Among the questions raised during our teleconferenced discussion were: How do people cope with stress from environmental threats? How does one deal with stigma attached to mental illness? How does one find help for emotional issues? Can stress, anxiety, or depression be treated without relying on psychiatric medication? What about moving to another country? Should one maintain traditions, language, and habits, or seek total assimilation into the adopted country?
Our teleconference reminded us that psychological stress is common to all peoples, and the anxiety, fear, and depression that can result from stress are universal human emotions. No matter what our culture, we must confront these emotions or our psychological health will suffer.
Psychology faculty at King's College have focused on several aspects of stress, and summaries can be found at http://www.subtlesuicide.com/ We hope to be able to partner with other academic institutions, and develop some inter-cultural research projects. We will also encourage our students to use this blog to engage their peers at other institutions in discussion of stress and other psychological issues.
Psychiatric meds: Are there more pros or cons in using them for stress? (Second Question): Psychiatric meds, it seems, are extremely accessible and available in this country, and as a whole, our tolerance, it seems, is increasingly rising... Is it like this in other countries - and if so (or if not) what ultimate/global affect(s) does it have in contrast to the U.S. (like, for instance, does the prevalence of stress disorders differ because of it)?
ReplyDeleteanother question on meds, since as a young scholar I am fascinatingly intrigued by the true science behind it all (and the true misconeptions behind it all)... What are the true roles for talk therapy and medicinal therapy in dealing with stress... or anything for that matter?
ReplyDeleteTo answer Bobbi's question I think there are many variables that play a role in stress in other countries. When we look at Africa or Ethiopia for example their main stressor could be when the citizens will find food for their children or civil wars against tribes. I also think as we discussed in the forum, that many cultures are ashamed of their stress and want to repress it as much as they can because stress is not acceptable. I just want to say that no matter what country one lives in that person dealing with stress must find within themselves the willpower to cope with it. As far as the meds go, I think it is all about availability. Other countries may not have the resources that others do and the money to buy these medications.
ReplyDeleteOne theme we often develop in some of our classes at King's, and especially in one of our books (Church & Brooks, The Power of Stress Enhancement), is that too much reliance on medications can prevent people from trying to take some control over efforts to cope with stress. Charese alluded to this issue. In the USA, psychiatric medications are greatly overprescribed and often inappropriately prescribed.
ReplyDeleteDuring our recent UNAI teleconference, one question emailed in concerned the use of psychiatric medications for mental health problems. Most people who seek professional counseling are often led to believe that medication is the best way to deal with their problem The danger here is that clients may believe that the drugs will cure them, and all they have to do is wait for the effects to kick in. This is a dangerous attitude because clients will not understand that change requires effort and commitment, not a passive dependence on medication.
ReplyDeleteAre we saying that psychiatric medication is no good? No. In fact, these drugs can be very helpful in “jump starting” a client, giving the troubled person a boost in energy and a willingness to tackle the challenges that lie ahead. In many cases, the combination of medication and counseling has been shown to be more effective than either one alone. Here’s a metaphor we like to use: Medication will get a stalled car started, or repair the car to the level we were at before we needed maintenance. On the other hand, counseling offers the possibility of driving the car more effectively once we have it started, or of giving us a better car to drive, and helping us become better drivers. How many things in life give us that kind of potential?
Suppose a student has a math test to study for, but he injured his arm and is in a lot of pain. Because of the pain, the student is unable to study effectively for the math test, and he fails the test. He explains the situation to the professor, who says, “Go to the health center and get a painkiller. When the pain is gone, you can retake the test.” The student does so and returns a few hours later, pain free. He retakes the test but fails it again. What happened? Obviously, taking the painkiller did not teach the student math. The medicine reduced the pain, but it did not give the student the knowledge he needed to know to pass the test. And so it is with psychiatric medications. A depressed or anxious client may take an anti-depressant or anti-anxiety medication and feel better. Unless the client works hard at changing the perceptions, thoughts, and actions that produced the emotional problems, however, the problems will persist and the depression or anxiety will return.
