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The Challenges of Living Abroad

I am currently living abroad and have been for nearly three consecutive years. My home country is the United States, and I have only been back for one visit in 2019. I started my journey in South Korea in 2014 and have been back and forth several times since then.

I have struggled with mental health for as long as I can remember. However, I mostly “had it under control” until mid-2019. I now know that I probably didn’t have it under control at all, but 2019 was a bursting point for me. I had neglected my needs for long enough, and it was time to pay.

I remember after having a particularly bad breakdown, a trusted superior of mine asked me if I would be better off back home in the United States. After all, mental health care was more “widely accepted” there and a bit less stigmatized. I truly weighed the pros and cons, and decided, in the end, that I wouldn’t be happy even if I changed my environment. While the environment was a huge stressor in my life, I knew that the stress of uprooting myself again would make things worse.

One of the biggest stressors in living abroad is the feeling that you lack competency. Especially here in South Korea, it can be difficult to be a fully functioning human when you do not speak the local language. I have made many efforts to study and expand my language skills, but no amount of it seems to be enough for me to navigate healthcare or veterinary care. A sense of uselessness washes over me as I struggle to communicate my needs to doctors and veterinarians when my animals or I get sick. It can really chip away at one’s sense of self worth. As time has gone on, I have managed to find ways to fight this. I have formed a small network of trusted care providers and professionals that are able to communicate with me and work with me through issues. Getting to a point where I can bravely enter a new facility and get the help I need has helped boost my confidence tremendously.

I have also formed amazing friendships and bonds during my time abroad. It’s been so empowering to meet people from all walks of life. The individuals that have withstood the test of time, I know, will be lifelong friends. While saying good-bye to friends as contracts expire has been sad, I am so amazed that some of the people I met back in 2014 are still in contact with me today.

While I have battled loneliness throughout my time here, I have also gained independence that I never knew was possible. Before coming to Korea, I had severe social anxiety that kept me from doing many things alone. I always needed a trusted individual with me when I was out in public. I rarely spent any time alone in my home. Living in Korea forced me to get acquainted with my own company. It forced me to learn how to live with myself and to keep myself entertained. It wasn’t easy at first. I filled most of my weekends with activities with coworkers and friends. I was never resting. However, in recent years, restful weekends alone have become a sort of sanctuary when I am socially exhausted.

To all of my fellow nomads, you are so strong and brave for doing what you have done. If you have also struggled with solitude while being far away from your friends and family, know that you will only gain from your experiences here.

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Gratitude – Part Two

Man, I did not intend to have an entire post just about my cat. But I really couldn’t condense how thankful I am for his addition to the fur family.

Like I said in that post, adopting him was the beginning of a lot of really great things.

It wasn’t long after I decided to adopt him that I met my current partner. I had called it quits with my ex 7 months prior, and I was just getting back into the swing of socializing. I have learned so much from my partner about how it feels to not have your relationship as one of your top stressors. Despite a “language barrier” (he is a native Korean), I have never found communicating to be so simple.

I have met a partner that saw me for me and not just a “potential” for who I could be. He accepted me at the state I was in on my mental health journey. He held my hand through the tough bits, and patiently walked with me through it. I am so grateful to have a person that wasn’t pushing me to transform and heal at that moment. He is in this with me and experiencing growth just as I am.

Most importantly, my partner has helped me re-discover fun. Even the most mundane of things is fun when we’re together. Going to Costco, eating burgers at a local burger place, taking the dogs to the cafe, or just hanging out at home doing our own thing while sharing the same space can be fun. I’m looking forward to the time we will have together in the future, however long that may be.

Yes, even that time my cat almost severed tendons in my hand became something we laugh about.

This past year, I fell back in love with my job. That isn’t to say that I do not have periods of burn out, but I had spent so much of 2019-2020 completely disassociated from my work. I no longer remembered why I came back to teach in the first place.

I am so thankful to have a job that doesn’t abuse my willingness to help out. While the hours and the work can be tough, I have never really felt like I was nothing but a body. Over the last year, I have had a few situations (see photo above) regarding my physical health that have required understanding and extra care. I was accommodated and cared for during those times, and I am so grateful to have an upper management team that is actually attentive and caring about my wellbeing.

