I am French and I have been living in the US for the last 19 years - and I feel this tiredness so much. I tried to resolve it by spending more time in the garden, with my chickens, creatures that allow us to slow down and not speak.
No matter how I miss France. And I miss myself as a French person. I am trying to find myself back but I am not able to. At time I feel so lost.
Elsa, 19 years in and still missing yourself as a French person is such an honest way to put it. The chickens and the garden make complete sense as a way to find quiet without needing language at all. And I hear you on feeling lost — that's such a real place to be, even after this long.
Wow, Kay, this is so well written and names so much of what I feel. My family lives as American expats in Nigeria. It is a very scary place to live as a foreigner. The cops are very corrupt and pull people over for no reason other than the car is not falling apart hence they know they can get money.
I DO feel that Im often on the verge of fight or flight and sometimes get sucked into one or the other. Its a wild life and one day I look forward to repatriation.
Thank you for trusting this space with something so raw and real. What you're describing goes beyond the quiet disorientation I often write about — that constant fight-or-flight readiness is a different, heavier layer, and it makes complete sense that repatriation feels like something to look forward to rather than dread. I'm glad you're still here, even in the wild of it.
On paper, I'm just living my life but from the inside it never feels like enough because you don't feel fully "settled" yet. The first few months are incredibly hard, even after years of living abroad your nervous system still works overtime.
That gap between "on paper" and "from the inside" is one of the truest ways I've heard this described. And you're right that the nervous system doesn't get the memo just because you've done this before. Each new place still asks a lot of it, even when you're more practiced at moving.
This gives me a lot to think about as Nigel and I consider making France our next home base. Slow travel lets us step into a place, then return to our small U.S. base when we need a reset. Moving abroad would be different—the language, bureaucracy, cultural codes, and distance from family would become the background hum of ordinary life.
I’m still drawn to it, but this helps explain why a life that looks wonderful on paper can still ask more of the body than we realize. Maybe choosing a home base isn’t only about where we want to live. It’s also about understanding what we’re asking our nervous systems to carry there. 💛
Kelly, as always, thank you for sitting with this so thoughtfully. That distinction you're drawing, between stepping into a place with the option to return versus making it the actual background hum of daily life, is exactly the shift I keep seeing in my research.
Slow travel and long-term relocation ask genuinely different things of the nervous system, even when they look similar on paper. Your reframe at the end, choosing a home base as also choosing what you're asking your body to carry there, shows the level of care you're bringing to the decision. Wishing you and Nigel clarity as you consider where (and how) you land next.
Thank you, Kay! That means a lot coming from someone who’s spent so much time researching this. One thing slow travel has taught us is that there’s a big difference between visiting a place and asking it to hold your ordinary life. We’re in no rush, and conversations like this remind me that the decision is as much about how we want to live as where. 💛
Thank you, Tom. It's been the phrase that keeps showing up across nearly every conversation I've had on this, which tells me it's naming something real rather than just a nice turn of phrase.
This is so interesting Kay, but I was wondering, as you talk with plenty of expats, what do you know about not feeling as comfortable in your original country when you visit it? I have lived in England for more than 12 years now and I feel at home here, to the point that when I go back to Spain, I feel overwhelmed there and I'm looking forward to being back in England. I don't know if this is just temporary, as I only go there for short periods, but it worries me because, despite being comfortable here, I am fully aware of my status as an immigrant here. It's this feeling of never feeling from here, but neither from there anymore.
Cristina, this is such an important question, and you're naming something that comes up again and again in my research: non-belonging is often sharpest not abroad, but at home. Several long-term expats I've spoken with describe exactly what you're describing, feeling more "at home" in their adopted country while visiting their country of origin leaves them overwhelmed or out of step. These returner stories showed up so frequently that they inspired all of the essays I wrote in June, including the one I've linked here: https://kayfabella.substack.com/p/youre-not-the-same-person-who-left
This non-belonging doesn't necessarily fade with time either. What tends to shift is less the feeling itself and more your relationship to it, understanding that belonging fully to both places, or fully to neither, isn't a failure. It's actually a pretty common shape long-term life abroad takes.
Thank you for trusting this space with something so personal, and let me know if the essay resonates.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply, Kay. I'll read those essays from June, starting with the one you have linked. This feeling is heavy and learning more about it will help, for sure.