I think you hit the nail right on the head! Even when people take medications like antidepressants or anti-psychotics, people may feel at ease because the medication is working. The user may be lead to believe that they no longer need to take the medication because they are "cured" with just a few weeks in taking the pill. On the other side of the coin, the person may not give the medication time to set in and feel that nothing is working for them and the depression gets worse. The pill is not the only treatment, the attitude you have and the therapy you receive is the treatment as well. People seem to want a fast moving pace for everything and when they get it, suddenly everything can stop and the person does not need to take it anymore. Could a person who has been diagnosed with severe depression be cured without taking any medications? Does attitude affect the how fast or slow the symptoms go away? What are your thoughts?
ReplyDeleteAnxiety, Anger, Depression, Grief, Guilt, Loneliness --- These are universal emotions, and most people will do almost anything to avoid them. Such avoidance is a bad strategy that will only lead to more problems. Emotions are a natural part of life and must not be treated as the enemy. Rather than avoid our emotions we must confront them and transform them into positive action.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, anxiety can be a crippling emotion and a major cause of avoidance. Anxiety makes us run from life. We can, however, learn to put anxiety to good use. The first step is to realize that much anxiety is quite natural. It is normal to be anxious about being evaluated, losing a loved one, confronting others, or being rejected. It is also important to remember that anxiety can motivate us to prepare for challenges and emergencies, plus bring us closer to others.
As another example, consider grief, which is often associated with both depression and anxiety. Suppose a loved one has died. We must remember that our grief is a sign of the strengths the loved one gave us. Grief should not be dreaded, denied, covered up, or avoided; to do so would dishonor the memory of the one now gone. We can direct grief energy into the coping skills taught to us by our lost loved one. We must move on by using the strengths the person we lost taught us. In that way, we honor him or her.
I believe that if you ever feel stressed out, rather than trying to commit suicide, you should just talk to someone about your problems because the person will always help calm you down. My friend commited suicide because of stress. If he had only talked to me or one of his other freinds, he might still today be living a great life. Even though he was my friend and I was upset, I had to put my life into perspective to get over this bad event and deal with my grief in this terrible time. How can someone's life be so bad at such a young age to make him commit suicide?
ReplyDeleteThere are so many points to make on this subject, but one I would like to make is that no matter what feelings you get about a bad situation that has happened, you have to face the problem one way or another and not hide behind medication, drugs, or anything else to try to evade coping with the problem at hand. One example of avoiding the problem, while we are on the subject, is suicide. Suicide is the worst possible form of avoidance because you are totally removing yourself not only from the bad situation at hand, but the good things you still have in life also. Suicide is not the answer. We may not be able to change what is around us, but we can always change the way we think about a situation. You will be a much healthier individual if you think positively more often.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with Softballgirl95 in the sense that you shouldn't commit suicide, but I do believe some medications help. Now, these meds shouldn't be abused, but they can help a person's situation a bit. Medication such as SSRIs that are used to control OCD can be useful, if used in the right way.
ReplyDeletetherapy needs to alter the metabolism of the OCD circuit and brake a patient's "brain lock." There are studies that show that cognitive-behavior therapy - or, indeed, any psychiatric treatment that did not rely on drugs - has the power to change faulty brain chemistry in a well-identified brain circuit.
ReplyDelete(First Study Ever: significantly diminished metabolic activity: Schwartz, J.M., Stoessel, P.W., Baxter, L.R., Jr., et al. 1996. Systematic changes in cerbral glucose metabolic rate after successful behavior modification treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder.
{continued from last blog: ARchives of General Psychiatry, 53, pp. 109-113.
ReplyDeleteas with depression, charese... it's a "brain lock" as well... many scientists only go on to study obsessions after observing that many patients with depression had intrusive, obsessional thoughts. Take a look at John Teasdale's "mindfullness-based cognitive therapy" To Teasdale, it was clear. To prevent the recurrence of depression, it may be sufficient for a patient to process his/her emotions in a new way, a way that does not trigger the thoughts and mood states characterisitic of a depressive episode. That is, it may be enough to find a way to disrupt the automatic seque from sadness to sickness - and the pathological brain states associated with it. With the right therapy, thoughts and feelings that once tipped the person into full-blown depression would instead become "short-lived and self-limiting." Teasdale's proposed therapy would change the very way patients think about their thoughts.