It’s been good to be able to focus on teaching the best that I can without worrying about abusive colleagues. We get in, we teach, we have some fun, and we clock out at the end of the day. This is how a job should be.

This isn’t to say it’s perfect, but it is just what I needed after years of not having the right environment to thrive in.

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Gratitude – Part One

‘Tis the season to think about what you’re grateful for!

Of course, Thanksgiving isn’t the only time you should be grateful for what you have in life. However, I realized that I haven’t really written about gratitude in 2 years. So much has changed since the last Thankfulness and Gratitude post. Well, mainly the fur family, significant other, and job. Today, my focus is on how grateful I am that those things have changed.

My fur family saw a major change last year when I welcomed Butterscotch to the family. He is my first and only cat. He is my biggest foster fail. He is the perfect addition to our little family. Butterscotch popped into my life during a time of hardship. It was the beginning of the pandemic 2020, and I had just called it quits with my then-boyfriend. I honestly felt like my world had been turned upside and that shit was the lowest it will ever get. What I didn’t know, was that this was about to turn into one of the best years of my life. It all started with Butterscotch.

He was a dirty little thing, and so needy. I was lucky that my boss, at the time, loves cats and she allowed me to have him in his carrier at my feet while I taught online. He had a kitty cold and needed a lot of TLC before he could go to a forever family. I was intent on finding him one. The pandemic made it hard, but I had friends back home that were so interested in adding him to their family. I got on a waitlist for flights heading to Chicago, and got estimates for him to fly.

Despite the promising forever home, I just couldn’t let him go. I was overly protective of him and nothing felt quite right if he wasn’t at home with us. So, after a few foster homes… and friends of mine running away screaming (he’s a bit of a troublemaker), he ended up in my home again in September of 2020. This time, it was for good.

I had to break it to the potential adopters that I wouldn’t be sending him over. I felt horrible, but I would have felt worse if I had taken him away from Misha and Dobby. They were attached. We moved houses quite a few times in this last year, but he has adjusted well each time. I’m so grateful I stumbled on him last year. I can’t imagine what my little family would be like without him.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, adding him to my life was the start of one of the best years I have had in a long time.

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The Conundrum of Burn Out From a Job You Love

Growing up, you are always encouraged to do something that you love. “If you do you what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.” I truly believed this when I entered the mental health and social services field at age 22. I loved the idea of helping people and learning about their stories. I loved watching clients and families that I worked with make progress. I loved it so much I was putting in 50+ hours a week.

Needless to say, at age 23, I was pretty done with social services. I thought, “I must not love this enough” and I moved on. As I realized that the nature of this work was not for me (and I was 100% right), I decided to “take a year off” and teach abroad. After all, I knew plenty of university friends that went down that path upon graduation and they seem happy and well adjusted. I took a year to go through a graduate TEFL program and do some volunteer ESL teaching in my community before I got on a plane on October 31st, 2014 for South Korea.

I really only intended for it to be a year, and I made a solid attempt to re-integrate myself back into life in the United States in 2017. Every single day I spent behind my fancy new corporate job desk, I thought about my students in Korea. It wasn’t long until I ended up with a new contract in hand and heading back to the city I started in back in 2014.

I haven’t looked back, but that isn’t to say that I haven’t been burnt out in this job that I do feel is the job I love. Burn out happens and is normal. It really doesn’t mean that I need to reconsider all of my life decisions and pick myself back up and move again.

I have realized that I must view my job as what it is. It’s a job. It is work. It is not my life. To reduce myself to the identity I take on at work, Teacher, is to take energy away from all of the other identities I have. I am first and foremost, me. I am not just a tool for the corporate machine (and in my particular position as a teacher in a private academy, I accept that my services are used for profit). I must give equal energy and attention to taking care of all aspects of me. In order to work through burn out, remember that you are not just what your job title is. You’re an amazing human being with people that love you. The best parts of your life are spent away from your work environment.

