feelings.If you meet me you would think I was a very happy love life type of person, which I am normally, but I never shoe any other emotions. If I am so good at hiding my grief to make my parents not feel bad about moving me and my brother all the time. Although I act happy all the time I have trouble letting out my emotions. I conceal them so well but they all bult up so that through all of highschool and even sometimes in college I just cry uncontrollably alone in my room. The only person who has ever seen me like this is my brother, who is the only person in the world who has an idea of what I feel like. Even he and I have has vastly different experiences, he was so much younger than I. I moved mostly during my adolescence(well still am I am only 18), and it wasnt until my last lear of high school that I had 3 friends who were going to last a life time. But then in august I was stung again by that bitter emotion of leaving any sense of security or love. Never again will I open myself up like that again... rrr....I cant believe I thought it would hurt less if I allowed myself to really love those people. I hope we don;t lose contact, but over time it is inevitable, I know this from experience. ;-(

    I am lucky to be a TCK, but there are so many things that I never knew or will. Like living in the same place longer than 4 years or having a stable community who understands, me. I dont even know how to open myself up to anyone because I know that they wont understand me at all. It is so hard to have relationships with some people. I mean, I dont blame them or myslef , but I hope some day I will get over this.
  • Ayako
    I still have funny dreams where I turn the corner in a familiar city and then I'm somewhere I don't recognize at all and I'm lost!

    This can happen when I turn the corner or go back to get something because I forgot something and then the road disappears, or I get on a train and it goes somewhere unrecognizable.

    It probably has something to do with having moved around :p
  • I thought I had somehow dealt with it by deciding for one country and sticking to it for over the past 10 years. However, there are always those nightmares of being shipped into a plane and not being able to go home. These dreams make me feel like I was living a double life, during the day I live in Santiago, during the night it can be Budapest, Madrid or Madras and there is always the airplane. Something always happens last minute and I am told I can´t go back to Santiago. This consumes a lot of my energy, I wake up all spaced out and it sucks, I´m very sensitive to these dreams and they screw up my day.
  • mary-e
    I am glad that I grew up overseas. My family is very close because, for years, all we had was each other. Being a TCK isn't easy, but, as has been said several times, I wouldn't change it for the world. I recently left my family and China to go to college in a little town in NW Oklahoma where my grandmom lives. Wow! Talk about culture shock!!


    1. Ignorance of pop culture. I haven't seen all the movies that everyone else has seen. I haven't listened to all the music; I don't know all the actors and singers and sports heroes. Even though my friends know that I grew up in another country, they don't seem to understand that it means I grew up in a different pop culture. I know other movies/actors/singers/sports heroes which brings me to my next point.

    2. Isolation. I can't find anyone who cares enough to learn about what I know. And why should anyone? Nothing I have to say is anything that anyone else can relate to. I can't share my favorite songs and artists with my American friends because they can't understand what is being said. I can't explain why certain movies are my favorite because, even though I look the same as my American friends, my values and opinions are a unique mixture of the east and the west.

    3. Identity. It has been mentioned many times before, but I have to bring it up again. How can I be myself when the people around me can't relate to me? I don't want to always be lecturing my friends about my life in China, my experiences, the things that make me who I am. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, "While you spent your whole life living in a town of 40,000 people, I lived in an exotic country far away in a city with more people than your entire state!" So, I keep quiet. I try to identify with them, and I end up playing an elaborate role of make-believe. I'm pretending to be someone that they can relate to, so I just keep hiding all my confusion inside.


    My parents were never TCKs, so they have a hard time understanding what it's like for my brothers and me. But they have always been so caring and sensitive. From reading the comments above, I see that this is rare. My home is always with my family. I call my parents about every week and we talk for hours. Yes, it's expensive, but they are the only ones who really know me. I just don't think I could handle the pressure of being a TCK without them. They have tried from the very beginning to make this a positive experience for us. I'm very grateful for everything they've done for me.
  • dilia
    not fitting into my culture(s) and not knowing if I want to-

    I can soo relate to that! one of the reasons it took me so long to sort of settle in my 'home country'is that I didn't really know if I wanted to
  • Cynthia
    1) The feeling of sadness when you look back to the good old days and realized how much you missed it and how sorry it had to end. The feeling of what could've happened if you never moved.

