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?

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Wow, has it been a year already?? Happy 64th birthday Ruth!! I’m going to keep this 2008 thread up to celebrate and remember last year’s birthday!

Listen to my audio message:

To celebrate Ruth’s birthday, I thought I would post a few pictures from recent TCKID meetups we had from our 8 local groups from Singapore to Sweden.

It has been an incredible journey for all of us who have volunteered and build this community from the bottom up … and together, we did it! We will continue to help TCKs meet others like themselves and find a sense of belonging online.. and offline.

Thank you Ruth for being part of the team and supporting the community in so many ways!

Make your Flickr pictures appear here by tagging them “tckid”

—–
Our friend and advisor, Ruth Van Reken, is 63 years old today!!! YAY! Happy birthday Ruth! Thank you so much for all the work you’ve done all these years for TCKs and CCKs everywhere.

Who is Ruth?
Ruth is TCKID’s advisor and the co-author of Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Amoung Worlds and author of Letters Never Sent, a chapter in Strangers at Home. You can read more about Ruth Van Reken here

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Do you think the pain of rejection and not belonging make you stronger or damage you?

Personally, it made me stronger and the challenges became a positive blessing. I explain why below.

Listen to our interview with ABC News on TCKID. Ruth Van Reken, Daniela Tudor and I discuss the benefits and the health challenges of being culturally mixed:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lifematters/stories/2009/2583257.htm

Vote here:
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The reason I ask is because as you may already know, I struggled to find a sense of belonging.

I thought I was weird and there was something wrong with me.

Several years ago, I got a surprise from the doctor: a diagnosis of a terminal disease. The doctors told me, then I was 19 year old man preparing for university, that there was no cure or explanation.

For several years, I couldn’t write, shower myself, or even hold a glass of water. But worst of all, I was isolated and had no purpose in life.

However, my life was turned around when I discovered that the emotional stress had caused the physical pain.

According to research, emotions can cause years of chronic pain and physical disability.

Did you know that your emotions can weaken your immune system and make it more vulnerable to disease?

One day, after releasing those emotions, I was completely healed. I couldn’t believe it, I was completely healed in one day!

After being healed, I made a promise to myself to relieve people from pain and give them a sense of belonging regardless of their culture, race, or color of their skin.

The pain became a blessing. TCKID wouldn’t exist today if it wasn’t for this challenge.

Maybe your emotional pain didn’t give you a physical illness.

Maybe you have relationship pain, and you’re struggling to connect and belong anywhere. Maybe it’s the pain of restlessness, and you just keep moving or pushing people away. We all have experienced emotional pain, but…

Is it a curse or a blessing?

For me, it was a positive blessing.

What are your thoughts?

Talk soon,
Brice

Barack Obama, who spent his childhood in Indonesia and Hawaii, writes:: “I used drugs and alcohol to push questions of who I was out of my mind.” (…) “What I needed was a community, I realized, a community that cut deeper than the common despair that black friends and I shared when reading the latest crime statistics.” – Barack Obama’s Third Culture Kid Team | List of Famous TCKs

Recommended Reading on Emotions and your health:

How Emotions Affect Your Health- Family Doctor

Emotional Pain Hurts More than Physical Pain - Telegraph

The Mind and Body Connection - Science Daily

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Oprah wants to hear your story.

I just heard from my friend Donna Musil, the director of the film BRATS: Our Journey Home, that Oprah may finally be talking about military families — and hopefully, their children – to discuss and share advice on how to cope with repatriation.

From the Oprah website:

Have Advice for Military Families?
Are you a military family coping with someone serving overseas? Have you or a loved one just returned home from a tour of duty? What got you through a long deployment? Share the best advice you’ve received to help other families in similar situations.

VOTE
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Send your story to Oprah.

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Hey Canadian TCKs,

Brice here. I just received some important news from my friend Robin Pascoe. If you are Canadian and gave birth or planning to give birth to any of your children while living overseas, please read this and pass the link along to any of your Canadian friends.

The Challenge:

The government have introduced a new law last year, and a new citizenship rule is about to take effect (April 2009).

This law restricts the foreign-born children of Canadians living abroad from passing on the Canadian citizenship.

Please read the following Globe and Mail article

Also, please read: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/citizenship/rules-citizenship.asp

Scroll down to “adoption”, although it mentions adoption, it affects Canadians living abroad giving birth to a child.

“This means that children born in another country after the new law comes into effect will not be Canadian citizens by birth if they were born outside Canada to a Canadian parent who was also born outside Canada to a Canadian parent.”

What You Can Do:

If you are opposed to this rule, please help educate other Canadians by raising awareness and send a letter to your MP, and to Jason Kenney, immigration minister.

Tell other Canadians who have children abroad about this new law.

