TCK Research on Belonging - I am Nothing and I am Everything

A professor at YSU does research in the area of TCKs. I found her article that she co-wrote. The article is very interesting and resonates substantially with what I've personally gone through. The article discusses that due to growing up the way we have, TCKs view social interaction and friendships as a core element to belonging rather than through cultural or geographical roots. The researchers did a study with 6 various TCKs to determine how they construct friendships.

Their research finds four distinct themes in coping and forming friendships: 1. a sense of restlessness: feeling like a square peg trying to fit into a circular hole (hmm sound familiar);2. a desire for stimulation: being half-way there; 3. Coping strategies to compensate or manage a lack of friendship: filling the void; 4. Multiple identities and multiculturalism: being chameleon-like.

Here is a collection of quotes from the article that resonated with me personally:

"It is possible that because many TCKs attended international schools prior to college, they face challenges in interacting with classmates who have not experienced transitional exposure" (Choi & Luke, 2011, p. 49)

"The TCKs described having a hard time feeling understood by the non-TCKs around them" (p. 53)

"Experiencing a feeling of being misunderstood, undervalued, and culturally out of place" (p. 53)

"How thrilled and exhilarated it felt to be in a new environment" "A strong desire and initiative to meet new people"(p. 53) (DEFINITELY!!!!!!!)

"Most of the TCK participants acknowledged difficult in forming meaningful friendships in their current environment. Loneliness, depression, and anxiety were common psychological symptoms experience by the participants, and these were often attributed to their lack of social and cultural connections" (p. 54)

"The TCK participants described developing multiple identities that they used to blend in and adjust to their frequently changing environment or situation" "Playing different roles is really interesting because it makes you really ask yourself, Who are you? Are you really shy?....I am nothing and I am everything." (p.55)

"All TCKs discussed valuing open-mindedness, multicultural experiences, and shared worldviews in their friends over individual characteristics such as age, race, and/or gender." (p.55)

"Upon transition to a university in the U.S., TCKs described experiencing difficulty in adjusting to the local cultural norms." (p.56)

Click on this link and then find the title "A phenomenological approach to understanding early adult friendships of third culture kids" to read the entire article. Just click on download and it will open the article up in a pdf. I'm interested to hear if this resonates with other TCKs and for non-TCKs, does this shed some additional light for you??

Out of Step

I've always been one that enjoys change. I like newness and something to look forward to. Some people are really scared of change. I admit, lots of change in a little amount of time can be incredibly overwhelming. I think I did well with change when I was younger because I had constants in my life - my family unit and my religious beliefs.

Since coming back to my passport country, I've questioned both of my constants. It's natural to progress away from your original family unit and it's healthy to question why you believe what you believe. It's all a part of growing and maturing. I didn't realize how important those two components were, though. I continually search to have the life I use to have when I lived abroad and I just don't think that's going to happen. I relied heavily on my constants to keep me afloat when things in my life changed. So much of my identity was wrapped up in who my parents and friends saw and thought of me. Now that I'm not around them, I feel peeled away and vulnerable and I especially feel like I'm not grounded at all.

I think the reason I've had a difficult and prolonged time transitioning is because I didn't have time to truly dissect why I was going through all the anxiety and fear when I was first diagnosed with PMDD. I was in the midst of the depression and I was just trying to survive.

Depression causes you to withdraw and push everyone away. I've moved multiple times since living in the States and in doing that, I've nixed a lot of opportunities to have a support system. I still have support - it's just the people I care most about are scattered all over the place.

I've been doing a lot of soul searching, like I usually do, and I've tried to remember what makes me happy. I'm happy when I'm helping others. I'm happy when I have newness and something to look forward to in my life. My issue, though, is I'm expecting for others to understand and accept me now - the depressed, scared, vulnerable, identity-less me. I've been looking for someone to seek me out and help me. And that just isn't happening.