Work-life balance is extremely important. As a teacher, it is so easy to bring work home. Getting behind on grading? Bring it home! Need to write student reports? Bring it home! It took me a long time to learn not to do this. Maximize your time in your work space and finish those tasks during the time you have allotted for work. Does this mean that I give up scrolling on my phone during a down period? Yep. Because my home is a sacred space where I am no longer “Teacher.” Unfortunately, for many people this can be impossible. In this case, designate a physical space in your home to work on work stuff. Keeping it confined to a space will keep your private space sacred.

Use weekends & holidays to properly rest. Rest can look like a lot of different things. Whether it be sleeping in, going for a hike, taking a weekend trip to getaway, or just getting things done around the house, it is important to take a step away from work and rest. This means turning off notifications for work e-mails. Prioritize your tasks and complete them before periods of rest. Leave your work at work and fully embrace your holiday.

Reorganize your workspace. I honestly do not believe that humans are designed to thrive in a constant. Take some time to change things up a little bit in your workspace. It could be as simple as adding a fun decorative piece to your desk or putting in an organizer in the drawer. It could even be something as big as a change in wardrobe for work! Bringing a bit of change periodically can help keep you excited about the little things in your job.

Make sure you are unwinding after a day at work. Nothing is worse than feeling riled up hours after the work day has ended. One of the ways that I keep things separate at home and at work is having an unwinding routine. My routine entails getting out of my work clothing immediately. I take off my work clothes and put on my “home” clothes. I then settle down with a quick light dinner and a cup of tea. a wind down routine helps the brain disengage from work and give yourself real “me” time.

There is a difference between being burnt out from a job that no longer serves you, and simply being burnt out from an unhealthy balance between work and life despite trying to put in plenty of boundaries and balance, it may be time to reconsider your job or workplace.

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Too Much to Look Forward To

I never thought I’d be complaining about having way too much to look forward to. During 2019 and 2020, I was constantly working with having nothing to look forward to. I felt trapped in pattern of constant grind. I was treading water with my head barely above the surface.

I’m so happy and grateful to say that with the end of 2021 drawing near, I have a plethora of things to look forward to in these last few months and the beginning of 2022.

However… this has really triggered a bad case of anticipatory anxiety. No. This is not some new anxiety disorder. It is simply a common symptom of my Generalized Anxiety Disorder diagnosis. The main trigger of my anticipatory anxiety is the fear I have of the worst case scenario.

Many sufferers of GAD have trouble “turning off” their brain. I’ve been told that I have a vivid imagination, and a knack for imagining the worst of any scenario. It’s frustrating and terrifying to frequently be jumping to terrifying conclusions about the future. Here are some things that have helped me cope with my brain running off to “What If Land.”

  1. Talk it out with someone. I am so lucky to have friends and a partner that are able to objectively look at some of my thoughts and fears and gently help me through them. Sometimes, just saying the fear or distortion out loud is enough for us to recognize the flaws in logic that the anxiety disorder is creating. Having a trusted and level-headed confidant listen and help you through the logic can be even better.
  2. Work through your cognitive distortions. Often times, anxiety is convincing us of a very unrealistic or unlikely worst-case scenario. By simply asking, “How likely is this to happen?” we are able to start sorting through the distortion and give ourselves a more objective lens to look through the thoughts. This doesn’t just work for anticipatory anxiety, and is a great CBD method that I learned through therapy.
  3. Take a breath. Sometimes, our brains get a little too loud. Take a deep breath. Inhale for 5 counts, hold for 5 counts, and exhale for 5 counts. Repeat. Grounding does wonders to calm that inner dialogue and helps you focus on you and your body. I practice deep breathing several times a day as a habitual self-check. Obviously it doesn’t solve the problem, but it’s important to check in and recalibrate periodically.
  4. Take care of your body. This seems like a no-brainer, but anxiety can make it easy for a person to forget meals, skip out on sleep, and skip out on showering and exercise. Sleeping and eating properly is very important for our brains to keep our moods and emotions in check. When I get spikes of “doomsday” thought patterns or anxiety attacks, my partner has a habit of asking me, “How does your stomach feel? Are you hungry?” It seems silly, but my anxiety symptoms and my gut are very connected. A hungry stomach means that my brain starts thinking about survival and keys into the fight or flight mechanism.