Patients receiving CBT are better able to resist being plunged into despair by sad thoughts suggests that this therapy changes emotional processing - the way people think about their feelings - in ways that prevent dysphoria from triggering full-blown depression. Such research, Teasdale concludes, "suggests that emotional processing should focus primarily on changing emotional responses to internal affective events and thoughts, so that these responses are short-lived and self-limiting, rather than the first stages of an escalating process."
Teasdale patients would have to recognize that sadness can (through a brain-based biological mechanism) escalate into depression. To prevent it from doing so they would learn to meet the onset of dyshporia with such respones as "thoughts are not facts" and " I am not my thoughts." They would learn to prevent what Teasdale calles depressive interlock (reminiscent of what i call "brain lock"): the strong, physical connection between unhappy thoughts and the memories, associations, and modes of thought that inflate sadness into depression. To do that, the therapist needs to help patients encode in memory alternative thought patterns that can be activated by the very same cues that otherwise tap into the despairing ones.
Healthy emotional processing prevents the dysphoria from triggering global thoughts of hopelessness and self-worthlessness. It instead activates alternative memories and associations, so that the next time the patient encounters something that makes he or she sad they react not with despair but by calling up other, healthier associations. This is reminiscent of OCD patients learning to respond to the compulsive urge to wash by deciding instead to crochet or gardern - that is, by Refocusing.
make sure to check John Teasdale out... he has much more to offer...
my question is on OCCUPATIONAL STRESS!! how many mood disorders or personality disorders or anxiety disorders are caused by this: occupational stress? how do you help someone suffering with occupational stress. how do you tell someone to go back to school when they don't believe in themselves - instead they continue to welter in a position that's not fulfilling their actualization. I was going "Maslow" when i said actualization, so let me continue... that whole pyramid - the heirarchy of needs - may be destroyed by occupational stress, as if occupational stress is some sort of big bomb coming and landing on ones pyramid of needs, diminishing all but a little portion in the bottom layer... say you've been serving food for 30 years... you barely can afford rent and food and the children you have to take care of... meanwhile the stress causes tension at home, fatigue sets in, depression rattles the brain.... more stress, on your only day off you want to just sit and relax and by the next day, you realize you have to go back to work and that you're just not doing anything with your life and the house is a messy barn.... as a therapist, what do you do with these patients suffering from occuapational stress... you may be dealing with a patient that doesn't even know that all their stress comes from within their job.... is a goal orientation the key here, or is it much more complex... i just think this is a big issue... i see it all around me
ReplyDeleteI constantly witness in group therapy sessions with Dr. Church and in the psychiatric hospital setting how much people avoid an issue. Often patients turn to drugs or self mutaliation to ease the pain of dealing with a personal issue. Before joining the internship I had a generalized idea of why people act the way they act but in all honestly the stories that I have heard opened up my eyes and ears to understand on a personal level the reasons why. A constant theme I see in group therapy is a concept Dr. Church constantly stresses, avoidance. Everyone avoids a situation, a person, or places.. why? If people focused more on acceptance and less on avoidance would people really turn to suicide, homicide and other destructive behaviors? A question that has never been answered and people hear quite frequently when a person commits suicide is why? Why would a person leave a child, a loving husband or wife, a promising career behind for death? Are people that illogical and desperate in situations like this that the person thinks death is a better answer than life? I bet the person who is contemplating suicide never had the thought, "maybe if I accept that I cannot change the fact that my husband cheats on me, but I can focus on therapy or divorce to ease my stress." Does a person have a conscious once he/she plots out the last moments of her life?