    2) The feeling you are missing out on a chunk of someone important's life for not being there.

    3) Visas. I hate these things. Why can't we move freely from country to country? LOL Why can't we all get along?
  • tierney
    1) having to hide parts of myself from others, and even from myself, because i know that i will always have to leave it behind.

    2) always feeling stuck. no matter where i am, no matter how long ive been there

    3) losing contact with the few good friends i have. its nice to feel like i can rely on someone, knowing that they will do their best to be there for me. and when i lose a relationship that good with someone, i feel that much more lost.
  • comfortably numb
    1. there's no place called "HOME"! your confused about where to settle?

    2. after settling at one place for a few years, you feel like moving on.

    3. due to constantly relocating, your contacts/ friends are left behind and no long term relationship is possible.
  • 1) Friends. I can't move my friendships beyond the casual stage, and I miss having good friends to talk to. Being married helps a lot, but I still wish I could make friends. My friendships rarely last more than two years.

    2)Identity loss/background loss. My childhood is 6000 miles away. The break was so clean - I repatriated for college, leaving my history in Germany. It's been hard to reclaim my past. I know who I am now, but I was lost for a while.

    3) Being a perpetual outsider. Again, I've grown to accept it. I'm a square peg living in a round hole, and that's okay. But I do get lonely, and I'm tired of being misunderstood.

    That said, I don't think being a TCK sucks. Sure, I have problems. But if I grew up stateside and never left the country, I'd still have problems. I'd rather have these problems. My life is richer for where I've been and what I've witnessed, and I wouldn't trade my perspective for anything.
  • Monique
    1. Fear of Commitment

    Automatically pushing people away becuase your afraid of getting close then losing their friendship...this is especially frustrating with my guy friends...ive had numerous "unofficial" boyfriends but the minute one of them actually asks me to commit to a relationship i freak out and push them away.

    2. Lost opportunities
    e.g. having to leave really good schools with 98% automatic entrace to Ivy League universitys and being dragged to a small island with no real options where you have to start all over again

    3. will add later
  • Hannah
    I think its really interesting to hear others say they have a fear of commitment too. I've had those same experiences with several "unofficial" boyfriends and I also freak out when the time to actually commit comes. I never realized it had something to do with being a TCK but I've now heard several people with similar feelings and experiences. So in a way it's comforting to know that there are other people out there and to know where this fear of commitment comes from has really helped me.
  • Kristina J. Adams
    I've had lots of years in one place to process what happened throughout my childhood/teen/college years, and I've come to terms as well as come to appreciate the impact being a TCK has had on my life.

    That being said, I do have certain experiences that will always bring that unsettled and insecure feeling to the surface if I dwell too long.

    1. Repatriation
    My family moved back to the US over spring break of my 8th grade year. My parents drove up from Istanbul to pick up my older brother and I from boarding school in Germany. I was finally feeling like I fit somewhere when I was at boarding school and assumed I would return within the next two years, to graduate in Germany. Didn't happen. To say I was bitter is an understatement. However, I am still close friends with my best friend from high school, and I only moved about two hours away after getting married.

    2. Pursuing Talents
    I'm with Peter on this one. As far as sports, musical influence, and just plain getting to know whether I was bad, good, or able to excell at a certain activity was never really realized to its full extent in my life. That also reflected itself when it came time for me to choose a career, and ultimately I probably would have studied something other than what I did in college.

    3. Building Meaningful/Lasting Relationships
    I've been happily married for almost 12 years, with 2 children, 8 and 2 years old. However, throughout hs and college (until I met my husband) I found it difficult to trust anyone. I already felt like people in general were talking about the 'weirdo' who didn't know how to act. Compound that with dating someone and feeling like people were critiqueing (sp) how I dated was a bit much. Thankfully, my husband has a high degree of "closemouthedness" which gave me the security of not being discussed in a "forum" of his friends.