Contact the Immigration Minister

Use this tool below to write to the Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, right now.

His e-mail address is Minister@cic.gc.ca and the mailing address is The Honourable Jason Kenney, P.C.,M.P, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 1L1.

This law goes into affect on April 17th so write to him now!!

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Do you want to chat? Let’s come together get to know each other a little better. Listen & discuss the common challenges we face, share inspiring stories, make new friends and make a difference in our communities.

TCKID Chat is an open and free service sponsored by TCK Academy and run by volunteers.

WHO can join?: Anyone is welcome. It’s open to people of all ages, races, and backgrounds.

What People Say:

“When I lived in Texas, I struggled to fit in, no matter how hard I tried… then I actually met a TCK here in the TCKID chatroom. We exchanged emails, and eventually got on Skype … and now we’re best friends.
This community really changed my life, this is why I got involved to help. - Scott M.”

What to do next? Register to TCKID Chat

When is the next TCKID Chat? Enter your name and email to register on TCKID Chat. You’ll receive a notification of future chat events and more details on how to join. See you there!

Technical issues? Please e-mail manager@tckid.com

What happened last year? TCKID Live Global Chat 2009
1st: “What can we do to have a sense of belonging?” - Saturday 3rd January
2nd: “Depression, Career and how to make a difference.” – Sunday 4th January
3rd: “Obama’s Third Culture Team” with Ruth Van Reken. January 10th: 7:00pm Eastern/24:00 gmt
4th: Cross Cultural Relationships – Part 1
5th: Last TCKID chat 2009: “Cross Cultural Relationships – Part2: January 31st at 1-4PM Pacific Time

www.timezoneconverter.com/

Not registered yet? SIGN UP WITH YOUR E-mail address in the section to ensure that you will receive the chat link 30 minutes before chat time!

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Do you remember when you discovered the term “Third Culture Kids?” (What is a Third Culture Kid?) We asked over 3,000 TCKs how this discovery helped them find an identity and increased their sense of belonging.

“Throughout the months, I had been crying pretty much every night from the overwhelming loneliness, disconnection, and inability to connect to reality.” Dana writes, a TCK from tckid.com. (name changed for privacy)

“It was just indescribably overwhelming.”

“Now that a few months have passed since that ‘fateful’ August night, I can really say that that severe loneliness is gone and hasn’t come back. It hasn’t come back.”

For many Third Culture Kids, realizing there’s a community of thousands of people sharing a common experience is a very healing experience and can encourage them to form friendships.

“The healing was for real. And it was permanent.” she says.

“And I feel as though it’s been replaced by a solid courage to pursue heart-to-heart relationships with people.”

“I remembered how powerful the project is. And I wanted to be a part of the effort.”

Not everyone understands the impact of this discovery right away. Mish, a TCK living in Malaysia writes:

“I still cry. Every now and again. I knew I was a TCK when I reached the age of about 12, although at that time I didn’t understand what it meant for me.”

“I remember, a short time after I found out, I moved again and that was when the hurt reached its peak, and I decided that I would distance myself from everyone I came into contact with. For the most part, it did work, and I didn’t make very many friends in the country I moved to. But thankfully, it didn’t work all that way, since I did make friends and the friends I made are still close to me emotionally.

After exploring this site and after reading the stories of other people, it helped to me to feel better about my own situation.

I’ve moved again, for university this time. And I’ve made so many friends here, and met up with so many old friends.”

“I can’t thank you enough for setting up this site and for preparing me both emotionally and mentally to go out and form relationships with others. It’s still hard. But now, at least I don’t try to distance myself from others.”

What is your story? It’s time to uncover and celebrate this discovery today. Please leave a comment below.

Written with kind advice from TCKID volunteer Daniel Suh, Miyon Kim and Paul Trigg

If you discovered you’re a TCK a long time ago and shared your story before, this is your opportunity to inspire someone new. Let everyone know what it meant to you.

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MSNBC News article on Obama’s biracial identity and the transitional period regarding old traditional “labels”.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28216005/

Many people insist that ‘the first black president’ is actually not black.

From the article:

Debate over whether to call this son of a white Kansan and a black Kenyan biracial, African-American, mixed-race, half-and-half, multiracial — or, in Obama’s own words, a “mutt” — has reached a crescendo since Obama’s election shattered assumptions about race.

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“As London is such a melting pot of cultures we wanted to explore the idea of living in a family with a mix of cultural backgrounds and thought it would be great to speak to you on the show. There is a book out called The Map of Me – which has about ten or so authors who each tell their story of living in and out of different cultures. We’ll be talking to you about your background – how you started up the TCKID website – what the aim of it is and generally how a third generation kid is different – for good and bad.”