ReplyDelete@Charese: Your post raised some very good questions that are often asked in the field of psychology. I am glad that you are asking them because it means that you understand that acceptance is the answer, not avoidance. Some people, however, cannot see that. It sounds so easy to people like us because we have the skills and strategies to deal with our everyday stress but, others are not so fortunate. Although it would be great if all we had to do was TELL someone to accept their feelings for them to do it, I am sure that the number of suicides would plummet. The real question is, how do we get this message across? How can we lift the avoidance fog and show these people the way to acceptance? People do not WANT to be depressed, they just don't know how not to be (unless there is truly a chemical imbalance, of course). Unfortunately, we will never find a single way to reach every person who is avoiding something. As stress enhancers, however, we can model a certain behavior. If we find ourselves close to an avoider, we can be very blunt about our feelings. We know what we are feeling because we are accepting those feelings every day, so why not share them? We should express our feelings as often as possible (without being too cheesy, of course). When we express our feelings, we would be showing avoiders that expression is not only okay, but it feels great. What I could see happening is that the avoider would start to feel more comfortable sharing their feelings which would help them sort through them and maybe find something they have been avoiding. All that would be left to do for us, would be to listen. I know this process would take a long time but I think, as stress enhancers, we need to attempt any strategy we can to help.
ReplyDeleteI have been living with the same roommate for three years now and we are both stress enhancers. We are constantly telling each other directly what upsets us or makes us angry or what we really like. Freshman year, I was somewhat of an avoider, but my roommate would constantly tell me what was wrong or what was right. I don't know if it was the shock of her bluntness or the knowledge that she cared about feelings that made me want to express myself more, but that year I learned more about myself than I had in my whole life. Just being able to outright say "it makes me angry when you do that" was so freeing. Expressing feelings is accepting them. Hearing them said aloud, seeing them written down, they are right there in front of you and it doesn't get any more real than that. Once it's out, you have no choice but to face it. If we could model this behavior and subconsciously encourage those who are close to us to express themselves, I think we would be seeing fewer avoiders and more stress enhancers.
Question:
ReplyDeleteIs it true when you say "expressing feelings is accepting them"? Can some people blurt out feelings and emotions and later feel regret because they still see those emotions as threatening to them and a sign that they are not psychologically healthy?
You make the excellent point, however, that we cannot really be stress enhancers without recognizing emotions like anger, fear, jealousy, etc., as part of being human, and not things that should be avoided like alien invaders.
Response:
I think that sometimes after someone admits to some type of feeling, the reaction that they get is very important. If someone were to say that what they were feeling was irrational or not that big of a deal, the person may be even more ashamed of how they feel, they might start telling themselves that the others are right, they shouldn’t be feeling that way. Because they feel this way, however, they may never even try to admit their feelings again for fear of rejection. This, I think, would lead to regret. The person would regret expressing their feelings because now everyone knows, but no one is doing anything except putting them down.
I do still think, though, that expressing feelings plays a big role when it comes to acceptance. Maybe after it is done, someone can regret having expressed them but, for that moment, it feels good. It is like having a huge weight lifted off of your shoulders. I think the response has more of an effect on how long that “good” feeling lasts. I think it is why a lot of people cry or lash out when they are stressed. Both are ways of expressing feelings. Yes, afterwards most people regret having “broken under pressure” but directly after, there is a moment of clarity and it almost feels like a rebirth. I’m sure you have felt this before, I know I have. After taking a few minutes to calm down, things seem to be not as big of a deal, they seem easier to handle, etc.
I think the regret comes more from a social aspect. It depends a lot on how others perceive you because if they start seeing you negatively based on your emotions or feelings, that moment is when we regret having even mentioned them in the first place.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteResponse Part 2:
ReplyDeleteAs for the “real army”, based on what I know and personal experience, I would say that being a stress enhancer is actually pretty difficult. Although nowadays there is a very big push on suicide prevention in the Army (because of its dramatic rise in recent years), It is still very difficult to express yourself. Most soldiers do not want to admit that they need to talk about their feelings to anyone much less a therapist. Soldiers don’t even like admitting to physical pain. One soldier went through Infantry training with multiple stress fractures in his foot. Giving in is not something that is done very often in the Army.
As for the stress side, being a soldier is probably one of the most stressful professions out there. You have a million standards to keep up with and if you don’t someone will notice. Being a stress enhancer is very helpful in the Army; however, not all soldiers are stress enhancers. And this is why we have been seeing this increase in suicides.
