Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds

by David C. Pollock

  It is scary to go back, but it can be helpful to realize that no matter how badly a certain situation hurt, they have already survived it and that situation is now past. Facing the pain will hurt for a bit, but it can be grieved and dealt with in the end. Not facing it may well continue to drive the ATCK into far more pain-producing behaviors than they can currently imagine.

  NAME THEIR LOSSES

  After deciding that healing is worth the risk of pain, it’s important for ATCKs to look back and try to identify some of the losses they haven’t been fully aware of before. Journaling is one effective way to do this, answering such questions as these:

  Did you properly say good-bye to a country you loved dearly?

  What ever happened to your pets?

  Where is your amah now?

  Have your relationships with your siblings ever been restored?

  What do you need to do to heal parental relationships?

  Have you rediscovered your role in a group?

  Some use other means rather than journaling to look at these questions: combining the many pieces of their life into magnificent artwork; decorating homes with symbols of the past places and people; writing stories or poems. All of these can help to put into form things so deeply loved that have simply disappeared with seemingly no way to retrieve them.

  Having named the losses, it’s not too late to go back and do the work of grieving that should have happened as the losses occurred. We have been astounded at the severity of losses some ATCKs have experienced in their childhood: death in the family while the TCKs were away at boarding school; sexual abuse they never told anyone about; wars that uprooted them in the middle of the night. So many of these have been covered over with no proper period of mourning or comfort to deal with the losses. Many ATCKs have simply disassociated themselves from the pain, but the grief merely surfaces in the other forms mentioned earlier.

  If ATCKs dare to face the losses in their lives, to acknowledge and grieve for them, they will discover that proper mourning takes away the power for those losses to drive their behavior in ever more destructive ways. What are some ways to do that grief work?

  The methods are as many as the ATCKs who create them. Some have literally gone back to the sites where they grew up and planted a tree as a lasting connection, found their past amahs and friends, or carried back a rock from the sea. Others continue the journaling or artwork in which they first named the losses. Some go on Facebook and begin to reconnect with friends from these days.

  In any type of community, whether online like Facebook.com or TCKID.com, or through reunions or, in the past, such conferences such as Global Nomads or Global Reunion—both of which were organized for ATCKs of all backgrounds— ATCKs can offer great support to one another. One class reunion from an international school concluded their weekend together by bringing a large fishnet in the middle of the room. They brought many types of cloth, string, pieces of wood, paper, buttons, and other random articles. Each ATCK had to create a montage of some sort representing his or her life story. From where they sat around the edges of the net, they then wove that montage into the fishnet toward the center. After it was completed, each ATCK explained the meaning behind his or her creation. Not only was it wonderful to tell the story in a community who cared, but visually seeing where they were together in the center of the fishnet at the end was an incredibly powerful experience for the participants. Other groups have invited attendees to bring their sacred objects and tell their life story that way. What this does, of course, is not only validate the past journey, but also provide a way of normalizing the experience by relating it in the context of others who understand.

  When the pain has been severe, good friends who listen and support well are essential, but there are times when professional help may also be needed. Some ATCKs have had severe trauma, perhaps in an unplanned evacuation or from sexual, physical, or emotional abuse. These things can happen in any background and require extra help. In the past, it was often difficult to find someone who understood the underlying theme of the TCK experience. Sometimes ATCKs felt more misunderstood when their counselors weren’t familiar with the nontraditional places grief might be coming from. Hopefully, this is changing, but we have also seen ATCKs proactively give their therapists information on this part so they could know what might be “normal” and what issues might be tied to other events in the ATCK’s life.

  One word of warning: we’ve noticed that when ATCKs first acknowledge some of their hidden losses, part of the grief process is a newly found or at least newly expressed anger at various people whom they feel are responsible for those losses. Lots of ATCKs (to say nothing of the people they’re angry at) are so upset by this phase that they back off from going further. Don’t give up on the process if this begins to happen! The angry phase can be a very difficult period of the healing process for everyone involved, but remember it is a normal stage of grief, and it can be worked through to a stage of resolution as the ATCKs (and those around them) persist and give the healing process time.

  NAME THEIR WOUNDS

  Even retrospectively, it’s important for ATCKs to name not only their losses, but also the ways in which they have been hurt and how they have hurt others. Why is this important? Everyone has been hurt by other people, and each of us has hurt others. Some of the wounds, whether intentional or not, have been significant, and they must be acknowledged to be dealt with properly.

  Once we have identified a wound, then we have to make a critical decision. Will we hold on to our anger forever or will we forgive the ones who have hurt us? Some ATCKs we have met are living lives bound by bitterness. They have turned their pain into a weapon with which they beat not only the offender but themselves and everyone else as well. It seems that the hurt becomes part of their identity. To let it go would be to leave them hollow, empty. The problem with that is that the anger and bitterness destroy as much as, or more than, the original wound. Many are unwilling to forgive because they feel the offender will “go free.” They believe that saying “I forgive you” means “It doesn’t really matter what happened.”

