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3 Reasons Why Being a TCK Sucks
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3 reasons Why being a TCK sucks
Do you think being a TCK sucks? Well, some TCKs think so. It sucks 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 sucks. 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.
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April 19th, 2008 at 5:55 am
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.
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April 20th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
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…
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April 27th, 2008 at 11:08 am
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…
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April 27th, 2008 at 11:13 am
right on.
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April 27th, 2008 at 11:21 am
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…)
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May 3rd, 2008 at 9:20 am
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.
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May 3rd, 2008 at 3:53 pm
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
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May 3rd, 2008 at 4:06 pm
1) No friends
2) No identity
3) A world which doesn’t understand your situation
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May 7th, 2008 at 6:16 am
I don’t view being a TCK negatively really, in fact I love it, but some things, I must say, are tiring
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?
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.
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May 27th, 2008 at 10:24 am
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.
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