Friendships?

I have come to realize through talks with counselors, but mainly through self-exploration, that I have issues with abandonment and rejection…I think it’s always been there, but it has been more prominent since moving to the US and especially after what I describe as the “defining moment” of being stuck in the States with no other place to call home.

I talk more about my time in Lajes (the Azores) only because I remember it better. My peers were coming in and out every year and a half to two years because it was an Airforce Base that didn’t allot extended service in the area. I stayed for 6 years (I technically count 8 because I still considered it “home” when I went to the US to start college). During my time, I had a solid community of other teacher’s kids, but I had the excitement of new students coming in every year. I loved getting to know people. I loved the change. I was sad to see good friends go, but the sadness was overshadowed by the change.

We didn’t usually have a lot of time together, so we got to know each other quickly and deeply. You knew who you could mesh with. You knew who wanted to open up and when they did, we had a beautiful, fulfilling relationship.

From my experiences, Americans don’t open up as quickly as I’m used to…well, it depends on the setting. Freshmen or transfer students to a university setting are more likely to open up and plunge into the social atmosphere. Outside of a college setting, though, I find it difficult to bond with others.

The people in the area where I currently live have lived here the majority of their lives. They aren’t use to people coming in and out. They don’t realize just because I’ve lived here for 4 years doesn’t mean I “know” the area or now I’m a “local”, but it’s assumed. I often feel in two very different places. Either I’m expected to understand the dynamics of the local culture (or if I don’t, I’m met with deep, set opinions on the matter along with strange looks and sneered noses) or I completely close myself off and nobody seems to notice. Neither are the best places to be.

So, the dynamics of my current situation have been a difficult one to navigate. And then there is trying to juggle relationships. One TCK trait is “the experiences of TCKs among different cultures and various relationships makes it difficult for them to have in-depth communication with those who have not experienced similar conditions.” So, what to talk about with people who don’t get it? How to create a bond with others that are local and VERY set in their ways?

The way I’ve been doing it is (keeping in mind that another TCK trait is 90% feel "out of sync" with their peers.):

At first I jump into my old habits of disclosing any and all of myself. Either one of two things will happen. They’ll be slightly interested, albeit freaked out so I take that as a cue to tone it down OR they are just freaked out and I analyze and over analyze what I did wrong.

So, if I’m lucky to have someone slightly interested, I do what I do best…I inquire about the other person. Most people love to talk about themselves. Or if they don’t, it’s typically because others constantly talk about themselves and don’t give anyone else the chance to talk. Once others start opening up to me, I continue to inquire and ask questions and positively reinforce them.

What happens though is…I’m not disclosing anything about myself. Or the topics that I enjoy talking about (culture, personalities, humanitarian and philosophical things) are too deep or not interesting to most. So, the relationship becomes unbalanced and then when I want to talk or need to talk, even if I don’t know what the crap to talk about, that is not the dynamics of our relationship and a rift starts to take place; a rift that is either balanced (ironically) by me shutting up and making it all about them or praying and hoping to find someone that is willing to accept me, quirks and all, and willing to TRY and understand even if they don’t.

I’m at a place now where I have very few people in my life and it seems like anytime the above paragraph happens, I end up having an anxiety attack.

It feels like groundhog’s day in the realm of relationships for me.

I’m tired of the unbalanced friendships/relationships. But how do you counteract that when time after time it has been shown that people don’t want to take the time to get to know me? Time after time people don’t want to inquire about my life because it is so foreign from theirs or they don’t want to sift through the depression and sadness to see that there is life and happiness deep down inside of me (sometimes I have a hard time finding it!). OR when someone does show interest…it’s been years for me to have someone in my life that genuinely cares and now I’m distrusting or I’ve just gotten use to not talking about myself so I don’t even know what to say anymore.

That’s the biggest issue, even with my own spouse. I just don’t know what to say. And then I fear I’m too boring. And then the cycle of depression starts all over again.

So, I’ve listened a long time to others tell me I rely too much on others for my happiness. So, am I supposed to be happy when I am alone in my house….alone at my job…alone roughly 85-90% of the time? Or am I not allowing God to complete me?

Spiteful and bitter? Yes. Identity crisis and loss of self (self-worth, self-esteem, self as a whole)? Yes.

So, yes I have issues with abandonment and rejection. But I have no idea how to do the whole relationship/friendship thing anymore.

The Vulnerability of Being Real

Many things are starting to transition in my life. Or rather, I'm transitioning. It's not yet time to share all that I'm going through and have to look forward to, but it will be time soon enough.

What I can share is this:

I've started attending church again and the most amazing thing happened this past Sunday. I've started going to a new church and the guest speaker this past Sunday is a good, long-time friend of the pastor. His message was interesting but I completely related. The guest's message was about going through the traumatic event of losing his daughter. He was in the ER with her when she was in and out of life and praying for her and was then going to leave, but one of the machines in the ER trapped him in and then caused him to have PTSD.

He confessed to being on an antidepressant, antianxiety medication and a sleeping pill which are things that most people are ashamed to even mention or talk about in church.

He used a beautiful illustration of putting aluminum foil on his hand and said a lot of times Christians use an aluminum handkerchief to wipe away the tears of those grieving and hurting, but what they don't realize is that they are hurting that person more and they ultimately don't want to be touched by other's pains and traumas.

He is still going through the healing process which was a nice change to hear because a lot of times, people will give messages in church about how they've gone through something and then are already on the other side of things. It can get very discouraging especially when you're still going through the process of grief and haven't "arrived".