  Forgiveness is not something lightly given, bestowed without looking at what the situation cost the person who was wounded. Without forgiveness, however, the offended person’s life continues to be ruled by the offender. It’s important to acknowledge the offense, but forgiveness is making a decision to let go of the need and desire for vengeance—even if the offender never has to pay. Forgiveness is the only thing that ultimately frees the wounded one to move on to true healing.

  None of us is perfect. Healing also involves looking at how we ourselves have knowingly or unknowingly hurt others and asking their forgiveness. It’s amazing to listen to stories of rage against parents, siblings, relatives, friends, and administrators in the sponsoring organizations from ATCKs who seem to have no perception that they are doing similar damage to their own children. Some who complain of emotional abuse or separation from parents one Moment are yelling at their children the next. Some who complain of abandonment in their childhood are workaholics who may not send their children away to boarding school but still never seem to have time for them.

  Until and unless we are willing to acknowledge our own sins and failures against others, true healing is stymied, for we will have to continue living in our self-protective modes, shutting out any who would dare approach us and mention our offenses against them. We need to identify specific places where we have wounded others, and when we recognize the offense, we need to be the first ones to go and ask for forgiveness, not waiting for them to approach us. Doing this both heals important relationships in our lives and frees us from having to defend and protect ourselves. Instead, we can begin to live more openly and with greater joy.

  NAME THEIR CHOICES

  Dealing with the past in a healthy way frees us to make choices about the future. We are no longer victims. Each of us must ultimately accept responsibility for our own behavior, regardless of the past. That doesn’t m
ean that we’re responsible for all that happened to us. A sexually abused child isn’t responsible for the abuse; a child who felt abandoned is not responsible for the parents’ choices. But as adults, we are responsible for how we deal with our past, how we relate to those around us in the present, and what we choose for the future. ATCKs must ask themselves several questions as they sort through their past in order to get on with their future: Will I forgive? Will I retaliate? Will I succumb to the message that I am worthless? Will I look at what it means to be a person and realize that it’s okay to think, to create, to have emotion? Will I dare to find ways to express these parts of myself?

  The choices ATCKs make in response to these questions can make all the difference for those who feel bound by the past but are longing to move on to freedom in the future.

  We started this final chapter focusing on what ATCKs can do for themselves because, in the end, how they deal with their history and how they can best use it is ultimately their responsibility. They can heal and find fulfillment in life even if others never understand their background. However, those close to the ATCKs can be immensely helpful if they try to understand the struggle and freely give their support during the time of healing.

  How Can Parents Help Their ATCKs?

  We have been saying throughout this book that family relationships are key to a TCK’s well-being while they are growing up. This is also true for ATCKs who are still struggling with the challenges from their TCK experience. Parents can often be partners with their ATCKs during this healing process. If parents can be supportive and understanding rather than defensive or threatened for themselves or their organizations when ATCKs are sorting through the past, they can help open the way to much faster healing for their adult children. Support throughout an ATCK’s healing process is the greatest gift a parent can give. The following sections discuss some specific ways that parents can help.

  LISTEN AND TRY TO UNDERSTAND

  This may seem simple, but it’s not. ATCKs sometimes turn against their parents when they begin verbalizing their feelings about the past. When the accusations rage, parents often try to defend themselves with the facts: “We didn’t send you away for six months. It was only three.” “We never made you wear those hand-me-down clothes. You wanted to.”

  However, the facts aren’t the main issue here; the issue is how ATCKs perceived the event. For them, the separation felt like six months. In other words, they really missed their parents. When they were laughed at for their attire, they felt they’d had no choice in what to wear. Like everyone else in the world, the ATCKs’ perceptions of reality have been shaped by the emotional impact of their experiences. That emotional reaction is real, and it’s far more important at this point for parents to deal with those perceptions of certain events and the feelings behind them than to argue about the facts. Arguing the facts only proves to the ATCK that the parents never understood anyway—and still don’t.

  Sometimes parents not only argue with the facts ATCKs bring up during this time but also with the feelings ATCKs express. For example, the ATCK tries to express how lonely he or she felt when leaving for boarding school and the parent replies, “You never minded going off to school. Why, you smiled and waved and always said you had a great time there.” Or the ATCK talks of how hard it was to leave the host country and the parent interjects, “How can you say you were heartbroken to leave Port-au-Prince? You always told us it was too hot and you couldn’t wait to get back to France.” Perhaps nothing will shut down communication faster between parents and their ATCK than such a response, because no one can tell another person what they did or did not feel. Outer behavior often masks inner feelings. That’s why it is critical that when ATCKs try to tell their parents, even years later, what they were feeling as they grew up, parents need to listen and accept it. This kind of acceptance opens doors for far more fruitful discussion between parents and ATCKs than trying to prove this isn’t what the ATCKs felt.