Interesting article, Kay. I have to admit that I often recognize some of these feelings as an expat/immigrant in Portugal, although I can't see myself ever returning to the U.S. to live.
Over time, I've come to accept that life happens wherever you choose to live. Every place has its joys, its frustrations, and its unexpected challenges. Moving abroad doesn't eliminate life's difficulties—it simply changes their shape.
Even so, there are moments when living as an expat/immigrant can feel like carrying an extra layer of mental and emotional weight. Most days it's barely noticeable, but sometimes it can be a real struggle. - CW
Carol, thank you for reading and sharing this reflection, especially the honesty of "moving abroad doesn't eliminate life's difficulties, it simply changes their shape." That encapsulates this experience so precisely.
What the research has also shown me is that many people who choose to move abroad long-term often lead high-responsibility lives coupled with a tendency toward high achievement — so instead of sitting with the layers underneath the gratitude of life abroad, they often power their way through or ignore the hum, which ends up being to their detriment over time.
The extra layer you named, the one that's barely noticeable most days until suddenly it isn't, is something I hear echoed constantly in my research conversations. It's part of why I started writing about this in the first place: that layer deserves its own name, even when the life abroad around it is genuinely good.
Great article! I’m just curious regarding the use of the term ‘long- term expat’. To me, that’s just an immigrant, though I’d love to hear your thoughts!
For context, I'm a daughter of people who were assigned the word immigrant, but as someone abroad, I get called either expat or immigrant depending on the room. In my research, the people who I’ve interviewed identify as both, but don’t tend to Google “immigrant problems” at 4AM…
Woof - you nailed it. I lived in Colombia for four years. The first 3 months I came home from work exhausted and headachey. The next 3 months, the headaches subsided, but I was still too exhausted to DO anything but sleep. (And sleeping in Colombia - I moved 6 times in those 4 years…they are a LOUD people with no understanding of quiet night time hours nor neighborly awareness - I became an expert on the best ear plugs!)
I had to have help with doctor’s appointments the first year. Then I could do it on my own…but still, one time I had to fast to have blood taken. I didn’t know the word adesayuno (to fast). I kept thinking the nurse was asking if I had eaten breakfast (desayuno). I said NO and we went round and round for ten minutes with her telling me I would have to make another appointment until someone in the clinic said, “adesayuno - no comes este manana?” (Fast - you didn’t eat this morning?) OH.
Because of one vowel. I felt like an idiot.
Also - I wan’t “funny” in Spanish until year 4 when I was on my way to Ireland.
I tried to tell a guy I dated my first year there that he didn’t KNOW me at ALL because he didn’t speak English and I couldn’t totally be MYSELF around him.
Then, I thought moving to Ireland to go to the university there would be EASY because we all speak the same language. Um, NO. The Irish are VERY “close to the chest,” opposite of Colombians. I was accused of being a “dirty Yank” a few times because I didn’t get how to be low key and less aggressive. I thought they were just being machismo…but even the guys I met were SO shy and quiet. I did not fit in at all. Seemed I was always making a spectacle of myself.
I had written a couple of blog posts back in 2020 talking about “Re-entry shock” when I returned to the U.S. - everyone denies your feeling of despondency, stress, “weirdness” because they just think it was a vacation.
Then, the customs you did get down, once you’re home and no one greets another with a kiss on the cheek (Colombian style), you feel isolated. You miss the food (Arepas and Pan de bono and Huevos Pericos) or your favorite smoothy place, “Cosechos” (Where I could get Guanabana, Lulo, Maracuya, Guayaba, Uchuva, Mango…you name it!)
In Ireland, I missed the drizzly morning coffee (I lived in Galway), Black Rock where I swam with other brave souls in the bay (The Irish are HEARTY AF and continue to swim into the winter months - without wetsuits!!!), the GREEN, the smell of the ocean, and the quiet.
So, yeah - if you haven’t lived abroad, you don’t get it. For those who haven’t - be easy on us when we return. It feels as if our heads are on backwards.
This is incredible, Tristen, thank you for laying it all out so vividly. The adesayuno story is such a perfect, specific example of the kind of exhaustion that doesn't show up as "not knowing the language" so much as knowing it well enough to almost get it right, and how much that near-miss can cost you.
