[Following the publication of my 2nd essay, which details many longitudinal studies that found elevated risks of a host of adverse outcomes – mental and physical – for those who were raised like TCKs, many adult TCKs reached out. Amongst them was Béatrice, whose raw and searing account of her journey will no doubt deeply resonate with many TCKs. Her experience is, unfortunately, far more common than many non-TCKs think, and gives colour to why those studies show what they show. – Jane]

My name is Béatrice, I’m French and 35 years old. My life was pure joy and delight until I was 11,5 years old. That was my turning point. By then, I had already lived in four countries and was a very happy child where I was — a place I absolutely adored. I loved the sunny, warm weather, the beautiful geography, the sea, my little ritual of watching the first star appear in the sky at night, my ballet classes, outdoor activities, and all the fun things my parents involved us in — whether social, sporty, artistic, religious, or environmental. Everything was enjoyable, diverse, and sparked a profound joy in me.

But one day, my father came home from work and told us we were moving back to France. I’ll never forget the taste of that last Christmas before we left, seven months later, in July. There was something so sad and final about it, and I was fully and painfully aware of its finality. I was nearly twelve when we returned to Paris.

I felt awful in that country of mine. I didn’t like it at all. I felt completely uprooted from what had become my natural environment. A deep sense of not belonging settled in and stayed with me for the next two decades. I disliked the climate, the rudeness of the people, the rain, the small apartments compared to our previous house, the cold and early dusk in the winter, the lack of outdoor activities — the absence of a simple outdoor life. I hated it and felt like I just didn’t belong.

Then we moved to another European country, which turned out to be even worse. It didn’t improve things at all, but I had no choice but to adapt again. This feeling of being dragged around against your will, of course, is widely described and shared by many fellow TCKs.

There were other things that affected my personal development during those formative years. The first and most important was the feeling of uprootedness. I didn’t experience my international lifestyle as a collection of interesting, enriching moments — as adults often expected me to. For me, there was a clear “before” and “after” that uprooting moment when I was a pre-teen. Being displaced broke something inside me and marked the end of what had once been a positive life experience. Instead, life became coercive in nature — I was forced to adapt and remain silent, over and over again.

I truly understood the full impact of this years later, in my late twenties, when I burst into tears after hearing the testimony of an Iraqi refugee. She told the story of leaving her home in a rush and suddenly landing in a cold Paris, never to see her country again. If only she knew how deeply I could relate to her feelings.

Another negative aspect of my childhood was the lack of consistency and continuity in my activities. I was an excellent ballerina, and my teachers in France believed I had the potential for a professional career. But moving ended that possibility. In the next country, the French school’s schedule didn’t align with the local ballet school’s classes, so I couldn’t continue at my level. I had to stop ballet entirely. I wasn’t even exercising enough and I even developed scoliosis… That was the end of it. What a waste!

A third point: I didn’t know where I belonged socio-economically. Until the age of twelve, I had an extremely privileged lifestyle. Living in developing countries meant my father’s salary afforded us a big house, cars, nannies, a cook — anything we wanted. It was a luxurious life. But back in Paris, things changed dramatically. No staff. A small apartment. I had to learn to do everything myself: tidy my room, empty the dishwasher, etc. To my 12-year-old self, this felt unpleasant and « downgrading ». It made me feel unsafe for a long time, not knowing where I stood or what we could truly afford.

Lastly, there were my parents. Parents are regular people besides being parents — with their own struggles and ups and downs. Moving from place to place revealed different sides of them. Some countries brought out the best in them, others the worst (same with us children actually…), so I feel like I experienced « different » parents throughout my childhood and young adult life — for better or worse. And I didn’t like that at all.

Moving countries multiple times was already a shock. What made it harder was seeing that my own parents seemed to change and were unpredictable from one place to another too. That created a further sense of instability. Not an experience I’d recommend, especially when you need to navigate adolescence and young adult life at the same time.

Now, let me tell you about the consequences my TCK life had on me as an adult.

After living in that last European country, I returned to Paris. Another forced move — I wasn’t 18 yet and had to start university. I came back to my country of birth and felt I belonged even less than before. Three years may not seem long to an adult over 25, but to a teenager, it felt like an eternity. It turned into a nightmare. Each move had become harder, more damaging than the last, and this time I simply imploded.

I had a nervous breakdown during my first year of university, and once that subsided, I developed hypertension in my early twenties. My physician couldn’t understand how a young woman, with perfect bloodwork, no underlying conditions, and a healthy routine, could have such dangerously high blood pressure and end up in the ER multiple times with hypertensive crises — as if I had the body of an elderly, overweight couch potato. I felt miserable, anxious, sick. I would sing the song Creep all the time: « What the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here. »

The disruptions from the multiple moves around the world created immense stress, and that forced move back to Paris was the final straw – that move gave me suicidal thoughts, anxiety, and depression. Over time, my personality changed — I became a shell of who I once was. In my journal, I once wrote that I felt like a prostitute forced to adapt to her clients — except my « clients » were countries. Countries I didn’t choose. Countries I disliked, my own included.

Meanwhile, my parents kept moving — my father’s career wasn’t over. Their next posting was to a very dangerous Middle Eastern country, so they moved there but sent me back to Paris. You can’t imagine the added anxiety that created in me. TCKs are often said to experience delayed adolescence — and in my case, this was spot on. One of the reasons, I believe, is that instability feels inherently unsafe and prevents healthy psychological development. You often cling to your parents longer than you should, in a fearful, anxious, unhealthy way. In that sense, I consider this lifestyle a form of emotional abuse, because it delays normal development — for reasons that are often irrelevant to the child’s well-being.

