Sameness is so comforting. Familiarity, predictability… there’s something to be
said for keeping the ground steady beneath your feet. Most of us spend years
building routines that offer a sense of control and continuity. We work hard to
know who we are and how the world responds to us. There’s peace in that.

But if you’re an expat, you’ve chosen a different path. You’ve
invited otherness into your life. You’ve stepped into discomfort.

And for good reason. Otherness is what drives growth. It’s the thorn in your side
that forces you to re-examine who you are, what you believe, how you relate, and
where you belong. It asks you to stretch and to soften.

Even though that might sound exciting, let’s be honest: it’s also exhausting. What
begins as an intentional, healthy struggle can quietly morph into something much
heavier. The stretching of the self can start to feel like a splintering. Disorientation
becomes frustration. Frustration calcifies into resentment. And before you know
it, you’re in a crisis, wondering if you’ve made a terrible mistake.

Your inner monologue might start sounding something like this: Do I have to become someone completely different just to fit in? What
if I change so much I no longer recognize myself? Or worse, what if the people I love back home don’t recognize me either?
What if I lose myself?

Here’s the hard truth: growth involves loss. You will shed parts of yourself you never intended to lose. And you’ll take on new ones, shaped by this place, its people, its norms, and its language. You’ll adapt, whether you mean to or not. Sometimes that will feel like an evolution. Other times, like a betrayal.

All of that can hurt more than you’d expect. It’s common to grieve during this time, as deeply as you might grieve the end of a relationship or the loss of a loved one. That’s not an overreaction. It’s not drama. It’s the natural emotional cost of transformation. And because no one really warns you about this part of expat life, it can feel incredibly isolating.

Your grief needs a place to go. It needs to be seen, felt, named. Only then can it move through you and become something that eventually helps you expand, rather than contract.

Of course, sometimes the fear isn’t about being swallowed by the new culture. It’s about feeling perpetually othered by it. You may find yourself thinking: What have I done? Who are these people and why do they seem so strange? What if I never feel at home here?
Did I romanticize this place?
Should I go back? Can I even go back?

Part of what’s happening here is psychological. As humans, we often define ourselves by what we are not. I am me because I am not you. One of our earliest psychological defences is called “splitting”. We draw a clear line between what is familiar and what is unfamiliar, what is good in the world, and what is bad. It’s a survival strategy that protects us when we’re too young to tolerate ambiguity.

As we mature, we learn to hold the messy complexity of both/and. People are never just good or bad. Cultures aren’t either. That said, recognizing nuance and holding multiple truths at once is really, really hard. Even the wisest and most self-aware among us lose their balance sometimes. We all fall off the tightrope.

So if you’re currently in a season of rejection – of the culture, the place, the people – don’t beat yourself up. Just try to slow down. Get curious. Ask yourself: What is this reaction trying to protect me from? What might I be afraid of losing? Or feeling? You moved abroad because you wanted to experience otherness. To grow, and to live in a more fluid, global, connected way. That’s beautiful. If
you reject this culture entirely – if you shut it out because it feels too strange or too threatening -you might miss the very transformation you came here for.

The Third Path.

The good news is: there is a third path. One that doesn’t require you to erase your roots or deny your discomfort. You can learn to hold your home culture and your host culture side by side, with care and discernment. You get to decide which parts of each to carry forward. You can, in essence, curate a new version of yourself, one shaped by both where you come from and where you are now.

It’s hard work. And you don’t have to do it alone.

As an English-speaking therapist in Munich, I work with expats every day who are navigating this in-between space. Together, we dig deep, identifying the core parts of self that are worth protecting and exploring which parts are ready to be reshaped. While not shying away from the grief that brings up. With the right support, this can become the most generative chapter of your life.