And the shift you're describing between Colombia and Ireland — going from "too warm/aggressive" to "too much" in the opposite direction — is such a clear illustration that this isn't really about fluency at all, it's about an entirely different social operating system each time.
Your point about re-entry shock and having your head "on backwards" when no one else can see what you're carrying is exactly the kind of experience I keep hearing from returners, and it's rarely taken as seriously as it deserves. It’s why all of my essays here last month were about the experience of returners, who often don’t have words for what they’re living through.
And thank you for saying it so plainly — "if you haven't lived abroad, you don't get it" is blunt, but so true for those who’ve lived it. My hope is that more of us sharing the not-so-glamorous sides of life abroad openly can create a more honest dialogue for us and those we seek support from.
Kay, thanks for this article and your research and insights. I have to admit that when we lived in The Bahamas, then China, then Spain at different times I definitely felt the exhaustion you describe. Since we've been in Portugal, though, I haven't had that same feeling- it's felt more like 'home' for me and for my husband than anywhere else, even the U.S. Is there any information on the possibility that we've somehow moved past the nervous system issues this time?
That's such a great question, and honestly one I don't have a fully settled answer for yet.
What I'm seeing so far is less "moved past it" and more "found a genuinely better fit" — some places do seem to ask less translation and recalibration of a given person's nervous system than others, for reasons that aren't always predictable in advance (culture, pace, language distance, even light and climate).
It's possible Portugal simply asks less of you and your husband than Spain or China did. I wouldn't rule out that the hum could resurface in some other form down the line, but there's also real research on "goodness of fit" between a person's nervous system and a given place, so what you're describing may be exactly that.
I'd love to hear more about what feels different there, if you're open to sharing. Either here or as a research interview, whichever you prefer :).
And how much harder and deeper the trauma when entire generations were forcibly removed from culture and family, were given no supports (other than a stressful and often painful job) and were not allowed to assimilate into the local culture ever.
Thank you for naming this. What you're describing is a different order of magnitude entirely — forced removal, no support, and no permission to assimilate is a profoundly different kind of trauma than the disorientation I'm writing about here, and it deserves to be named on its own terms, not folded into a milder framework.
Brittany, thank you for your research and clear language in presenting this idea.
As I am an American expat living in England, I don't face the same language challenges as others migh, nor the bureaucracy. But I can tell you my vigilance is real, particularly as an American coming from a deeply disliked and distrusted government and culture that is interpreted as "over the top.". I am constantly reading the room and gauging my behavior to blend in.
That's not to say we haven't been accepted into our community. We have. But I have felt a bit of a pulling back when I've let myself get too lax in demeanor. Then I have to regroup and quiet down a bit.
It is a balancing act and I do get physically exhausted. Your post gives me a lot to think about.
Missy, thank you for sharing this (and it's Kay, by the way!). What you're describing — constant reading of the room and the physical exhaustion of it, even in a place where you've been accepted — is exactly the kind of vigilance that doesn't show up on paper but takes a real toll.
Thank you for this piece, Kay. You've got me thinking about intersectionality and how our various identities can layer to amp up this "read the room" tendency and other experiences you are describing. As a woman who was trained to be a people pleaser, I have that tendency. Diplomatic families, missionary families, and others who are representing a higher power have to hone this skill. The pressure to read the room correctly can start to feel like your life depends on it!
Esther, yes! The intersectionality angle you're naming is so important — diplomatic, missionary, and other "representing something bigger than yourself" families add a whole extra layer of pressure to read the room correctly.
That "your life depends on it" feeling isn't an exaggeration for a lot of people I talk to; it's closer to a survival skill than a personality trait.
I didn’t realize I may have been experiencing this too. Looking back, I can see it during my years living and traveling throughout Europe and the Middle East for my hospitality career, and again now as a retired American living in Mexico. At the time, I assumed it was just job stress, but I can see now it was probably more than that. Even today, I still feel that quiet mental exhaustion from constantly translating conversations in my head because I’m not yet fully fluent in Spanish. Thank you for such a thoughtful and insightful article.
JoAnne, that's such a clear arc you've shared here... attributing it to job stress at the time, and only now recognizing the pattern underneath it. And that quiet exhaustion of translating in your head, even years in and even in retirement, is one of the clearest signs that this isn't really about how "fluent" you are, it's about how much invisible labor the brain is still doing.
