r/TCK

I'm a TCK, 24 y/o
My passport country is Korea. Went to like 6 or 7 cities growing up, two kindergartens, six schools (three schools within three years of middle school, yeah)

I 'came back' here to Korea about ten years ago. Athough it took a lot of effort I managed to handle things. I did great, I managed to get into the best univ here...

But I'm still no different from the person I used to be. I'm still a TCK.

I just wish my parents were more supportive of the person I have become. I mean, their work caused all of this. But they really aren't, and it saddens me bc they're the only ones who have been with me my entire life. I don't have any other communities and sometimes I feel very stuck. I don't even really know why. I don't know what I want out of this anymore. People tell me to forget everything and just 'move on'...

I was born in India. But raised in USA in my core developmental years until age 7. So my personality/identity's base was kinda westernised and english at that time. After coming to India, I never got used to our local language and culture at all (Tamil). It just felt deeply uncomfortable adopting Tamil culture and I couldn't explain exactly why. I think as soon as I returned to India, I might have been forced by others into speaking the language at that time, or outcasted for my westernised mannerisms or something, not fully sure but it made me very uncomfortable with Tamil society overall at the time. Furthermore our mother tongue and family ancestry is a different language too (which I have no issues speaking in, but it's not used where I live) so when I returned, it only felt more alienating because everyone was speaking in a seemingly foreign language that wasn't my mother tongue. As I felt really uncomfortable with local culture, I isolated myself from it and spent a lot of my remaining early childhood only consuming westernised media and hanging out with people who spoke in english. Which means that I grew up only in English spaces even after age 7, which gradually made my entire personality lean western and globalised. Throughout school, I had a friend group who were only english speaking and had shared interests with, and I hadn't engaged with our local culture at all.

College started last year, and it's totally different. I'm a creative and imaginative person. Very expressive with others and love to authentically unleash my life force as much as possible. I was looking forward to college to find my people and make a shit ton of great memories. BUT there's not even a single person who is a third culture individual like me. Everyone bonds, makes friends and banters exclusively in Tamil. And it stings because I know there's nothing wrong with them and it's a me problem. What hurts the most is that my college is objectively more prestigious than my school and even globally inclined, and everyone is fluent in English, but still runs on Tamil. Everyone else defaults to speaking in Tamil in their friend groups and individually switch to English with me alone. It feels personally and deeply excluding. Not just the language, but everything most people bond around like culture and media, is Tamil, which once again I have to iterate, there's nothing wrong with them but it hurts me. I feel so ignored and invisible. People just tell me "Just speak in Tamil", "What's your problem you've been living in Chennai for 10 years" "Few years in USA is nothing" "You just want to be different from others, stop thinking so and get along with Tamilians" and doesn't understand my situation. Like I am NOT trying to be superior to tamil or hate on it. I just dont feel comfortable in it, like it's not a part of my identity at all, but I'm forced into it because I'm in a position where I can't move/drop out right now. I can understand the language enough to speak it with strangers and for mundane duties, but I feel really uncomfortable using it to mingle with people that I know.

Everyone else around me is enjoying college. I desperately feel like I would've had a way better experience if I was in some actual global university with english speakers. Like I'm forced to confront this third culture part of my identity, which is already rare to find in people here, and it's making me an absolute outcast. I'm insanely paranoid that I'm missing out on the most major social experience I would ever get in my entire lifetime. People always assume that I have alot of friends and a great experience in college because of my typical nature. Every single time, I have to lie to them and agree, because the truth is so complicated to explain.

Have you ever felt like people misunderstand you right away? They might see you or hear your name and make assumptions that don’t fit. At times, maybe you correct them; other times, it might feel easier to just let it go.

I think many TCKs (including myself) feel stuck between how we are seen and who we really are. Sometimes people treat you like you belong, even when you feel out of place. Other times, you feel like an outsider in the place that is supposed to be home.

This is one of the areas that keeps coming up in our TCK calls:  

• When you say where you're from, what do people assume, and how often is it right?
• Is there a culture that genuinely shaped you that you don't feel allowed to claim?

I put a longer set of these prompts here if it's useful: https://tcksupport.com/tck-journal-prompts-culture-belonging-and-identity/

I also run a free monthly call for adult TCKs, and this month's is on this very topic: getting read wrong and what it means to feel whole across the cultures that shaped you. It's this Saturday, July 4, 10 AM CDT / 3 PM UTC, on Zoom, and it's free and open to any adult TCKs. Details and the link are on the page above if you'd like to come.

Mostly, I want to hear how other people here deal with being misread.

​

One interesting aspect of being an adult TCK I rarely hear about is a tendency to explain things that borders on the pedantic.

I've been thinking about this and come to the hypothesis that it's due to the uneven education that results from being shifted from country to country, and being schooled across multiple languages. There are certain things which are common sense to natives that are not acquired due to a TCK upbringing. In the same vein, there are many things we take for granted that are not general knowledge.

Over time, I've noticed in myself and other aTCKs a tendency to explain things which may be common knowledge simply because there were gaps in our upbringing and oftentimes it was taken for granted that we'd know something we didn't.

It's not about assuming other people are ignorant, but simply having a poor sense of what people do know and frequently being surprised by the things others don't know which seem like basic knowledge any adult should have (from an aTCK perspective).

What are some of the things other's haven't known that surprised you?

What are some bits of knowledge others take for granted that you had to learn much later on in life?

A question for the TCAs: Anyone here trying to decide on where (or if!?) to settle in the long-term for retirement years (e.g. where to buy a house, be able to access healthcare, set up retirement fund, etc.)? I am struggling with the evergreen desire/instinct to move to a new country vs. the reality of needing solid (built over years) community. I know some folks who retired to new countries and found it hard because they did not have long-term community there.

A generic question, how to cope just to keep going. I spent my youth in a 1st tier country and now I live in my passport country (2nd or 3rd tier). I have been depressed for quite some time, but I'm working to acquire a certificate that'll help me in my career, hopefully outside of my passport country. I'm just stressed and have trouble focusing on studying. If anyone has a way to mind trick or whatever works, I'd appreciate that. Gotta work hard to escape where I am, but that specific environment is preventing me from focusing.

I travelled a lot when I was really young, and never really learned how to organically make friends.
I remember in grade 6 I got so tired of relationships feeling so difficult I learned the mbti, observed and basically “learned” how humans do relationships, and how I should present myself if I want a certain relationship.

Fast forward, now I’m in my thirties and I’m finally learning that I’ve become so good at reading people and making friends/relationships that way. But the closer I get to someone, I either end up breaking that friendship/relationship off, or back out cuz I simply don’t have any data about how to act in that case. And I’m too old and tired to do the whole observe and act thing. I think I want genuine relationships now.

I’ve been getting therapy, and my therapist has been saying focus on my feelings, but I’m still not sure which feelings I should focus on cuz honestly the strongest feelings lead me to isolate.

I recently met a person I felt strangely really connected to and basically wanted to get closer to, but because I have no idea how to do so, I am watching that relationship wither away. And it’s making me really sad and frustrated.

Felt like this was a v tck coded thing so asking for help if there’s anyone who struggle with this and then figured it out how to make it work. 😢