Informed Therapy for Adult TCKs & Missionary Families
So you’ve lived overseas. Over there, you may feel “different,” but here in the United States, you may also feel like you don’t quite fit in. You know a second language, perhaps even a third. And now that you’re back “home,” you’re surrounded by people who seem to all know various cultural references while you draw a blank, and you may feel like no one can relate to many of your most profound, treasured, or traumatic life experiences.
It can be lonely. In addition, many third culture kids have loads of unprocessed grief. You’ve had so many micro-losses, so many transitions, that it can be tough finding genuine community and figuring out who you are and where you want to go. Building long-term relationships can be tricky because you’ve had to say goodbye so many times, it can be exhausting starting over again…and again. In addition, research has shown that missionaries have about 2-3x as much daily stress as the average American—which can lead to chronic mental and physical illness down the line.
Your life is no accident.
It can be easy to feel like your life story is disjointed and doesn’t make sense. Your narrative can feel disconnected and chaotic. There are loose ends that maybe were never processed, grieved, and integrated into the rest of you. You may have people you’d once have considered your best friends but who you may never see again, and every day you’re losing more of the language and cultural skills that used to bind you together.
After living on the other side of the world myself, I know what it’s like to go through the difficult process of adjusting to another culture, learning another language, being so close-knit with the other American families who live there with you, and then going through the sometimes painful, lonely, and confusing reentry to the United States. It’s not, and perhaps never will be, entirely “home” to you in the same way that it is to others. Your heart is split between homes. And they say that to speak another language is to have another soul. In addition, I have completed specialized training with Wycliffe Bible Translators and SIL that focused specifically on serving cross-cultural workers and the unique challenges that you face.
I will walk beside you as you put the pieces together to make sense of your past, figure out who you are now, and discover where you’re going and who you want to become.