    Having reached the ripe ol' age of 36 ;), I can look at the course my life has taken, and I feel quite proud that I'm relatively normal...ha, ha. I wouldn't change my life, b/c my experiences have helped me gain more empathy for all types of people, not just TCKs. I can relate to many people, since there is such a gamut of experiences from which to pull a connection.
  • joanna
    1) Loss of friends and family - I barely talk to my own family anymore and it has been years since I've seen them. I have first cousins who I haven't even met, and I only even talk to one of my cousins (we were inseperable as kids) superficially on facebook/myspace sites. Same deal with my friends, as we've all moved away to different countries we have all lost touch and I don't even know where 3/4 of them live now. The few I have found have grown up so different from me that it is now hard to find common ground on which to relate.

    2) Identity loss - I have no idea who I am. I do not belong to my home country nor the country I live in. I have extreme trust issues and cannot get comfortable with a group of friends because as a kid, I was used to having to leave as soon as I became comfortable in my situation. Yes, I have lived in the same place for 10 yrs now but the residual effects of those earlier years haunt me. I have a constant insecurity from that lack of identity that harms every single one of my relationships.

    3) Misplaced homesickness - Though nowadays, England and Holland would be as foreign to me as China, I still feel incredibly homesick for these two places, though I know the next time I return will be a huge shock and letdown from the fond memories I have of both places.
  • karmen
    1. Friends. My relationships with them are so short, and as I grew older it was getting harder to form them. Especially when in my school people have lived in Belgium (where I'm from and where I am now) their whole life. I've moved around so much that I never lived in Belgium and never had gotten to know it. So now I only have online friends and a close real life one living in Australia.

    2. Family. Since I was usually in some country far away from Belgium, this caused me to grow distant from them. I never really had even been close to them. There was also a large language barrier since I speak English as a first language and my Dutch barely scraped by to make me bilingual. I even still have problems today, and I've been studying it for the past 3 years.

    3. "Where are you from?" "Well, technically, I am from Belgium but... -insert 6 countries that I had been to- "
    I am getting sick of that question. Belgium was never my home, it's only my home because my passport says it is. The end.
  • shevaunf
    In response to question 2:

    I literally *lost* a friend of mine, another TCK, after we both left primary school and both sets of parents began a crazy run of moving house. We wrote, but I got one letter nearly a year after it was written (and I later found out 3 countries later as well, 4 for me). This was in the days before email and the internet.

    There is an answer, it's not perfect, but I actually found my friend, working only a few hundred yards from where I work, after 12 years, and we've actually managed to pick up where we left off! The answer? FACEBOOK!!!

    As I said, not perfect. But one advantage of being a TCK is that when we do stay in touch with special friends, we're guaranteed foreign holidays!

    :)
  • I so know what you mean about number #1 and #2.

    1. Parents making you feel like you are ungrateful because you miss what you lost!\\

    2. Friends that don't keep in touch! Like bestest bestest friends who are less than curious about how you are doing a couple of months later... when months after you are still wondering about them!! Damn it, people!!!

    #3. For me is when you don't make new friends for a while. Having to settle sometimes for people who may not get along with that great just to fit into the new place you live. (I dont recommend doing it... i certainly learned from it tho. I think i rather be a complete LONER than someone who is surrounded by people they dont really like!)


    Once i begun to deal with some of my grief.. life has been looking much better each month. Its not an easy road but thats how life is sometimes so just gotta stick to it! :)
  • kimkaiser_111
    I am generally an outgoing person so when I'm quiet everyone always asks me what's wrong. I do have a need to have alone time. Maybe take a long drive alone, or go somewhere just to write, go take a hike alone. When I do this people around me think there's something going on with me, but I just need that time to regroup, collect my thoughts, and think up new idea's. Most people don't understand this need to just be with myself.
    The career thing....what career? "I've got an idea, maybe I can do this, or that, or whatever"....always end up back in sales, no matter where I am, easy for me and there is always a need for a sales person in any industry.
    Of course the classic...if they're not a tckid they just can't relate and most of the time don't even try and relate to our experiences. Always feel that yes I know the other person better because I ask questions...maybe they just don't know what questions to ask??
  • I hear you; you sound exactly like me when I was your age and even now to a certain extent. Especially point 1. I tried not to complain about my "home" country when we moved back, because I also had made a big deal about how great moving back to the States would be, but I hated it once I got there.
  • rmyl
    1. "Feels so new~"

