Thanks for your empathy, Miyon. I try to look at the positives, well, at the whole picture, really. And I think a good approach to life in general is that we always learn through adversity. It's true that when one door closes, other opportunities present themselves. Rather than focus on hurt or loss, I try to look for the opportunities and the life lessons. Not always easy to do, I admit, but one thing about being a TCK - we are ADAPTABLE!

Dear jen-h

I have read all of your posts on this forum. I was very sad when you saw your dad hug your older sister and your mom hug your younger one. How hurtful must have been for you to have felt left out and defined as a person with middle-child syndrome when you are in reality more than what people see. You are more than some simple one word to be boxed.

Thank you for all the comments, Jen. Things have not been easy but you look at your family in the bright side. That is very encouraging. Thank you, really...

Yeah Lina, it might be what they feel

My mom is also more open and sometimes I talk to her about this (I managed to get her to read some articles that I had printed from the internet before I got the book). And just yesterday while I was having one of my "it sucks being a TCK moment", she started "oh, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry to cause you all this, etc". So yeah, I think she feels guilty. Luckly I got a chance to tell/explain her that this is nobody's fault, nobody knew about the TCK concept, neither my parents nor the school (which I love blaming, lol)

But my dad is way less open.
Everytime I complain about sth TCK-related (basically complaning about Brazilian culture) he gets very defensive. The last time he was like "ok, so when you have kids, I have the solution for you, just don't move them anywhere!". And I was like "God, he didn't get ANYTHING of what I said!". So yeah, I think he thinks I blame him.
And thinking about it now, it must be hard for him, being a Brazilian to have to hear me complain so much about the country. I guess that's why people get so defensive when I do that (lol, silly me! that's **very likely** why!). So thanks God I have you people to hear me complain about it! LOL!

This is a very interesting topic and I've enjoyed reading all of your stories.

My sister has always seemed to adapt to the TCK thing. In the last few years though I know that she hasn't fit in too well where she's living (like me) but I've been the one doing the 'digging', i.e. finding out more about us. In the meantime our parents have also repatriated and I get the impression our mother has had some difficulty making the transition as well.

Like someone above said, I think my parents did the best they could in the circumstances (i.e. the lack of information they had). I'm not sure they realise what issues we had to deal with (and are still dealing with). On the other hand, they seem to be somewhat reluctant to listen to me about it or to read about it. I'm hoping that at least one of them will read the TCK book; hopefully that isn't asking for too much...

Hey Maira,

Funny that, my dad reacted very similarly when I went to stay with my family over Christmas. I had talked to my mum for hours and she was great! She listened to me and read a bit in the book. She actually told me that she and my dad had frequently been wondering why I was so different and what they had done wrong while raising me (nice, thanks mum :p). My dad only came to sit with us later on and he hadn't heard the whole thing. He did not belief any of it. He said it was just my personality. I just kept talking about it and also talked about what I had read, and at some point he just started to listen. The thing is... in the beginning I got the feeling he was defending himself and did therefore not want to believe me. I think he thought I was blaming them for everything that's "wrong" with me. I can't blame him, he's had quite a lot to endure from me, including the complete ignorance of "my Arab side" when I was trying to fit in with the other Germans. I think after he understood that I am actually happy about this and that all I had been looking for was the answer to that "Why?" question, he started listening to me. Could that be why your parents don't wanna hear about it as well? Because they think you blame them for it all?

Thanks, Jen! That's why I love TCKs, you guys are people who DO validate my feelings!

I told them about the book, but they didn't move an inch to read it. Maybe I should try putting it on their desk or something! :D Somewhere right in their faces so they cannot ignore it! :D
I'll try and let you know how it goes!

But yeah, I think that even if they manage to get me rationally, you guys will always be the ones who get me feeling-wise.
So thanks just for being here! :)

Mairabay, you are definitely not alone in this one.

My other issue, besides being a TCK, is birth order - I'm in the middle. My parents used to tease me relentlessly about "middle child syndrome." It became a huge family joke at my expense, and I just clammed up and pretended everything was fine, even if I was pretty cranky about the whole thing. I tried showing them birth order studies, talking about books I'd read about birth order, etc. Nothing really helped. It just gave them more fuel for the fire.

Until my grandmother died a few years ago. We were all standing in her house after the funeral looking and feeling lost. My dad reached out to my older sister and hugged her. My mom reached out to my younger sister and hugged her. I was standing in the middle of the room on my own thinking "this is it - this sums up my life." I stormed out of the house and slammed the door (okay, I was in my early-40s - but the whole situation made me feel about age 5). My dad called after me, but I just got in the car - in the middle of the back seat, my position. My sisters got in on either side of me, my parents up front and we drove off. No one teases me much about middle child syndrome anymore. But we don't really talk about it either.