Jumoke Fashola
Wednesday 20th November 2008.
BBC LONDON 94.9
http://www.bbc.co.uk/london

More about TCKs on the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hometruths/0244kenya.shtml

From Brice:

I was interviewed by the BBC to talk about third culture kids and TCKID. Someone recorded the interview and emailed it to me recently so it’s not exactly the best audio quality. The discussion was about cultural identity and it was mostly fixated on race, but it was an interesting conversation nonetheless.

It was my first radio interview, so I was a bit nervous and I forgot to give the definition of a third culture kid. Feel free to laugh at my expense. =)

Enjoy!

P.S: I’ve done my part to raise awareness. It’s your turn now. Share this interview with your friends.

BBC Host: We’re discussing identity tonight, how do you define yourself?

(susan’s call)

Host: Joining us also tonight is Brice Royer who is a third culture kid,
he’s part French, Vietnamese and he’s part Ethiopian. He lived in
3 continents, and in 7 countries before the age of 18 so he knows
all about the need to belong. He eats French food for breakfast
and Ethiopian food for lunch! Brice set up the website tckid.com
third culture kids, to help those struggling with their identity
and offer a place of belonging. He joins us on the line now from Canada.

Host: Hello Brice, thanks so much for joining us.

Brice: Hi Jumoke, it’s my pleasure to be here.

Host: Just explain to us, in terms of identity, which we’ve already been
discussing tonight – you’ve got French, Vietnamese and Ethiopian – how
do you define yourself?

Brice: Well, I think the labels that you talked about earlier were really
interesting because that’s a hot topic in the TCK community, and most
third culture kids dislike labels and don’t want to be pigeon-holed by
what they find to be superficial racial characteristics and in their
point of view… why should people choose one part of their
heritage over another? And.. I’ve seen Europeans speak Arabic, and Asians
ask questions in French, and how I define myself is — I love what
Susan said — but really how I identify myself is I’m a multiracial kid and
I belong to a cross cultural group.

Host: You’re a multiracial kid and I belong to a cross cultural group! You should
see the faces of my guests in the studio, they’re just grimacing, is this
a sort of a Canadian thing or do you think that’s the best way to define
yourself?

Brice: Well, I don’t say that to people.

Host: Oh right.

Brice: That’s how I define myself. There’s no way I’m going to say that to people – they’ll just raise their eyebrow and say “what? what is that?”

Host: (chuckle) Yes. But, but, I mean, the wider point, that this is part of
the reason that you set up this website, is to actually discuss these
whole issues, giving people a forum whereby they can discuss notions
of identity.

Brice: Yes, because what’s interesting is that we have a cross cultural
identity that we’re just beginning to explore as a community, and it’s
a large identity that holds all kinds of cross cultural experiences.
Third culture kids are really a growing prototype of a new identity
that can be difficult to define.

Host: Yes, you said that you obviously have your own definition of self – what
do you say to people when they ask you who you are or where you’re from?

Brice: I just say I’m from Ottawa, Canada. (laughter)

Host: (laughter)

Brice: I just make it simple, I don’t want to complicate their lives, I’ll just
say I’m from Ottawa, Canada. But it depends on the situation, really.
And for the box, I just choose “other”.

Host: Oh, you say “other” as well?

Brice: That’s right.

Host: You know, I’m gonna start doing this “other” thing because I fancy
doing other now. But do you lean towards one culture over another, Brice?

Brice: Not really. Not at all. I just feel, um, it’s difficult to choose
one culture over another, because if you choose one culture you’re kind
of denying the other culture and it’s difficult to do that… what TCKs
really hate is picking one side over the other. So… I can’t really
choose.

Host: I’m just curious..

Brice: We have a relationship to those cultures but no ownership of any.

Host: Right. I’m curious to know what they say on the website, is this a
continual struggle for other TCKs or are they actually quite happy to
say well I’m just an other and I’m happy with that.

Brice: They’re only unhappy if they’re among people who don’t actually acknowledge
their experiences and feel different, because one of the challenges that
TCKs have is belonging. I know a multiracial half Philippino half English
third culture kid who grew up in Saudi Arabia and lived in England, and she
was made fun of because she had no idea who the Spice Girls were.

Host: Right.

Brice: And you can miss out on pop culture trends and things like that which can
make it hard to relate to your peers..

Host: Yeah. Sure.

Brice: But when they find a sense of belonging, once they talk to other third
culture kids who grew up with similar experiences, they begin to really
explore their gifts and that’s really incredible, just having the sense
of belonging and talking to other people just like you.

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But others will also spend it alone, and focused on reducing stress instead of spreading cheer.

What can this community do to help TCKs stuck in a place and feeling isolated?

Share your ideas and vote.

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