    Really suck of being asked a few hundred times "Where do you come from?" while I move to a new place. And I agree with many of others here saying that we are treated differently... And to be frank, in asia, many people is jealous of me being a TCKid... Sometimes is frustrating in dealing with such comments... (Altho I seemed to get used to that while growing up)

    2. Restlessness

    I am afraid of building a long term relationship with any people or to its extreme, I rarely sign any contracts with a maturity of more than a year. Feels particularly bad in festive days... which for others, they may have their families, or friends to share with in a small party... or dinner maybe... I have nearly forgotten when is the last time I had dinner with my family~ lol

    3. Identity

    This seems the hardest point for any TCKid as far as I know... same to me... seems no need to explain it further coz you may refer to like 10 passages of explanations above... hahaha~
  • isabella0
    Personally I love being a Tckid
    here are three things that do suck

    a) Never knowing when you'll see your friends again, like almost everyone else my friends are scattered all over the world and I know I'll probably never see them again, saying bye is the hardest part especially when it comes to that point where you really enjoy living somewhere and before you know it your house is empty and your stuff is in boxes, oh geez thats the worse part. I will always remeber standing in my house when it's empty. I think its hard keeping in touch, especially when they tell you about the fun they are havin? does anyone know what I mean?

    b) missing out on alot of the "traditional" stuff of being a kid, like riding ur bike (haha I was kind of late on this one) going to homecoming, growing up with your friends through middle school onto high school. Like hm when you leave someplace and you come back in three years and its completly changed? and you weren't there to see it happen. Sometimes I feel as if I wasn't actually there in the first place. Kind of like no sense of belonging

    c)Short term relationships. I don't think I'm a bad person but I just can't commit to anything at all. Like I will be really good friends with someone and then push them away. I can't let anyone get too close because I feel like I'll just end up leaving. I'm also really defensive. I have my moments I guess where I just really want to be close to someone cause sometimes it does get lonely.

    Even though these things kind of do suck(I'm not sure if I made any sense) I wouldn't trade anything for being a Tckid, I think that just comes along. There will always be something bad in whatever I do but I've just come to live with it. I just hope that these little things will make me a better person? haha I'm so cliche.
  • jason-s
    1. The underlying feeling of restlessness. I can't seem to be comfortable in one place for very long, be it a home, job or relationship. Thus I tend to move on fairly quickly or, if for some reason I cannot move on when I need to, I get incredibly frustrated.

    2. Relationship with my father is terrible. He did not seem to take into account any of my feelings or needs when we had to move. He was also very busy working. I understand that was his job but his job was not everything! He has a family! My mother and I are ok but we do tend to have the odd enormous argument from time to time. This I think is rooted in unresolved feelings from my childhood and teens which is directly linked to how often i had to integrate into a new culture.

    3. Identity. This has always been the hardest part for me. Non-tck friends I have made do not understand my aloofness sometimes and mistake it for a kind of arrogance. I just hang back because it is difficult for me to fully integrate with their cultural viewpoint because it is a lot narrower than mine. My TCK friends are scattered across the globe so no real connection there.
  • shevaunf
    1. Parents. I have one tck parent and one "normal" one. My relationship with the "normal" one, my mother, is abysmal. She sees my cousins, good catholics raised in the same town she did and still living there and really close to their parents and assumes that I'll see everything the way they do. I don't. I hold a different passport, I've never lived there, rarely visited I hardly speak the language, boarded in a different country and I'm atheist. She swings between getting angry I'm not more like her or my cousins, and completely denying that side of my heritage to me. I don't know which is worse. It doesn't help that my relationship with my dad is easier as he was himself an MK. There are still issues, as he grew up in a very different class culture, didn't go to Boarding school and so on, but his personality and his ideals are more like mine and so we understand each other better.

    2. Alienation of family. Living in so many countries, boarding in yet another one, I'm not close to my family. I don't feel a connection to them and that can sometimes be upsetting, especially when we visit and see how close my grandmother is to my cousins and how hard they work to make us feel included and cross the language barrier.