When I first discovered the term "TCK" a few years ago it was on a reunion website from my high school in Pakistan. My parents enjoy reading a daily digest of the posts there. Someone posted an article about TCKs and it started a landslide of posts from our members talking about their experiences, the loss, the good and bad about being a TCK. My dad commented to me that he had never realized what it must have been like for us growing up - he never knew how difficult it can be for the kids. He only ever focused on the positives and on his job. It was a real eye-opener for my parents and my sisters and got us all talking more often about the issue. There are still things I won't bring up to them, though, because I don't want to hurt my parents. I honestly believe they did the best they could for us with the emotional/social/parenting tools they had.

So maybe showing your family some of the TCK articles on the web or the TCK book we're always referring to might generate some conversation? It might help, or might not - like my experience with the birth order books - it might just give them more fuel for the fire, but it's worth a shot.

I confide a lot of these things to my best friends - other TCKs around the world who I went to school with. A lot of my friends have had the same issues. We're in our mid-late 40s and early 50s now, and these issues are still there. But the people who understand me best are other people just like me - other TCKs. When I need to talk, that's who I tend to talk to.

Good luck with your family, Mairabay. Just know you're NOT a drama queen - there are valid reasons why we feel the way we do.

I didn't write that email, but I have a related question:

How do you talk to family about TCK when you are the sibbling who's suffering, and for (almost) everything you say they go "you are being a drama queen" ?
How do I talk to them (especially my dad), if they don't validate my feelings?
Does anyone have the same problem?
Sometimes I think I should just not talk to them about it, but it feels kind of sad, because then they will definately never get me (I've had the feeling that "they don't get me" ever since I can remember) and never fully get to know the person that I am. It makes me feel sad, but I don't see another option...does anyone? Uncle Dan? Help!

Hi Julie,

It's so true that each person's experience is different even within the same family.

We always laugh because my little sister "remembers" things that happened before she was even born - she's heard the stories so often, she thinks she remembers.

My older sister, being the oldest, was expected to take care of us younger ones frequently - in Nigeria during the civil war she used to lie awake at night worrying about how she would get me and my little sister back to the states if anything happened to our parents. I didn't know this until we were adults. Her experience was obviously extremely different from the somewhat more care-free experiences of my younger sister and me.

I agree with what you wrote here. We are not all the same and even if we are in the same family our experiences and how we percive life is not the same my TCK experience is not the same as any of my brothers. I never did get in the keeping a journal habit but wrote poetry sometimes over the years one of my brothers internalized things a lot and has a had a very difficult time coming back to Canada while another of my brothers has never really (at least to my knowledge) struggled much with being a TCK. You can not assume people even in the smae family will have had the same expeience or have viewed the situations thy have found themselves in teh smae way we are all different and need to find our own ways of dealing with our issues.

Thanks Brice. I don't keep a journal regularly, although I definitely should! I have off and on throughout the years.

When I look back at some of my journal entries, it reminds me (besides the years of really stupid, self-centered teenage angst), that we are a very resilient group of people as TCKs, and even when we have our moments of self-doubt, we tend to be able to bounce back and adapt to whatever life throws at us.

It could be that everyone in the TCK family has different coping skills that fortify them or fail to help at different times. My sisters and I have alternately looked like we're holding it all together, then the wheels come off and one of us will remember every loss we've ever suffered and every issue from our childhood for several months or even years. We were raised on the "cocktail circuit" learning how to hold a martini in one hand and the latest delicacy in another while chatting with global dignitaries, so we have a lot of practice in my family at "faking it."

For years, I was always perceived as the one who had it all together, while my sisters were painfully shy. Whenever we moved somewhere new, I was the one to go out and introduce myself to the neighborhood, then bring back new friends for my sisters to meet. But now in our adulthood, the roles have flipped. I find myself becoming ever more reticent, reluctant to put myself "out there", slow to make friends and slow to reveal my personality to new people. My sisters, on the other hand, are now both outgoing and gregarious. Weird, huh?!

My older sister will never forgive our parents for some of the things that happened when we were growing up, but my little sister and I have made our peace with them.

I've always been pragmatic and optimistic. Still, I find myself, at 47, haunted by many of the losses of always leaving people, places and things we love behind - often under less than ideal situations. I know it's marked my adult life - those old patterns established in childhood have tended to play out and repeat in our adulthood, but until I hit middle age, I was living life full on and didn't have time to think about the issues. Then we started the build-up to the war in Iraq, and suddenly, I was overwhelmed with post-traumatic stress going back to the years we lived in civil-war torn Nigeria and were evacuated and a war experience I had in Afghanistan as a teenager.

Now, I am probably more like the sibling you described who's "overwhelmed with life in general" and "can't get over their childhood." But I believe this is probably a temporary phase for me, and once I work through some issues, I'll be re-inventing myself once again.

One thing I've been doing to try to make sense of my upside-down life is writing down stories from my childhood - I spent a year interviewing my family about their memories in order to try to memorialize a family history of sorts.

I know this is a long post, but one more piece of advice occurs to me - be kind, not critical, in trying to be supportive of the sibling who's hurting. I know with my sisters and me, our mutual support of one another over the years has been a lifeline for each of us at different times.

And if you haven't read it yet, the book Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds is really good for giving a basic understanding of TCK psychology.

Good luck!