I'm so heart-broken for what this gentleman has gone through and continues to go through, but I could relate to almost everything he said. He explained that once he went through this trauma, people he knew and loved for years suddenly disappeared out of his life. That is what happened to me at Lee University. I started acting in ways I didn't understand and people abandoned me. He has been told by many people of faith that he doesn't have enough faith to be healed or that it just takes reading God's word. I was told the same thing. It was so nice to have someone real up there. I was just in an inpatient psych ward last July due to suicidal ideation. I've been so embarrassed and ashamed to talk to others about it. I feel like people don't believe me or just don't want to acknowledge what that means. He said he was in an inpatient psych ward about six months ago and it's sad that he felt he could be most real in there instead of in church.

I'm real. I'm emotional. I am who I am. Maybe I open myself up to being hurt so easily because of how real I am, but I've attempted to play the game of trying to keep up - trying to be what others want me to be - trying to be who I think others expect me to be for way too long...and I just can't do it any longer.

I know most people don't understand the whole TCK thing. They don't understand why I can't just be happy in the United States...my citizenship is American after all. I grew up around other Americans and was able to speak English wherever I went. But I also lived in other countries. I was immersed in the cultures of those countries. I was surrounded by other people from very different walks of life. That is a part of me and always will be. My American experience was limited to the stories from my parents and vacations in the States every summer. It's not fair to expect me to be rooted in a place and have national pride in a place that I only visited and heard stories of.

Transitions: Developing a Better Understanding of TCKs

As usual, I'm trying to process why I'm feeling low and out of sorts. When this happens, I typically sit and brood for a while - complacent and passive until I get tired of even being tired and decide to take some action. I didn't realize how much information there actually is out there about TCKs. I'm surprised because I'm only now discovering and gleaning information and it's overwhelming to realize that research on the topic has been on-going for years. It makes me feel behind, but at the same time it helps me realize that as TCKs shift with our ever changing world, there is a need for research and understanding on the topic to shift, as well.

I still find it amazing how much I relate to the majority of everything I read about TCKs. It sounds odd, but I know I'm a TCK yet it's hard to accept it sometimes due to my expectations of what I thought life would be like in the United States. I didn't have the opportunity to reframe my thoughts and expectations and wasn't prepared about repatriation. Instead of seeing a move to the States as moving to a new foreign country, I viewed as "going home"....

The issue with that thought lies in the fact that I left this (United States, passport country) place that I'm expecting to be home when I was six years old. Yes, I came back every summer, but I wasn't living here. Plus, when we came to the States in the summer, we would travel all around. You could equate that somewhat to the multiple times we went to London. We went there three times and some of the things we experienced were familiar. The same is true with the United States. We started to vacation in New Hampshire in the summers and ended up vacationing in the same location a total of 5 summers. It was familiar to come back to the same area, but I think we only rented the exact same chalet twice while all other times we were in a different chalet. So, even with that experience I didn't consider it home.

I'm trying to learn not to ask "why" so much anymore. It's very natural for me to want to ask "why did I call coming to the United states going back home," but the more I question things the more unraveled and confused I feel.

Reading this article about reentry, it makes so much sense when this adolescent repatriate gave the following advice: "Repatriating adolescents [or even adults] be advised to treat their "home" country as a foreign country. After all, he explained, once you have moved abroad you have learned how to deal with ambiguity and confusing cultural patterns. It is living at "home," where you are supposed to know how everything works, that is hard."

Part of me still wants to help repatriating TCKs and even international students as they come into the United States and are trying to get acclimated with a new culture. That's the reason I chose Higher Education to go into. But I question myself. I question if I would even be able to help them because I feel so behind in my own understanding and knowledge of TCK information. It sounds silly. I know we can't know everything right away - that's the point of learning and growing. I just feel like there is still so much growth that I need to do and I'm tired.

I found this other website and it's a great source of information for TCK students transitioning to American college life. It gives a great list of resources and even explains some things that TCKs deal with, how they interact with others, benefits and hardships, and then some potential activities/events to get TCKs involved in campus life.

I'm still learning so much. It's a painful growing period. It's relieving to find this information, hard to accept that I feel some of my pain could have been prevented, exciting because I want to learn more, grow as a person and professional, and aid others in their experiences transitioning.

TCK = Eclectic

I've been listening to a lot of eclectic music on Pandora lately. I usually pick something that fits my mood for the day. Been listening to a lot of jazz and experimental/avant-garde and I happened upon a musician who's music is definitely unique. So, I looked him up and I found a quote by him that just struck a chord (no pun intended)!!

"I'm an additive person - the entire storehouse of my knowledge informs everything I do. People are so obsessed with the surface that they can't see the connections, but they are there." ~ John Zorn

Aren't we all like that, especially us TCKs??? We take from every place, every culture we've lived in and added bits and pieces to our storehouse which then informs and molds us into the people we are today.

We are all eclectic in one form or another, but much more so as a TCK. We've been immersed and pulled from many different cultures and just like the picture below, things that might not seem to mesh or belong together end up becoming a beautiful piece of artwork <3.

I'm going to start seeing myself as such. An eclectic, abstract piece of artwork :)

P.S. - even if you're not a huge jazz fan, you should totally check out Strunz & Farrah. Jorge Strunz grew up as a diplomat's kid and hails from Costa Rica. Ardeshir Farah is originally from Iran and the two met up and fused their native land's cultural musical styles together and they are AWESOME. Plus I like it because the two places I grew up were in the Middle East and Portugal (which has Latin roots) so it makes me feel nostalgic, too.

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