    3. Relationships. My boyfriend grew up within a 30 mile radius and met some of his best friends while they were still in nappies. He tries very hard to understand, but there are some peculiarities of mine he just can't understand. Like how bad I am about throwing old stuff away. I find I cling to certain things, particularly decorations, pictures and stuff like that. Because we moved so much, and have moved so much since I left uni, home became associated with particular objects rather than people or places. I try to make him understand but he (understandably) gets defensive and angry when I burst into tears when he tries to throw out a ratty old blanket, for example. No matter how you phrase it, it sounds very strange and pathetic when you try to explain that blanket means home. The blanket is still there.
  • kristine
    1. Parents!
    They don't understand, and expect you to be thankful and everything cause you're 'priveleged'. Seriously, I KNOW that, I am not dumb - but did they ever think that sometimes, I do miss my friends, and I have my emo moments then? NOOOOO. LOL.

    2. Friends that don't keep in touch.
    Okay, sure some are busy, but you can't ALWAYS be. I find time to keep in touch, why can't you, right?? And how dare they say that we're still gonna be tight even after I leave, or after they leave, and then totally disregard you. Thanks man.

    3. Opportunities to learn 'normal stuff'.
    Friends here in small town canada, know how to DRIVE and they're YOUNGER than me. Of course, they've had more time to practice and stuff.. but still, I wanna learn how to quad, or snowboard.. then again, I can't even have lessons. I move too much, it would be a waste to give me lessons for anything. We're out most of the time.
  • 1. Feeling like a complete foreigner in my "home country." When I spent a year there a few years ago, I felt so stupid for feeling culture shock for actually living in the country I had begged my parents to move back to for YEARS, and I was miserable.

    2. Having depression, and almost hurting myself because of it. I know, this probably has nothing to do with my TCK-ness, but being a TCK certainly didn't help.

    3. The loneliness you feel when none of your friends understand what it's like not to belong anywhere. Now that I'm in university, I feel like that's my "home" but I still want to live abroad, which means saying good bye to friends, even if it's only temporary. But people change while you're gone, and I've lost many friends that way.

    This past year has been pretty rough, so please excuse me if I'm a bit bitter.
  • Jamie
    In response to your #2: dealing with depression is very much a part of the TCK life. As TCKs we are constantly dealing with identity issues and tons and tons of grief. After a while, it is very common for the constant grief to turn into depression. You are not alone.
  • Manda-Panda
    1. I don't know how to stay in one place for more than a few years, even if everything is going good I have to move. I can't finish any thing I start

    2. Not being accepted because I am different and I have moved so much, being lonely

    3. losing everything when I move, friends, my home, my stability, my life, my things
  • 1) The loneliness - I grew up as an mk in a small village and for most of the time that I was growing up there were no non-family foreigners within 2 hours. I had a lot of friends among the nationals, but there were so many automatic disconnects that I spent high school very lonely.

    2) Not fitting into my culture(s) and not knowing if I wanted to...

    3) Losing home. It really isn't as big a deal to me as it would be for most people, but I still would like a place that could be home. :)

    All that being said, I loved the experience of growing up TCK and especially for 2 & 3 see tremendous disadvantages in the opposite problems too.
  • 1) Being treated differently. I may have had a different lifestyle growing up, but that's no reason to treat me like I'm clueless or developmentally challenged when it comes to living my life "back home" again. Since I've moved back to the Philippines and started working here, co-workers have resorted to either speaking slowly with me or mixing Tagalog with English, as if I have trouble understanding them. My Tagalog is definitely not perfect, but I can understand it quite well and do not appreciate being treated like I'm a special needs case.

    2) Having my friends be scattered all over the world. Of course, I'm very excited and blessed to even be able to say that. It just means I will always miss people, no matter where I go in the world.