Thank you, Kay. That really resonated with me. I think I kept assuming, “Once my Spanish gets better, this feeling will go away.” But you’re right—the mental load is about so much more than vocabulary. It’s the constant cultural processing, adapting, and decision-making happening in the background. Your article gave me a new way to understand something I’ve been feeling for years but couldn’t quite name. Thank you for that. ❤️
After 30 years, I don't notice a hum. I'm fluent enough in my second language that I can relax a bit and don't nerd to rehearse conversations in advance.
That's wonderful, and it matches something I'm seeing too: not everyone's hum looks the same, lasts as long, or shows up as loud. Some long-term expats describe exactly what you're naming, a kind of ease that comes with enough time and fluency. Others still feel it decades in, just quieter or renamed as something else. Both are real. Thanks for adding your experience to the mix.
Thanks for your thoughts. It's fascinating to read about the role the nervous system plays in learning languages. My Czech teacher (Czech is my third language)recently gave a talk on the role the nervous system plays in the "freeze" people often feel when speaking a new language and how to fight it. Makes total sense.
A few years. But German is harder than Japanese, and I had the advantage of learning some German as a child, marrying s German, and moving to Germany. With my third language, Czech, it's taking forever because I don't live there.
Ah Japanese has been pretty difficult for me because of kanji, the grammar, and all the formal/informal layers. I’ve heard it’s one of the hardest languages for native English speakers so trying not to be too hard on myself.
That’s cool you had some exposure to German as a kid and then got to live there too. My friend just moved to Germany and is learning it now so I've been hearing about her journey too.
I am French and I have been living in the US for the last 19 years - and I feel this tiredness so much. I tried to resolve it by spending more time in the garden, with my chickens, creatures that allow us to slow down and not speak.
No matter how I miss France. And I miss myself as a French person. I am trying to find myself back but I am not able to. At time I feel so lost.
Elsa, 19 years in and still missing yourself as a French person is such an honest way to put it. The chickens and the garden make complete sense as a way to find quiet without needing language at all. And I hear you on feeling lost — that's such a real place to be, even after this long.
Hi Elsa, are you permanently in the US? Do you have the option of returning to France?
Wow, Kay, this is so well written and names so much of what I feel. My family lives as American expats in Nigeria. It is a very scary place to live as a foreigner. The cops are very corrupt and pull people over for no reason other than the car is not falling apart hence they know they can get money.
I DO feel that Im often on the verge of fight or flight and sometimes get sucked into one or the other. Its a wild life and one day I look forward to repatriation.
Thank you for trusting this space with something so raw and real. What you're describing goes beyond the quiet disorientation I often write about — that constant fight-or-flight readiness is a different, heavier layer, and it makes complete sense that repatriation feels like something to look forward to rather than dread. I'm glad you're still here, even in the wild of it.
On paper, I'm just living my life but from the inside it never feels like enough because you don't feel fully "settled" yet. The first few months are incredibly hard, even after years of living abroad your nervous system still works overtime.
That gap between "on paper" and "from the inside" is one of the truest ways I've heard this described. And you're right that the nervous system doesn't get the memo just because you've done this before. Each new place still asks a lot of it, even when you're more practiced at moving.
Thank you for naming both pieces so clearly.
This gives me a lot to think about as Nigel and I consider making France our next home base. Slow travel lets us step into a place, then return to our small U.S. base when we need a reset. Moving abroad would be different—the language, bureaucracy, cultural codes, and distance from family would become the background hum of ordinary life.
I’m still drawn to it, but this helps explain why a life that looks wonderful on paper can still ask more of the body than we realize. Maybe choosing a home base isn’t only about where we want to live. It’s also about understanding what we’re asking our nervous systems to carry there. 💛
Kelly, as always, thank you for sitting with this so thoughtfully. That distinction you're drawing, between stepping into a place with the option to return versus making it the actual background hum of daily life, is exactly the shift I keep seeing in my research.
Slow travel and long-term relocation ask genuinely different things of the nervous system, even when they look similar on paper. Your reframe at the end, choosing a home base as also choosing what you're asking your body to carry there, shows the level of care you're bringing to the decision. Wishing you and Nigel clarity as you consider where (and how) you land next.