So, yes. I’m very excited for what the coming months have in store. I’m terrified that everything is going to fall apart somehow. Sometimes, I wake up terrified of what the future will bring. This is all familiar territory and it sometimes feels like I really haven’t “gotten any better.” But I remind myself that the last time I felt this scared, I was ready to run away. I was ready to quit. This time, I’m scared but I still choose to get up every day and take on those fears. I still find things to be excited about. That is progress.

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Trauma Bonds – Why We Stay

When a third party is looking into a dysfunctional relationship, it can be easy to pick out what the problem is and to come to the conclusion that the “abused” should just leave. “There wouldn’t be a problem if they weren’t in this crappy relationship.”

What exactly keeps people hooked onto an abusive relationship? Trauma bonds.

Trauma bonds have very real psychological and physiological effects on a person. These bonds create a codependent relationship in which the narcissistic abuser thrives off of the rewards of exerting control over their partner and the victim becomes hooked onto the rewards that happen after the turbulent punishment.

What is a trauma bond? It is a bond in which turbulent and hurtful periods are followed by extreme affection. This is a punishment and reward system that conditions the victim into becoming dependent upon the showering of affection that follows mistreatment.

One of the key characteristics of an abusive relationship is its cyclical nature. The narcissistic abuser inflicts trauma onto the victim in order to build them up again. These relationships are notoriously hard for people to get out of. It has taken me over a year and a half of self-reflection and therapy to realize that I was stuck in a relationship that was built off of trauma bonding.

So… why did I stay? Simply put, I was in a mental state that was vulnerable to getting caught in a trauma bond cycle. I didn’t have much confidence in myself and I didn’t feel great being alone either. It was the natural desire for companionship and love that kept me stuck in the low-lows and the dramatic highs. I thought to myself, “Well, the lows aren’t too bad compared with the love and affection I am shown once the drama is over.”

I have realized with healing and exposure to a healthy relationship that no fight with your significant other should ever feel like your entire world is being ripped to shreds. If someone can be in conflict with you so much that you feel like your world is being destroyed, that person does not care about your mental stability.

I have tried to explain away the cycles and I have tried to look deeply into what I did to contribute to this dynamic. They always say that it takes two to make or break a relationship. I searched, long and hard, for what I did to bring this upon myself. What did I do to get myself into such a dramatic and turbulent relationship? I convinced myself into believing that if I was different, or better, then the lows would stop. I put it on my own mental health issues and my anxiety disorder. I told myself, “All of this is happening because you can’t get your anxiety and depression under control. You are causing him to get short with you because you are anxious.” I blamed myself again and again. I apologized for being ill. The biggest thing I contributed to this dysfunctional relationship was putting the fault and blame in me and making myself responsible for “fixing” the relationship.

I still remember the first time I had an anxiety attack with my current partner. We were sitting in the car and I was frozen. I didn’t know what was wrong, but something was making me freeze up. I couldn’t figure out what triggered the anxiety. My partner looked at me and said, “Is everything okay? Do you need me to leave?” My anxiety began to heighten as I began to feel the familiar pressure of needing to explain myself and justify my anxiety or else he’ll leave. I needed to make sure that what I was feeling was “valid.” Was I “overreacting over nothing?” It must have been very apparent that I was freaking out internally, because what my partner said to me next was what I realized that I had needed all along. He said, “I don’t need to leave either, we can just sit together until your feelings pass. We have time.”

I remember sputtering and trying to justify why I was feeling this way. He laughed and said, “Sometimes, a lot of things can make you feel anxious. You don’t need to stress yourself out and figure out why right now. We can relax and just let this pass.” I was allowed to just work it out without him getting upset that I was not telling him everything. It was OK for me to just be anxious.

So why did I stay in this toxic relationship? Because I learned, through life, that my thoughts, feelings, and emotions were not right if they weren’t positive. I learned that I deserved the frustration and anger if I wasn’t able to back up my feelings because it inconvenienced the other person.