Previously, I refused to become a chameleon because I felt I wasn't being true to myself. I use to be really good at being a chameleon. That's how I fit wherever I went. That's how I fit when I met new people. It's a great TCK trait. But for whatever reason, I thought that trait was a negative. The question that keeps popping up in my mind is - if it was such a bad trait, then why did I have so many friends? Since I'm not using that technique anymore, I have little to no friends. Makes a person think....

As stated previously, growing up, I was incredibly reliant on my family and friends to help mold my identity. I don't see that as a bad thing, if anything the community I lived in was incredibly collectivistic. Now, living in an individualist society, it's hard to fit in anywhere. Everyone already has their family and friends. It's difficult to make new friends when you live in a place where nobody ever really moves. I'm trying, though.

I often feel like these fish. I exist in the world with other people, but it's like I live in an entirely different bowl, looking and longing to "be" in the same bowl as others.

I guess where I'm at now is trying to decide if I want to continue to feel disconnected from my current state of being or if I want to do what I need to do to jive with the society I'm in. I'm realizing more and more that my issues with PMDD and being a TCK are connected. I'm trying really hard to find ways to flourish and truly live life instead of just surviving and constantly feeling out of step with everyone else. What do you do to help yourself not feel so out of step? Or do you ever feel out of step with others?

The Searching 'Hidden Immigrant'

While reading this article, of course I relate to what all the different people are saying. However, I still do tell people I grew up abroad. It’s become less and less of an occurrence because just like Downer in the article, people can’t relate to it unless they’ve lived a similar lifestyle, but I still cling to that because I truly believe it’s one piece of my identity that I refuse to let go of regardless if people can understand it or not.

Although I don’t like competition and I don’t like the premise of “selling” oneself when in an interview, I make sure to always let the interviewees know that particular aspect of me. I think it makes me unique and sets me apart from others. That’s the one thing I know sets me apart and my experience with it have been less than positive. It sets me apart in the sense that I have a different, world-view. But it also sets me apart in the sense that I cannot always connect with my peers and fellow Americans.

Libby Stephens discusses several stages a TCK goes through when repatriating back to their passport country. These are the potential pitfalls when in the third stage, called the “Hidden Immigrant” stage.

Potential pitfalls during the Hidden Immigrant stage:

1. Deep loneliness
2. Being trapped in the past
3. Overly critical of the passport country
4. Habitual anger and bitterness
5. Depression

I definitely have been in the “Hidden Immigrant” stage that Libby Stephens discusses, for several years. I would hope most people learn to adjust and move forward with their lives, but my adjustment here to the States involved doing it on my own. I didn’t have support of family. I didn’t have mentors who were knowledgeable in my experiences abroad. Now that it has been several years since I’ve been back to the States, I’m assuming most people wonder why I haven’t gotten over that initial reverse culture shock. And I’m wondering that too.

I was accustomed to community and a small, intimate living area where people genuinely cared about each other and the well-being of what was going on with each other. I felt loved and supported and could flourish.

Here, though, I feel like just another floating face in the sea of society with no real purpose or no real connections. Even though I’ve lived in Ohio for the past four years, I don’t have much to account for it. No sense of community. No sense of family. No sense of belonging.

I have to ask myself, what am I doing to contribute to this??

When I first moved to the States, and went to Lee University, I definitely realized quick I didn’t fit in and I was able to use my awesome TCK skills and become a chameleon to fit in. But something snapped inside of me when my parents left the Azores. I could no longer pretend. I could no longer put my feelings aside and stuff them away. I think I try to continue to do that fearing that people just won’t understand and will reject me.

I threw off all masks. I threw off all pretenses. I threw off anything that wasn’t the real me. And what I was left with was a scared, insecure, very vulnerable person feeling overwhelmed in a country – in a society where most people have made their roots and homes.

So, do I go back to my chameleon ways and mold to what I think people want me to be so I can fit in? Or do I continue to struggle, looking and searching for my identity and doing it alone?

"They know not the side of me that belongs across the sea.
They only know what the eye can see; the American inside of me.
And yet this American is tainted, stained, infused
With the chaos, the wonders, the essence of her other home."

~Alexandra Bangalore, India Sept. 2008