3 Reasons Why Being a TCK is Challenging. (Share your burdens here)
This is a writing exercise. Name 3 reasons Why being a TCK is challenging.
Do you think being a TCK sucks? Well, some TCKs seem to think so. It’s challenging if you have restlessness, a lack of identity, short-term relationships and unresolved grief. If you’ve been on the site long enough, then you won’t be surprised 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.
“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.”
So.. 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 rant and express yourself and post anonymously if you want by logging in as “anonymoustck”.
Username:anonymoustck
Password:anonymoustck
ON THE POSITIVE SIDE: Should my children be TCKs? and What’s the best thing about being a TCK? Read reasons why being a TCK has been a positive experience.
January 18th, 2008 at 8:59 am
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.
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January 20th, 2008 at 5:43 am
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.
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January 20th, 2008 at 7:27 am
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
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January 20th, 2008 at 10:22 am
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.
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January 21st, 2008 at 2:31 am
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.
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January 22nd, 2008 at 6:59 pm
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.
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January 23rd, 2008 at 6:08 am
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?
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January 28th, 2008 at 9:47 am
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
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February 3rd, 2008 at 9:17 am
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.
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February 7th, 2008 at 8:18 am
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.
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