r/ThirdCultureKids

Not a single country would consider me loyal, and they are right. I don't belong to a country. I spent 26 years living abroad, longing to belong. Only now, it occurred to me to look within to find the comfort I was after.

Always trying to fit in, to accommodate, to blend in - an impossible task to begin with. Instead of trying to fit it, connect with people through common values. In plain terms, basic human views - what it is good and bad, and the blurry line in between.

What really feels like home for me is the smell of earth, dark rich soil, the mossy trees, the whisper of leaves, stones polished by stream, soothing pulse of waves...And isn't it home for all of us?

We came from it and will return to it, one way or another. So why not care for it as we would for our home - nurture, protect, celebrate.

Children of expats,or those who have lived in different countries etc. How do you cope with not belonging to one culture or not having a sense of belonging to one partucular place?

Not having a good social network or support system,not knowing the ways of life in India?

I would love to hear your experiences!

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.

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I was born in India. But raised in USA in my core developmental years until age 7. So my entire personality, values, interests all lean western and English. After returning back, 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. In school, atleast I could find a couple other expats to form friends with, so I coasted through.

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 (TCI) like me. Everyone bonds, makes friends and banters exclusively in Tamil. 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. 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" and doesn't understand my situation.

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.

I know that I can find my people online on the internet, who share my interests and all. But unfortunately, some other things happened which is too complicated to explain, that has left me rock bottom in terms of skills and identity depth as well by now. So I'm basically stranded with no real friends now and have to build my identity from scratch without any support system.

I am sad to say that I am a third culture kid.

Our first move happened when I was 8 years old. We moved from my home, England, to Hong Kong. I had an awful time making friends in my first year there, but eventually got adopted into a friend group of western TCKs when I was 9 or 10. You could say we grew up together and had a normal amount of fallouts.

I always viewed life in HK as temporary. I believed it would only be another month until we returned home and I could be back with all my original friends from England. But every time I thought we would leave, we stayed even longer.

I don’t remember much else about my childhood.

Then the Covid pandemic hit. I was a young teenager at the time and I quickly developed severe depression and fell out with all my friends. I was desperately homesick and would constantly daydream about returning home. My parents were furious that my grades had dropped and we would argue constantly. They didn’t understand how alienated I felt. My family didn’t feel safe and school didn’t feel safe. I just wanted to go back to England.

Finally, at the age of 14, we returned back to England. We lived in the same house, in the same town as I had spent the first 8 years of my life. Everything was meant to be fixed. But I couldn’t have been more wrong.

All my friends from primary school had moved on and forgotten me. Our house was bare and stripped of my childhood memories. I joined the high school I had always dreamed about going to, but I was too late. All my classmates had already formed friend groups that I wasn’t welcome in. I was a stranger in what was meant to be my home. There was not a single place in the world where I would feel welcome.

I don’t forgive my parents because they knew I never wanted to be in Hong Kong and they saw me decay in the place I did not belong in. By the time we finally returned home, it was too late for me to start over.

Now, I am a young adult in university and I am still struggling with constant reoccurring memories of the past. I can’t move on and of course I am angry. Of course I am upset at having my childhood stripped away.

Mijn opa komt uit Bosnië/Kroatië, waardoor mijn vader half Bosnisch is. En mijn moeder is Nederlands en zij is 1/8 indo. Ik ben deels met bosnische cultuur opgegroeid, spreek de taal en bijna al mijn familie woont daar. In de Balkancultuur wordt vaak gekeken naar je familie, achternaam en van wie je afstamt, niet naar een percentage.
Ik ben dus “maar” 25% Bosnisch/Kroatisch, maar ik voel me volledig verbonden met die achtergrond. Vinden jullie dat ik mezelf Bosniër mag noemen? Hoe zien jullie dit?

But still can’t easily explain to people ‘where I’m from’ and realised, when talking about the World Cup with someone today, that that will never change.

I'm in my 50s now, married and have a great family. But don't feel like I've ever fit in anywhere. I grew up an Asian kid in Maritime Canada so did not feel like I developed true "cultural roots". I lost a parent and my only sibling when I was a teenager. Both parents are deceased now. I have a great job but don't like hanging out with clueless colleagues and if not for the financial security, always wish that I had pursued a different career path. I have lots of interests which keeps me busy and my creative brain "stimulated" as I have no parents or siblings, but when I change activities, I lose touch pretty much entirely with the previous "friend group" that was involved in that particular endeavor.