    3) Being a TCK is expensive. What with all the traveling, plane tickets, phone calls, Internet time, etc., etc., etc.
  • 1. Friends. The first few years of my life were spent in one country, but I don't remember any friends I made or, for that matter, where they are. The ones I do remember after that don't keep in touch very much. Mostly because of the time difference, sometimes because we have other friends. Kinda sucks since I really do try and keep in touch. Friends you make once you enter another country is hard. You'd like to be close to them, but never as close as you'd like to be.
    2. Hanging on. I've always had a problem with it, especially with my own home country since it's the only place I feel I truly belong to, even though I doubt my identity a lot and wonder if I actually do belong.
    3. Getting close to others. I'm no extrovert, I prefer to remain close to myself and never let anyone see weaknesses. I don't want to get close to someone and figure out I have to leave again. I figure if I can eliminate the pain of leaving friends, moving will be halfway bearable. Of course, in a ay, it's worked, but in a way, it's not possible to try and stop yourself making friends.
    4. My parents. I still have problems, I blame them for making my entire existance miserable. My dad refers to my friends as 'business contacts' I honestly dunno what he means by that, but I used to think he obviously had no friends and no life and therefore merely wanted to make my life miserable. In fact, I still do! He keeps saying it's hard for him to move, but it was hard for him, then I felt he wouldn't move at all. He keeps going on and on about all the opportunities the travelling gives me, but I have never once believed him.
  • Peter
    1) Not really being able to finish what I started or realize my talents to the furthest extent or being able to purse my interests. I was always good at sports, but now I keep wondering what could have been. I went to a school which was so small as not to be even able to field a soccer team. This part could turn into a rant... sometimes I feel like I wasted some of my talents or never got an opportunity to realize them...

    2) Friendships and relationships. It's hard moving every 2 years and making new friends, usually in very small schools and then leaving them. It's even harder then coming to a big school and a non-TCK envirnoment. You miss out on all the clicques being formed. You make friends, but they're never as close as you want them to be. Sometimes it's hard to connect with people. And to add to that actually trying to get a girlfriend is impossible. So a lot of times you end up lonely and depressed. Furthermore this is even worse when you graduate and have to find a job, you end up in a city where you might have lived before, but now know no one.

    3) Identity... I won't even go into this one, cauz I don't know where to start.
  • warona
    1. repatriation:
    ugh! it was AWFUL! got a lot of shit for not speaking the language, not knowing cultures and customs, laughed at for not knowing popular culture and my background had zero cool points since i had lived in a country folks either hadn't heard of or associated with famine and poverty. and that, apparently, was not cool. even my parents got frustrated with me, and all this at 8 years old. i began to feel very isolated and HATED my passport country. i still don't exactly like it there, even though i feel i have dealt with my "demons".

    2. being a novelty:
    i am an extrovert and thus usually like attention, i am loud and i like being "different", but not ALWAYS. sometimes i just want to be with people that get me from the get go. as a teen i liked hearing the phrase "i've never met anyone like you before" it made me feel original, special, but after a while i just got sick of it, i wanted to meet someone who just listened to what i said and talked to me, got to know me, didn't think i was so weird. luckily i found my fiance, who is weirder than me (believe it or not)

    3. not knowing:
    i just found out i am tck a few months ago, so basically i went through my childhood and teens not knowing. not knowing why i was so different, why i was so shunned, why i was so restless. sure i knew it had to do with the fact that i had grown up outside my passport country, but i had no vocabulary to articulate why simply growing up in another country could change who i am so drastically. it sometimes made me feel a fraud, as though i was pretending to be this way, and maybe everyone was right and i should just suck it up and be like my peers. not knowing can drive you crazy, because you think you are crazy and you don't have anyone telling you different.

    luckily i have dealt with and still dealing with some of these issues, but i know they will be with me forever. for example, i am still SO defensive about the fact that i don't speak my mother tongue, and i think i always will be. recently my fiance mentioned that i will be expected to learn his mother tongue once we are married, i got REALLY defensive about it. he was surprised since he plans to learn mine. i realized i associate language so strongly with my self-worth. as a child i was made to feel that i was worth nothing because i did not speak a certain language, and thus now, when i am questioned about language, any language i get HELLA defensive.

    see? still a work in progress. guess we all are.

    phew! that felt good! (tckid: the "t" is for "therapy"!)
  • Warona, you are expressing my feelings really well!

    I totally relate on those 3 points, especially on repatriation & being a novelty: for me it was after 18, then again at the age of 23 - for school and work.

    I had a class of 53 French girls (my passport country) disliking me because I was "showing off" with my life - it took me 6 months and tremendous efforts to revert that situation, and I had to negate everything I was to achieve it. I hated myself for that.
    I met one of the only guys of the class a few years ago and he apologized to me for how they treated me - I was astonished to realise that that little apology helped me to come to term with that horrible year.
    I know from being around French people for long enough now that the apology also came because my career took off much quicker and higher than most of my class (thanks to my TCK background which was view as a huge opportunity by my company, but also the fact I already had work experience), but anyway, it was soothing.