Thank you, Kay! That means a lot coming from someone who’s spent so much time researching this. One thing slow travel has taught us is that there’s a big difference between visiting a place and asking it to hold your ordinary life. We’re in no rush, and conversations like this remind me that the decision is as much about how we want to live as where. 💛
A low-level hum is the perfect way to describe it
Thank you, Tom. It's been the phrase that keeps showing up across nearly every conversation I've had on this, which tells me it's naming something real rather than just a nice turn of phrase.
This is so interesting Kay, but I was wondering, as you talk with plenty of expats, what do you know about not feeling as comfortable in your original country when you visit it? I have lived in England for more than 12 years now and I feel at home here, to the point that when I go back to Spain, I feel overwhelmed there and I'm looking forward to being back in England. I don't know if this is just temporary, as I only go there for short periods, but it worries me because, despite being comfortable here, I am fully aware of my status as an immigrant here. It's this feeling of never feeling from here, but neither from there anymore.
Cristina, this is such an important question, and you're naming something that comes up again and again in my research: non-belonging is often sharpest not abroad, but at home. Several long-term expats I've spoken with describe exactly what you're describing, feeling more "at home" in their adopted country while visiting their country of origin leaves them overwhelmed or out of step. These returner stories showed up so frequently that they inspired all of the essays I wrote in June, including the one I've linked here: https://kayfabella.substack.com/p/youre-not-the-same-person-who-left
This non-belonging doesn't necessarily fade with time either. What tends to shift is less the feeling itself and more your relationship to it, understanding that belonging fully to both places, or fully to neither, isn't a failure. It's actually a pretty common shape long-term life abroad takes.
Thank you for trusting this space with something so personal, and let me know if the essay resonates.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply, Kay. I'll read those essays from June, starting with the one you have linked. This feeling is heavy and learning more about it will help, for sure.
Interesting article, Kay. I have to admit that I often recognize some of these feelings as an expat/immigrant in Portugal, although I can't see myself ever returning to the U.S. to live.
Over time, I've come to accept that life happens wherever you choose to live. Every place has its joys, its frustrations, and its unexpected challenges. Moving abroad doesn't eliminate life's difficulties—it simply changes their shape.
Even so, there are moments when living as an expat/immigrant can feel like carrying an extra layer of mental and emotional weight. Most days it's barely noticeable, but sometimes it can be a real struggle. - CW
Carol, thank you for reading and sharing this reflection, especially the honesty of "moving abroad doesn't eliminate life's difficulties, it simply changes their shape." That encapsulates this experience so precisely.
What the research has also shown me is that many people who choose to move abroad long-term often lead high-responsibility lives coupled with a tendency toward high achievement — so instead of sitting with the layers underneath the gratitude of life abroad, they often power their way through or ignore the hum, which ends up being to their detriment over time.
The extra layer you named, the one that's barely noticeable most days until suddenly it isn't, is something I hear echoed constantly in my research conversations. It's part of why I started writing about this in the first place: that layer deserves its own name, even when the life abroad around it is genuinely good.
Great article! I’m just curious regarding the use of the term ‘long- term expat’. To me, that’s just an immigrant, though I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Thank you! And I’ve broken down my thoughts here: https://kayfabella.substack.com/p/expat-immigrant-migrant-and-why-the
For context, I'm a daughter of people who were assigned the word immigrant, but as someone abroad, I get called either expat or immigrant depending on the room. In my research, the people who I’ve interviewed identify as both, but don’t tend to Google “immigrant problems” at 4AM…
Thanks for the response and for explaining! :)
Woof - you nailed it. I lived in Colombia for four years. The first 3 months I came home from work exhausted and headachey. The next 3 months, the headaches subsided, but I was still too exhausted to DO anything but sleep. (And sleeping in Colombia - I moved 6 times in those 4 years…they are a LOUD people with no understanding of quiet night time hours nor neighborly awareness - I became an expert on the best ear plugs!)
I had to have help with doctor’s appointments the first year. Then I could do it on my own…but still, one time I had to fast to have blood taken. I didn’t know the word adesayuno (to fast). I kept thinking the nurse was asking if I had eaten breakfast (desayuno). I said NO and we went round and round for ten minutes with her telling me I would have to make another appointment until someone in the clinic said, “adesayuno - no comes este manana?” (Fast - you didn’t eat this morning?) OH.
Because of one vowel. I felt like an idiot.
Also - I wan’t “funny” in Spanish until year 4 when I was on my way to Ireland.