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My Shitty Relationship with Body Weight

Over the last three years, I have become very avoidant in having full body photos taken. I hate looking at myself in the mirror, and purposefully do not own a full length mirror. For a long time, the image of my body disgusted me. At times, it still does.

As a teen, I struggled with my body image and weight. Looking back on photos of high school me, I cognitively understand that I would be perceived as “tiny” by most of my peers. I stood 5’4″ and 115 pounds, but I was miserable. I came from a family and ethnic background where the women weighed in at 100 pounds until their mid or late 20s. Family members always had something to say about a girl’s body, especially mine. I was taller, built a bit more muscular, heavier, and still growing. The people I was surrounded with and media were really not helping me form healthy viewpoints of my body. I already had a lot of internalized self loathing at a young age.

Once I reached university, my mental health began to slip. As one life-changing event happened after another, my relationship with food and my body began to morph. I found that I could easily gain a sense of control by controlling whether or not I would eat food. Skipping meals and calorie counting was an obsession I kept under wraps. Finally, at the end of university, I hit an all-time low… and an all-time high for my weight.

I was in a co-dependent relationship with a person that did not particularly care for his health. Meals were “important” to him and he loved to indulge in food that I wasn’t used to eating much of. Paired with a generally sedentary lifestyle, both he and I gained weight. It wasn’t until I made the decision to take some time to work in Korea, was I able to work on my health, both physical and mental.

I was brought backwards when I started this blog at the beginning of my mental health journey. Overeating and overindulging became my way to cope with negative emotions. Depression symptoms were so exhausting that I couldn’t find it in me to get any exercise. This leads to more self-hate and less motivation to do anything about it.

I’m currently still on a journey with my body weight and the way I look. I have learned a lot about accepting my body the way it is but also encouraging myself to maintain healthy habits and work toward fitness. There are days where I still can’t look at photos of myself, but the motivation’s there. I am committed to being happy and healthy in my skin.

Some things that I have learned to do:

  • Be less concerned about the numbers. Whether it be on the scales or how much you can lift.
  • Focus on how you feel. It’s not worth it if you’re dieting and exercising but your body feels like it’s about to break down.
  • Remember: You are beautiful no matter what shape you’re in. Embrace the body you have now and care for it. With time, it will become the body you need it to be.

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Things No One Tells You

Some things I didn’t realize were part of my mental illness

When I first began to give some form of acknowledgement of my mental health issues in my mid-20s, I was a very different person. I thought that I was very self-aware and that I was properly dealing with my emotions and struggles. I thought that if I acknowledge that they were there and I “figured out” why I had these problems, then I’d be set. I was so very wrong. Acknowledging your issues and having self-awareness is only about 30% of the battle.

No one told me that I would have to take ownership and responsibility even when my mental illness was not necessarily my fault. Fault and responsibility, I learned, are two different things. I also had a skewed belief that many of my issues stemmed from external experiences and that once I “discovered” those, I’d somehow be cured. I learned, half a decade later, that the real healing comes from recognition of my part of the disordered thinking and behaviors. While I can’t just “choose happy,” I can choose to own my feelings. I can choose to be responsible for how I react in situations.

I didn’t realize that not being able to cry was worse than crying all the time. Rather than define depression as just being sad all the time, I would define it as a general low and apathetic mood that can lead to despair. During the worst of my depressive episodes, I would wish for tears. I would wish to feel something other than the desire to be nothing. I never would have thought that I would find relief in crying while in a bout of depression.

I also wasn’t expecting the memory loss I would experience. As my depression worsened, my dependency on the Calendar app on my phone increased. I would forget the day of the week, deadlines, and other important details that I normally would never miss. Eventually, whole days would pass by without me being able to remember any notable event. Being on autopilot was the default.

I also, sadly, learned that my tolerance for abuse increased the lower I felt. The more worthless I felt, the more mistreatment I allowed in my life. I suppose it makes a lot of sense, but I wasn’t prepared to look back and realize that I stayed in abusive situations because I did not have the willpower in me to make my life feel better.