    Now that I know I am a TCK and found out other people are going through the same experiences, I feel much better about myself and I don't feel like living a lie anymore.

    But I am still fragile on the way I relate to people.

    I am in Australia now and have a "new" boyfriend (after being single for 3 years in Paris, I just could not find any french guy I wanted to be close to)
    He is french but has traveled a lot and we have a lot of things in common thanks to that.
    But last week in a conversation he said "but anyway, besides all your traveling, your culture is the french culture" I said no and tried to explain, but he insisted again.
    I was saddened and disappointed, and felt myself drifting away from him, thinking he was another of those french guys, unable to understand.
    I could not fight against those feelings, as much as I tried, and did my best to hide them (too difficult to explain, and I did not want to have a "serious discussion" after only a month of being together)
    I was lucky that he felt that something was wrong and managed to make me talk over the issue. He listened to my monologue for a long time (it was 2am and he was working early in the morning... poor guy) and apologised, and said he will be more careful next time, and is willing to learn more about TCK.
    I still have to push myself a little bit to go over that first barrier in that relationship, but I am willing to try because I am scared that the situation will happen with other guys so I might as well tackle this issue straight away! (I am 32 by the way, so nothing to do with lack of relationship experience...)

    Well sorry for drifting away from the main subject, I realise I've written much more than I intended, but I needed to get it out my system... and I did not get the chance to talk to my family since it happened (they are usually the ones I turn too as they understand my situation !! Especially my sister who is now happily dating another TCK in Japan :-)
  • djiboutigirl
    1- All of my high school friends are scattered throughout the world and I have no idea where 90% of them are. (I have 2 people on facebook from my high school who are non-mks, which makes me happy). but the other 50 i have no idea. My brother just went back to djibouti, and found out that one of his friends died a few years ago. that sucks.
    2- not fitting in anywhere.. I have no idea where I belong, who my 'real' friends are (who will be there for even when i'm across the world) which also leads to depression, which i have struggled with over the last 4-5 years.
    3-Relationships. I open myself up to people to an extent, but then move on.. leaving them behind it seems. In 5 semesters of college, I've had 5 "best friends". I also don't trust guys, i don't know why, but I'm blaming it on TCKness :) it's easier that way. I can be friends with them, for a bit, but if there's a hint of anything more, i freak out and lose a friend. And even when I was dating, every time i spent the few months we were dating freaking out until I pushed them away enough that they break up with me, or i break up with them. Which makes me wonder if I'll ever be able to get married... the concept of "forever" is so foreign....
    But.. i also love being a TCK!!
  • Brice
    I turned many of those negatives into positives lately, but I do remember how hard it was when I was younger, and had no clue about this "TCK" thing.

    1. Cultural shock. Re-entry made me absolutely miserable. I think I was 13 years old when it first happened, and that's a horrible time to cut off friendships. I had to learn a new language, learn new cultural rules, and so on. I hated it, and I felt like I didn't belong anywhere.

    I'll add more soon.
  • anonymoustck
    1. I hated my parents for the longest time when I was a teenager. But I never expressed it, I kept it bottled up inside because I've been told "we've made sacrifices so you can enjoy all those opportunities". I didn't see it that way. All I saw was the pain of saying goodbye to my friends, being confused about my identity, and feeling like I don't belong anywhere. My parents didn't understand, they were too "stuck" in their ways. I never had a role model, or someone I could look up to .. or some cultural identity I could understand and live by. Mine was too confusing, and it didn't make sense. I was really depressed whenever I had to move to a new place, and especially during "re-entry" where I felt like a foreigner.

    2. Difficult relationships... I feel like I struggle committing to relationships. I get in a group of people, get short-term friends, but not *real* close friends that I can rely on because if we get too close I tend to leave. I'm afraid of opening up, and revealing too much of myself.

    3. Fear of the future. I always wondered what the hell I was supposed to do in life. What was in store for me? I felt confused and kept going after different careers and choices, and I was never taught these things.
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