I tried to tell a guy I dated my first year there that he didn’t KNOW me at ALL because he didn’t speak English and I couldn’t totally be MYSELF around him.
Then, I thought moving to Ireland to go to the university there would be EASY because we all speak the same language. Um, NO. The Irish are VERY “close to the chest,” opposite of Colombians. I was accused of being a “dirty Yank” a few times because I didn’t get how to be low key and less aggressive. I thought they were just being machismo…but even the guys I met were SO shy and quiet. I did not fit in at all. Seemed I was always making a spectacle of myself.
I had written a couple of blog posts back in 2020 talking about “Re-entry shock” when I returned to the U.S. - everyone denies your feeling of despondency, stress, “weirdness” because they just think it was a vacation.
Then, the customs you did get down, once you’re home and no one greets another with a kiss on the cheek (Colombian style), you feel isolated. You miss the food (Arepas and Pan de bono and Huevos Pericos) or your favorite smoothy place, “Cosechos” (Where I could get Guanabana, Lulo, Maracuya, Guayaba, Uchuva, Mango…you name it!)
In Ireland, I missed the drizzly morning coffee (I lived in Galway), Black Rock where I swam with other brave souls in the bay (The Irish are HEARTY AF and continue to swim into the winter months - without wetsuits!!!), the GREEN, the smell of the ocean, and the quiet.
So, yeah - if you haven’t lived abroad, you don’t get it. For those who haven’t - be easy on us when we return. It feels as if our heads are on backwards.
This is incredible, Tristen, thank you for laying it all out so vividly. The adesayuno story is such a perfect, specific example of the kind of exhaustion that doesn't show up as "not knowing the language" so much as knowing it well enough to almost get it right, and how much that near-miss can cost you.
And the shift you're describing between Colombia and Ireland — going from "too warm/aggressive" to "too much" in the opposite direction — is such a clear illustration that this isn't really about fluency at all, it's about an entirely different social operating system each time.
Your point about re-entry shock and having your head "on backwards" when no one else can see what you're carrying is exactly the kind of experience I keep hearing from returners, and it's rarely taken as seriously as it deserves. It’s why all of my essays here last month were about the experience of returners, who often don’t have words for what they’re living through.
And thank you for saying it so plainly — "if you haven't lived abroad, you don't get it" is blunt, but so true for those who’ve lived it. My hope is that more of us sharing the not-so-glamorous sides of life abroad openly can create a more honest dialogue for us and those we seek support from.
Kay, thanks for this article and your research and insights. I have to admit that when we lived in The Bahamas, then China, then Spain at different times I definitely felt the exhaustion you describe. Since we've been in Portugal, though, I haven't had that same feeling- it's felt more like 'home' for me and for my husband than anywhere else, even the U.S. Is there any information on the possibility that we've somehow moved past the nervous system issues this time?
That's such a great question, and honestly one I don't have a fully settled answer for yet.
What I'm seeing so far is less "moved past it" and more "found a genuinely better fit" — some places do seem to ask less translation and recalibration of a given person's nervous system than others, for reasons that aren't always predictable in advance (culture, pace, language distance, even light and climate).
It's possible Portugal simply asks less of you and your husband than Spain or China did. I wouldn't rule out that the hum could resurface in some other form down the line, but there's also real research on "goodness of fit" between a person's nervous system and a given place, so what you're describing may be exactly that.
I'd love to hear more about what feels different there, if you're open to sharing. Either here or as a research interview, whichever you prefer :).
Hi Kay, thanks for that! Sure, I'm definitely open to a research interview if you like. Please let me know how to get contact info to you.
Sarah
Awesome, Sarah, thanks! I'll DM you now :)
And how much harder and deeper the trauma when entire generations were forcibly removed from culture and family, were given no supports (other than a stressful and often painful job) and were not allowed to assimilate into the local culture ever.
Thank you for naming this. What you're describing is a different order of magnitude entirely — forced removal, no support, and no permission to assimilate is a profoundly different kind of trauma than the disorientation I'm writing about here, and it deserves to be named on its own terms, not folded into a milder framework.
Brittany, thank you for your research and clear language in presenting this idea.
As I am an American expat living in England, I don't face the same language challenges as others migh, nor the bureaucracy. But I can tell you my vigilance is real, particularly as an American coming from a deeply disliked and distrusted government and culture that is interpreted as "over the top.". I am constantly reading the room and gauging my behavior to blend in.