Although the focus is on preventing overt suicides, one could argue that being a soldier makes you automatically subtly suicidal. When you think about it, isn’t a soldier’s job to protect his country and his fellow soldiers? When we go out onto the battlefield, aren’t we saying “I don’t care if I live or die, as long as freedom prevails and my fellow soldiers can go home”? Yes, many soldiers have families to come home to, and multiple reasons to live but self sacrifice is a huge part of being a soldier. It’s one of the Army Values: Selfless Service. It’s in the Warrior Ethos multiple times: “I will never quit” and “I will never accept defeat” this includes when facing death. I know that it is not the exact same thing as subtle suicide but it is maybe a different sense of it.
My question is if stress is part of life and dealing with a certain amount of stress is normal and actually good for you, then when is it bad? I understand when it starts affecting your life in a negative way, but what if that's how a person deals with it. Some people need the stress in order to function.
ReplyDeleteQuestion 2:Would you say that all the men and women in ROTC are stress enhancers? Going further, is volunteering for the armed services a default indicator that one is a stress enhancer?
ReplyDeleteResponse 2 part 1:
In short, the answer is no, we are not all stress enhancers. The kids in ROTC are college students just like all the others. Yes, we get up at 6am instead of 11am and yes we are taught Army values and how to be leaders. However, we are still just college kids trying to figure out what to do with our lives. Just like the general college population, some of us are stress enhancers, some of us aren’t. Obviously, this job would be ideal for someone who is a stress enhancer, but that is not one of the blocks we check when getting accepted into the program. In fact, I personally know of at least two stress avoiders, both are female.
In ROTC we are put in leadership positions where we either have to teach various materials or make different decisions. So it is not surprising when I say that ROTC is pretty stressful in itself. The problem we run into a lot is that the stress from ROTC, school, and life becomes too much. Some people cannot handle it so they tend to quit. However, in the case of one cadet that I know, she signed a contract. This means that she cannot quit ROTC without some serious consequences. She is your typical stress avoider. She is very high-strung and just looking at her you can tell that she is holding a lot of things in; not necessarily good things either. She has wanted to quit ROTC for a while now but is unable to because of her contract. This is just setting her up for even more disaster. Unfortunately, she is probably not the only one that could not handle the stress but is stuck anyways.
The summer after every cadet’s junior year of college, we must attend a month long camp that is designed to assess and evaluate the skills we have learned in ROTC thus far. This camp is probably what causes the most stress for an ROTC cadet. In fact, junior year is probably the most stressful year. In ROTC lately, there has been a huge emphasis on suicide prevention. One of the reasons for this is because, in 2009, there was a cadet at camp who had failed the night land navigation section (we are tasked to find certain points in the woods with a map and compass, and return to the start point within a set amount of time). He was retaking the test the following night and when he realized that he was going to fail it again, he used his 550 cord to hang himself from a tree branch. It was still very dark out so the cadets and cadre (people in charge) had to join hands and do a sweep through the woods. Seven hours later, his body was found. As you can imagine, this story has made its way through probably every ROTC detachment in the nation. It is a sad one, but a very eye-opening one. Could one say that this cadet was a stress enhancer because he joined ROTC? Probably not. But like I said, that is not one of the blocks we have to check.
It definitely takes a special person to make the decision to join ROTC. It takes an even more special person to sign the contract. Unfortunately, even doing that is not a sign that one is a stress enhancer.
@vietmoon:
ReplyDeleteI think you bring up an important point and I find it kind of ironic because I am right in the middle of procrastinating right now! I would not say that I am a person who needs stress to function but, when it comes to school work, I rarely complete an assignment more than 24 hours in advance. I do not know what is wrong with me because every other aspect of my life is planned pretty far in advance and I like getting things done. It's just with homework that I can only even attempt to focus on it when I feel my time window closing. To make it worse, though, is I have not yet gotten punished for it. I still manage to write good papers, successfully complete assignments, and prepare good powerpoints in fairly small amounts of time. I'm still not sure if this is a gift or a curse. There are times when I feel very VERY stressed about school work yet I still do not do it. Instead, I complain about how stressed I am and still wait until the last minute.