You’ll hear people say that mental health is physical health, but I fully realized how important it was to take care of my mind. Having anxiety was one of the most physically taxing things to deal with. During the times when I had anxiety attacks daily, I would be left with the physical exhaustion the entire rest of the day. It doesn’t go away with a good night’s rest. Sleeping doesn’t actually bring any relief. Eventually, your body goes down from the common cold. I spent almost two years not knowing what it felt like to be without pain or illness. I didn’t remember what it was like to be healthy until earlier this year.

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Fully Vaccinated – FINALLY

I usually don’t post too many life updates, but this particular event has been quite impactful in more ways than one.

The COVID-19 Pandemic (or, as I like to call it, the Great Pandemonium 2020-2021 and counting) has been one of the most mentally and physically taxing life events of our generation. Our lives, as we knew it, ceased to exist, and so many of us adapted to a very different way of living.

I was fortunate enough to be in South Korea for the entirety of this experience. In fact, I’m still here. While the country handled the worst of the pandemic with grace, the roll out for vaccines was slow and often times frustrating. I’m not here to discuss or push beliefs of getting vaccinated. I, personally, chose to get vaccinated as soon as I was able to. Many South Koreans are also doing the same. As a foreigner, the process of getting registered and signed up for an appointment was a nightmare… but after almost 3 months of struggle and waiting, I have finally completed two rounds of the Pfizer vaccine! The vaccine completely kicked my butt and I was not feeling quite right for at least a week, but I’m still so thankful to have had access to the vaccine.

I’m hoping for changes in quarantine and travel restriction for fully vaccinated folks in and outside of Korea. The changes do not look like they’re coming fast enough, but they are coming. So many life events have been halted or completely cancelled due to COVID and it would just be great to be able to enjoy some of the things we once took for granted.

For one, I have not seen any of my family for over two years. We have been waiting for restrictions to ease up, and have not received any good news. We are all fully vaccinated, but quarantine requirements and time restrictions on my part are preventing us from having a proper reunion. I have missed out on weddings and holidays, and will be missing the births of babies of some of my dearest friends.

I haven’t socialized with a lot of my closest friends for nearly 8 months. Things were getting better for much of the spring of 2021, but quickly took a turn for the worse. We have been in an elevated state of social distancing for months, and the exhaustion is getting to me. Being afraid to do anything on the weekends leaves me sitting at home and lazing but not really resting. I miss doing stuff.

Most of all, I miss not feeling anxious about getting sick and jeopardizing my job. It’s been an exhausting 1.5 years for everyone.

To fellow fully vaccinated folks, what has changed since you’ve gotten your jab?

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To My Fellow People Pleasers

For a lot of us, it takes a long time to realize that people pleasing is not as positive as the name implies. We tend to believe that being agreeable, kind, and considerate are attributes that we should strive to have. People pleasers do their best to accommodate everyone and their needs, and they often do this at the expensive of themselves.

People pleasing stems from a need to be liked. Everyone likes to be liked by others, but the truth is that not everyone will. Often times, people pleasers fear the rejection that comes along with being disliked and will do everything in their power to be likable by others. This is rooted in anxiety, and I found that my people pleasing habits were very much connected to the worries I have with relationships and social connections. Rationalizing the worries is a helpful way to start working through detrimental people pleasing.

In addition, my people pleasing habits have often resulted in added-on stress from taking on too many commitments and responsibilities. The inability to say no had become so detrimental at one point that I was constantly overspending my emotional and social energy in order to accommodate everyone’s social calendars. I was also taking on “small favors” for people at work… which were actually huge favors. Being a people pleaser helped me climb the ranks at my old job, but it was exhausting. It led me to disregard my own needs for boundaries.

I was also apologizing constantly. My fear of being disliked was so strong that I would apologize for things that I didn’t do or weren’t my fault. Eventually it took away so much from my sense of self that my sense of self-worth was basically gone.

Recognizing people pleasing as a toxic trait is one thing. The next step is learning to step away from people pleasing tendencies. Having and enforcing boundaries is essential. My rule of thumb is that true friends will not fault you for having boundaries and looking out for yourself. Those that do take offense do not have your best interest in mind!

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