That's not to say we haven't been accepted into our community. We have. But I have felt a bit of a pulling back when I've let myself get too lax in demeanor. Then I have to regroup and quiet down a bit.
It is a balancing act and I do get physically exhausted. Your post gives me a lot to think about.
Missy, thank you for sharing this (and it's Kay, by the way!). What you're describing — constant reading of the room and the physical exhaustion of it, even in a place where you've been accepted — is exactly the kind of vigilance that doesn't show up on paper but takes a real toll.
Glad you're finding some things to sit with here.
OMG! Where did I get Brittany from? Too many threads open at once. Kay. I'm so sorry. I won't make that mistake again. Geesh.
Ha! No worries at all — I think we can chalk it up to @Brittany Rose for resharing :)
Happy to reshare such a high quality article Kay ❤️
Great article! I want to express more but it's getting late and I rather write with fresh mind. I will try to find my way back here ☺️
Thank you so much and take your time, there's no rush. I'll look forward to hearing more whenever it comes together for you.
Thank you for this piece, Kay. You've got me thinking about intersectionality and how our various identities can layer to amp up this "read the room" tendency and other experiences you are describing. As a woman who was trained to be a people pleaser, I have that tendency. Diplomatic families, missionary families, and others who are representing a higher power have to hone this skill. The pressure to read the room correctly can start to feel like your life depends on it!
Esther, yes! The intersectionality angle you're naming is so important — diplomatic, missionary, and other "representing something bigger than yourself" families add a whole extra layer of pressure to read the room correctly.
That "your life depends on it" feeling isn't an exaggeration for a lot of people I talk to; it's closer to a survival skill than a personality trait.
I didn’t realize I may have been experiencing this too. Looking back, I can see it during my years living and traveling throughout Europe and the Middle East for my hospitality career, and again now as a retired American living in Mexico. At the time, I assumed it was just job stress, but I can see now it was probably more than that. Even today, I still feel that quiet mental exhaustion from constantly translating conversations in my head because I’m not yet fully fluent in Spanish. Thank you for such a thoughtful and insightful article.
JoAnne, that's such a clear arc you've shared here... attributing it to job stress at the time, and only now recognizing the pattern underneath it. And that quiet exhaustion of translating in your head, even years in and even in retirement, is one of the clearest signs that this isn't really about how "fluent" you are, it's about how much invisible labor the brain is still doing.
Thank you, Kay. That really resonated with me. I think I kept assuming, “Once my Spanish gets better, this feeling will go away.” But you’re right—the mental load is about so much more than vocabulary. It’s the constant cultural processing, adapting, and decision-making happening in the background. Your article gave me a new way to understand something I’ve been feeling for years but couldn’t quite name. Thank you for that. ❤️
Ahh I love to hear that, JoAnne! And thank you for sharing so openly in this space :)
After 30 years, I don't notice a hum. I'm fluent enough in my second language that I can relax a bit and don't nerd to rehearse conversations in advance.
That's wonderful, and it matches something I'm seeing too: not everyone's hum looks the same, lasts as long, or shows up as loud. Some long-term expats describe exactly what you're naming, a kind of ease that comes with enough time and fluency. Others still feel it decades in, just quieter or renamed as something else. Both are real. Thanks for adding your experience to the mix.
Thanks for your thoughts. It's fascinating to read about the role the nervous system plays in learning languages. My Czech teacher (Czech is my third language)recently gave a talk on the role the nervous system plays in the "freeze" people often feel when speaking a new language and how to fight it. Makes total sense.
Amazing! How long did it take for you to get fluent in your second language. I'm learning Japanese and it's so hard.
A few years. But German is harder than Japanese, and I had the advantage of learning some German as a child, marrying s German, and moving to Germany. With my third language, Czech, it's taking forever because I don't live there.
Ah Japanese has been pretty difficult for me because of kanji, the grammar, and all the formal/informal layers. I’ve heard it’s one of the hardest languages for native English speakers so trying not to be too hard on myself.
That’s cool you had some exposure to German as a kid and then got to live there too. My friend just moved to Germany and is learning it now so I've been hearing about her journey too.
I still live there and have citizenship. Good luck on your Japanese --I admire anyone who tackles that language!
That’s great to hear and thank you!