I think stress can give us the "kick in the butt" that we need in order to get something done, but it can also be very unhealthy. If we do not deal with it in the appropriate manner, stress can eat us alive. I guess knowing when it is too much is up to each person. Like you said, if it starts to negatively affect your life, it is probably too much, I do not think that that amount is objective, though.
Anne O. Neemus:
ReplyDeleteI can't decide when stress is too much. Sometimes I get so stressed out to the point where it's not healthy, but it's like I need to vent. Once I vent, I take it one thing at a time and its gets done. I work myself up so much, it begins to worry me. I tend to put so much on my plate because I believe I am superwoman and can achieve anything.
I guess you're right, without stress I wouldn't have motivation to actually get it done. Without worrying people would be careless of their work and nothing would be accomplished.
Vietmoon:
ReplyDeleteI feel like the level of stress that someone is able to handle is unique to everyone. However, there are things that cause more stress than others such as the death of a loved one, etc. As I've mentioned, I am very much like you. I need the stress in order to get something done. However, whenever I wait too long, and things pile up, I tend to turn into an avoider. I purposely go on Facebook or watch TV or find something else to distract me because whenever I look at my work I get frustrated. I have been working on finding my exact balance and the situation I mentioned before where it builds up to too much, rarely happens.
As we get closer to the end of the semester, there are so many papers and projects due that I see a LOT of stress in my near future. I know it sounds ridiculous and anyone who is reading this is like "GET STARTED ON IT NOW!" I guess I just work better under stressful situations.
On the other hand, my roommate also has a pretty tough course load and she is the type that gets things done WEEKS before they are due! I do not know how she does it! I guess it's just her personality. I wonder how she would handle a stressful situation. I haven't had the chance to witness her in one yet (and I don't wish one upon her) it would just be interesting to see how she would handle it because she does not deal with it on an almost daily basis like us. Something tells me she would handle it well because I know her and she is a stress enhancer but it's still interesting to think about...
Although this does not have much to do with the previous discussion, I just wanted to bring up an interesting point. For one of my classes, the assignment was to write about someone who had experienced a lot of stress and had avoided it to such an extent that they had become depressed. I grew up in a military community where people were far away from home and moving from place to place every 3 or 4 years. You would think that this would be the prime location to find depression. It is always said that kids need stability; well these kids had anything but. They would get to a new school just long enough to make great friends before they were taken away again to yet another school. Some of the kids I knew had attended up to 8 different schools by the time they graduated high school. Some had even lived in Europe for the majority of their lives. This was an environment where stability was a word with little meaning. It was an environment where classmates' parents were in Iraq or Afghanistan, fighting the war on terror. Yet, when I tried to think of someone I had known, I came up empty. Can you believe it? The kids on that military base, although they had some pretty turbulent lives, were some of the most adaptive kids I know.
ReplyDeleteThe thing about military kids is that you learn very quickly how to adapt to any situation. You learn how to make friends quickly because even if you might have just gotten somewhere, they could be on their way out within a year. You learn that not all friendships last, but the ones that do, you know they are real. You become close to your family because no matter where you go, they are the one constant.
My point is, I guess, that maybe being a military kid is a good start on the path to stress enhancement. It would be interesting to see how military kids and civilian kids compare when it comes to adjusting to college life. Of course this could apply to other kids as well such as the kids of missionaries, non-military government employees,and business people who live abroad. These children all fall into the category of Third Culture Kids. I will eventually develop this topic further because it is definitely an interesting one!
Third culture kids are kids who have lived in a foreign country long enough to be immersed into the culture. There is no set time or ritual one must go through. It is really just something that happens. The idea is that you grow up with your parents who are (in my case, but not every case) American. They take you and immerse you into this whole new culture (Belgian culture in my case) and they expect you to thrive.
ReplyDeleteThird culture kids come from countless backgrounds. They are kids of State Department employees, missionaries, business people, etc. Usually, if you are lucky, there is an "International School" right around where a TCK lives because they generally flock to one place (Paris, London, Rome, Brussels, etc.) An international school is usually taught in English and as the name suggests, is extremely diverse. When you think about it, it becomes a whole culture in and of itself. This is where things get pretty confusing. Now you have a kid whose parents grew up in America, speaks English, and has heard of things like Saturday Night Live. You put that kid into the middle of Paris, France. That kid goes about his daily business, buying fresh baguettes in the morning, playing soccer with the locals after school, and coming home to a frozen pizza (very un-French). This is where the idea of "third culture" comes in. The kid gathers everything from his parents’ culture and everything from the host nation's culture and then forms this giant melting pot of different values, jargons, ethics, tastes, etc. which form the third culture.