Is this all life has to offer? I have a good life and luckily I'm in great health but just never really have found my "people" . And don't feel like I ever will. 😥

I am 100% South East Asian from Thailand, but for some reason I feel like I don't belong in my society.

Since I was little, my parents were busy all the time, so I didn't spend much time with them as I was supposed to. Back then, all I did during my free time was playing video games and watching YT all day long. As time went on, I was exposed to western media, cultures and way of living. Thanks to that, I pushed myself hard to study English and be decent at it.

On the other hand, I feel alienated to my own culture. Everything changed after I went to study abroad in the US back in 2019. The way I talk, eat, and think altered completely to the point where I struggle to understand my parents, my culture, and people around me. I don't remember how many times I f ked up due to miscommunications I had around here. 😅

I hope my story reminds parents to spend more time with their children aswell, otherwise they will likely become someone else, but blood related.

Mijn opa is Bosnisch-Kroatisch en mijn vader dus half. Ik ben 1/4 Bosnisch-Kroatisch, deels Bosnisch opgegroeid, heb al mijn familie en huis daar, spreek de taal een beetje en voel me meer Bosnisch dan Nederlands. Ook kom ik erg vaak in Bosnie en Kroatie en geeft dit en thuis gevoel en trots. Kan ik mezelf Bosniër noemen? Hoe zien jullie dat? Omdat ik “maar” kwart ben. Ook trouwens even los van dat ik een Bosnisch paspoort bezit, maar puur het “maar” 1/4 deel.

Hi. I was in 10th grade, when my grandfather passed away. From there on, things got much more difficult. Soon after, in the summer before going into 11th, my dad lost his job. And then there was a huge chance we had to leave the US. My parents told me to try my best and continue as if we were staying. and I did. But it was painful. Because I had this whole life planned out for hs and college, and it was all going to go. After a couple months of my parents arguing and even my mom threatening to leave the family, we left the country. However, while leaving, I got separated from my dad. He's still in the US and I dont know when he'll ever come back.

Now, about my "mother country. (India)" I've lived in the US my whole life. and so I consider myself a foreigner to the country I'm in. I don't know the language, don't have any connections here. Just me, my mom, a couple of distant relatives I don't know, and an apartment. I call myself lucky because at least I get food and stuff on the table but...

I cried almost every day. for 4 months. right before leaving the US, and then after moving away. Because it was lonely. Also I hate this country that I am in. I wanted to go back so bad (and still do). I've looked at my options, but they were very limited. And right after getting into the country, I immediately got enrolled into JEE prep as an 11th grader and currently on that pathway.

For those who don't know, JEE is one of the most brutal exams in the world for undergrad entrance exams.

So this basically sums up what happened over the course of just 1 year. and I don't really know what I'm expecting from posting this, but after seeing so many other stories, I wanted to share what I'm going through.

---------------------------------------------------------*EDIT*:-------------------------------------------------------
My dad wanted to stay in the US, and we were dependent on an H1-B visa. so after he lost his job, he had 60 days to find one. he found one in Arkansas, but that was too far from where we lived. My mom didn't want him going there because she knew he wouldn't take care of himself. Anyway, my family was forced to leave, but my dad wanted to stay so he kept a B1/B2 visa I think (or it might even be another work visa that doesn't allow family members).

My situation is not an easy one to be honest. Its been rough so far (financially and emotionally) on my family, and so for now, I'm gonna have to stick to the path I was forced in. I was thinking of applying to colleges in the US, but its such a drag, especially since I'm spending so much of my day studying for JEE, that I don't know if I want to do all that just to end up applying to a US college. If I do apply, it needs to at least be a great school.

Anyway, thanks for the replies. I've been feeling lonely for a while now because of the stupid ash situation I'm in so its good to know that there are people out there that at least know what I'm going through.

I'm from russia and I work in customer service, and I get asked at least 10-15 times EVERY DAY

"where are you from?" I know people are curious, and I know it is normal to ask, but when I get ask this at least once a day EVERY SINGLE DAY is annoying. And because I am a us citizen I sometimes answer that I am american, and then they get pushy and start asking "no, but really where are your from?"'"no, but where are your parents from?" etc.... (if they won't accept my answer, why even asking? tf)

How can I avoid being ask this annoying question? At this point I don't care if people are curious but I do not want to come out as rude.