  Parents may be stunned when suddenly confronted with feelings their ATCKs have never expressed before—especially when the ATCKs are in their thirties and forties. These feelings may not be easy for parents to hear, but it’s important for parents to keep in mind that life has stages, and that often children can’t fully deal with or understand what is happening at a certain time in their lives. Many TCKs, like people from any background, in all sorts of situations, do experience the cycle of “grief, despair, and detachment” John Bowlby talks about. When children face any trauma, they can first feel grief, which then turns to despair when it seems the situation can’t be changed, and then detachment—moving to a place virtually outside the feeling.2 Hopefully, they will look at it later when it is safer to examine the full impact of a situation. For many ATCKs, this is likely the first time they have allowed themselves not only to name it, but to feel it and grieve whatever these losses might have been.

  Children basically have to deal with life’s traumas in a survival mode— whether it be someone calling them a bad name, their own physical handicap, parental divorce, major separation from either or both parents, abuse, or death. Some kids escape into fantasy. Others block out the feelings of pain with denial or rationalization. Compulsions may be another child’s attempt to control the pain. It’s not the how that’s significant; it’s the fact that children have to survive, and they must use everything at their disposal to do so.

  As life proceeds, however, the pain remains until finally the day comes when adults decide to face their inner wounds.

  Many people have asked Ruth how she remembered so many details of her childhood to include in Letters Never Sent. She always explains, “I didn’t remember; I reexperienced those Moments. But as an adult, I had words to describe the feelings I felt but couldn’t explain as a child.” After one such discussion, Faye, another ATCK who had been through a similar process of retracing her own childhood, challenged Ruth. Faye said, “I don’t think we reexperience those feelings. I think we allow them to be felt for the first time.”

  On further reflection, Ruth agreed. She realized that when she was six and the lights went off at bedtime her first night in boarding school, she felt an immense sense of isolation, aloneness, and homesickness that threatened to squeeze her to death. To give in to that much pain would surely have meant annihilation. So, like most kids, she tried everything she knew to dull the pain, to control it somehow. Ruth’s solution involved “trying harder.” she prayed with great attention to style—carefully kneeling, giving thanks in alphabetical order for everyone and everything she could think of—so God would stay happy with her and grant the requests to see her family again that she would sneak onto the end of the prayer. She tried to meticulously obey all the rules at school so she wouldn’t get in trouble. Keeping track of the details of life took a lot of focus and attention away from the pain.

  When she picked up her pen at age thirty-nine and wrote, “I want my Mommy and daddy” as part of the letter her six-year-old self would have written if she’d had the words, Ruth felt that same horrible squeezing in her chest that she’d known as that six-year-old child. This time, however, she didn’t need to put it away or work against it. She had already survived it and could allow herself to feel the anguish all the way to the bottom of her soul in a way she couldn’t have when it actually happened.

  This pattern of midlife clarification of the past seems to be common for many ATCKs, but it’s a process that brings great consternation to some parents. It’s helpful for parents not only to accept that ATCKs may need to deal with their emotions many years after the events themselves, but also to see that their ATCKs’ attempts to share feelings with them—though initially some may be expressed in anger—are because the ATCKs still want and need their parents to understand what they felt during their Moments of separation or other experiences of childhood. Consciously or unconsciously, the ATCKs desire to be in a closer relationship with their parents or they wouldn’t bother trying to communicate these feelings. After all, these are the
only parents the ATCK will ever have.

  COMFORT AND BE GENTLE

  Offering comfort is a key factor in any grieving process—even when that process is delayed by decades. Remember, comfort is not encouragement. It is being there with understanding and love, not trying to change or fix things.

  One ATCK took courage and finally wrote his parents some of the things he had felt through some of the early separations from them as a child. His mother wrote back, “thank you for telling us how you felt. As I read your letter, of course I cried. I wish I could give you a big hug right now. I’m sorry we didn’t know then what you expressed now or we might have made some different decisions—but we didn’t. I love you and trust your story will help others.”

  Obviously, the first piece of comfort came with the acknowledgement that his Mom understood the feelings he had expressed. The second came with the words, “I wish I could give you a big hug.” Then his Mom expressed her own sorrow with a simple acknowledgment that as parents they had not realized what he was feeling. His mother never denied his feelings, nor did she wallow in self-blame or defensiveness. Instead, she blessed her son. Parental listening, understanding, comfort, and blessing are huge, wonderful steps in the healing process that parents can provide for their children—even when those children are now adults.

  DON’T PREACH

  Almost all parents find it difficult not to preach, but for parents who have often spent their lives serving in causes they see as greater than themselves, this may be especially hard. Take, for example, parents of adult missionary kids who have spent their lives dedicated to a religious cause, or military parents who have given their all to defend a particular country. There is probably no greater anguish a parent can feel than when their ATCKs reject the system for which the parents have stood—particularly when it is the faith or freedom they have gone halfway around the world to share or defend. Often, the sense of urgency to convince their children to believe in what they themselves believe grows as parents watch their ATCKs fall into increasingly self-destructive behavior: “If they’d just get their lives right with God, they’d be fine.” Or “If Suzy would just enlist, the Marines would shape her up.”