As with everything, there are good things and bad things about being a TCK. I will start with the good things.
Because a TCK grows up in such a diverse environment, they learn to adapt quickly. People are coming and going and it is almost like society changes every few years. (What if the most popular kid in school has a dad who gets transferred to another country? It's somebody else's turn.) They also learn to read people very well. Because of the huge variety of human interaction they get, TCKs can generally read how a person is going to act and if they are worth their time. Another thing that TCKs have going for them is perhaps the most obvious thing. They have experienced things that their homegrown American peers have never dreamt of experiencing. Whether it is traveling or interacting with people from around the world, a TCK has experienced countless things that have made them more culturally aware, empathetic, tolerant, and problem solvers. Of course there are other advantages to being a TCK but I cannot come up with all of them by myself!
ReplyDeleteNow onto the negatives... which is mostly where the stress is going to come in. I talked about how TCKs are very adaptive and can usually read people very well. They can usually be well-adjusted into their situation and the instability does not usually have an effect on them. However, what I would like to make everyone aware of, is something that few people think of. It is the part where you come "home".
To a TCK, even the word "home" is a subjective term. Ask any TCK where home is and the most likely response is going to be another series of questions. "Do you mean where I was born? Or where I grew up? Or where I spent the most time? Or maybe you mean where my parents are from?" For the sake of this argument, I will use the example of American TCKs. They usually will come back to America for college after their lives abroad. This is where things get even trickier. Because a TCK is in essence, an American, they will usually dress like an American and speak like an American. But ask a TCK if they could recite the “Oscar Meyer Weiner” song and they will look at you like you’ve got three heads. The following is just an example from personal experience.
ReplyDeleteI was born and raised in Belgium. My parents both work for the US government on the military base that we live near. Since kindergarten, I was in the Belgian school. My case is pretty unique and I will try my best to keep it short.
I went to school on a NATO base which had over a dozen schools that all fell under one category "SHAPE International Schools". Among these schools were a Norwegian section, a Polish section, a Greek section, an Italian section, etc. However, there were only 3 high schools: The German section, the American section, and the Belgian section. What this meant was that we all were still in the same general area so we could interact but we went to classes in different buildings and in different languages.
In the Belgian section, I made some Belgian friends and some Latvian, Lithuanian, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Turkish friends. I learned everything in French, including German and Spanish. As you can tell, this situation was pretty unique.
In 2009, I graduated and came here to King's College... slightly less diverse. At first, I was pretty confident that I would be able to adjust and fit right in. Then, in one of my classes, the question was asked. The question that every TCK strongly dislikes: “Where are you from?” At first, I hesitated because I wanted to be like everyone else and say something like Nanticoke or Plymouth. But I figured people would find out eventually and then I would be a liar. After I said Belgium, it was like I was E.T. No one really knew how to talk to me anymore unless it was about Belgium. Honestly, I didn’t really know how to talk to them either. I can only explain so many times how my school was structured or how no, I wasn’t in FBLA in high school because Belgians don’t know what FBLA is. Needless to say, explaining my past every time I met someone new was tiresome. I am not the type to always want to be the center of attention either, which made the situation even worse.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up in Belgium, I hadn’t seen the latest Gap commercial or that Hallmark movie that made everyone cry. There were references I didn’t get but pretended to, there were foods I had never tried before even though they were “the most American food ever”, and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been told that I “don’t have an accent at ALL!”
Before the SATs, none of my tests had been multiple choice. I had never double-spaced a paper or heard of MLA format. I felt weird for asking because everyone else seemed to know exactly what was going on.
I fit in for the most part, there are just a few things that everyone assumes I know because I look and talk like everyone else. I have been trying to catch up on things I have missed but for now, if I don’t understand what someone is talking about, I’ll just smile and nod.