Expat Secrets

Even after many years of experiencing expats, it amazes me how generic any group of expats can all “appear” to be when they get together for a lunch or coffee morning. We laugh over our trials and tribulations and encourage each other to look on the bright side. It is not forever, we will be going home-home for a visit soon, and maybe the next trip or posting will be easier – after all it isn’t that bad is it? For most of us it isn’t. Most of our lives are pretty great. But for some of us, it is that bad.

Extreme psychological and emotional turmoil is experienced by a percentage of any population and needs to be taken seriously. In the expat community, one also sees in others or experiences these extremes too and they can be either created or exacerbated by the circumstances of being an expat. Extremes such as depression, alcoholism and other drug and substance abuse, infidelity and sex addiction, physical and psychological/emotional abuse, suicide and other demons of the human mind are hiding in expatriate communities just as in normal communities. They can remain hidden, or known of by a few or they may be blatantly obvious yet ignored. Sometimes these problems begin as a result of the expat experience, or perhaps they were always lying dormant until stress awakened them. Others have experienced these problems their whole lives and have either adapted to them or have hidden them well, knowing no other way of life. Some expats even started their career abroad motivated by or trying to flee these problems, only learning the hard way that the problem was not in their environment but in themselves.

In expatriate communities, the often ill-fitting, rag-tag bunch of multi-nationals who otherwise may not even have gravitated towards each other, are often all the community we have got. If expats can’t depend on each other – and the truth is that in many communities, they do not – then where, both as courteous professionals as well as human beings, are we?

There are unfortunately a lot of cases where these emotional and psychological experiences destroyed someone’s confidence and self-esteem or worse, destroyed families, relationships and lives. Abroad as an expat such a destruction can be even more devastating than when in a trusted and well-known environment. Very few of us are equipped to confront and deal with these extremes all by themselves, yet there are many things we can do to help people to help themselves or each other. It takes courage, care and genuine compassion to confront these issues, yet it is the possible consequences of not doing so that encourage us to face them.

The first step is to acknowledge the fact that there are “elephants” in any room where more than two people gather. It is vital to approach non-judgementally, thoughtfully and compassionately these problems. While acknowledging a problem is often a very scary prospect, it is also a gift with great potential.