So there I was, alone in Paris, while my parents were stationed in a country encountering frequent suicide bombings – bombings that eventually killed several of their fellow French nationals. Worried for their safety, I lived in chronic stress for years. My grandparents and extended family in France were neither warm nor supportive. I couldn’t count on them. When I was around them, all I felt was how completely out of place I was. They lived in a small village, with old black-and-white portraits of family members fighting in World War I and World War II displayed in their house — patriotic people in military uniforms, defending their beloved country. And I hated it. You cannot imagine the guilt and disconnection I felt when we’d talk about France. I felt like a felon for not loving my country. In France, we sometimes call the country la mère patrie — the motherland. And in my journal I once wrote:

« How disappointing and painful to be reunited with my motherland and not love her… Like a disappointed adopted child forced to reunite with a biological mother he doesn’t care for. »

That’s the part I cannot forgive about this TCK lifestyle. The constant moving and upheavals robbed me of a sense of belonging and made me ill-at-ease in my own country. It distanced me from my family, my roots, and my social circles. And building roots as an adult is incredibly difficult — sometimes impossible. Living with inner discomfort became my reality for a very long time.  Too costly.

Not surprisingly, I failed my first year of university. I was depressed, tense, anxious — unable to envision a future for myself, in a country that felt alien, in a life that felt meaningless.

The TCK lifestyle also damaged my dating life. I didn’t like France… and I didn’t like French people! Maybe this was because I grew up in other cultures so didn’t have the time to build bonds with my own culture. Maybe living in other cultures made me develop different values and tastes, but I found the French in general rude, stingy, arrogant, and depraved. I stayed single and lonely for a long time. No one could understand why — not even my parents. But I couldn’t tell them the truth. What was I supposed to say?

“Hey guys, I just hate all of you. You’re unattractive to me because you’re greedy, snobbish, and promiscuous — you embody everything I dislike.”

My parents expected my siblings and me to date and marry typical French men. That didn’t happen. And again, guilt and loyalty conflicted with my inner preferences. We disappointed them, and they were upset — but that’s one of the consequences of how they raised us. They exposed us to many cultures and yet somehow expected us to stay « impermeable » to all of that. That’s delusional. Simply impossible.

As I’m writing this, I realize how much this TCK lifestyle put me in a state of inner civil war. How the hell can anybody feel peaceful with that kind of turmoil inside?

I also genuinely believe this lifestyle can act as a long-term contraceptive. Not in the literal sense, but in the way it delays relationships, emotional maturity, and family building. Many adult TCKs I’ve met are often not married, married very late, or childless. From my perspective, that’s not a healthy outcome. If an upbringing leads to chronic loneliness or psychological infertility, something is severely off.

And then there’s the money. This kind of life creates high-maintenance needs because we end up with friends and/or family spread across countries. The TCK lifestyle inevitably creates the desire (or need) to travel just to feel whole; it creates a fragmented identity that can’t be grounded in one location. But what if you can’t afford that lifestyle anymore? You become isolated, frustrated, incomplete. This lifestyle is not for the poor. It’s also polluting, demanding, and not eco-friendly. That’s something to seriously consider when choosing your career or raising children.

So how am I doing now? Better. To start, I went to therapy. I allowed myself to speak my truth, and I divorced my previous life, the one of being a TCK. To me, expat life is not worth it. It’s not a healthy way of living. It’s more harmful than enriching. It doesn’t align with my core values: rootedness, consistency, loyalty, stability, belonging, inner peace, and strong family ties. It has long-term, serious consequences on mental health, relationships, and identity. And since so many adult TCKs go to therapy, it’s hard to deny: this TCK lifestyle can be very toxic. It’s essentially a form of sugar-coated poison. When I finally « came out » and shared the darker side of my upbringing, I faced a backlash. People said I was ungrateful. That I sounded tacky, narrow-minded, for not having « looooved » it. The expat community, especially future expat parents, didn’t want to hear it. They couldn’t face the ugly truth: this lifestyle can truly harm your children. Please, understand that it does!

My therapist was helpful in one key way. She helped me separate myself from my parents and their choices for us. Everything had become so entangled and messy that I couldn’t see what was me, what was them and what was the TCK lifestyle. She helped me unravel it. But she wasn’t the perfect match as a therapist. You see, she was an expat wife with children, and I often felt she was uncomfortable with my truth. She didn’t want me to be too harsh about the TCK life. She insisted that my issues were mainly due to my parents and myself, not the TCK lifestyle. Always, always, she was downplaying the impact of the TCK life on my host of issues experienced as an adult and insisted it was a terrific lifestyle. I suspected that she, like other expat parents, wanted her own children to feel positive about the lifestyle she had chosen for them. I didn’t have a positive experience, and this was perhaps deeply uncomfortable for her to hear. Perhaps she feared that her own children might one day struggle and say the same things I was saying.

In the end, the AI chatbot I spoke to was more empathetic than she was. So I ended therapy with her because I realized: a therapist should be able to « endure » you as you scream: « I HATED what I went through. It harmed me deeply. » Otherwise, it feels like telling someone who’s been sexually harassed, « Don’t criticize sex — it’s an amazing experience! » Choose your therapist wisely.

In short, my journey as a TCK and as an adult TCK was neither an easy one nor one I would recommend. It had many long-term consequences on my life that no one could have anticipated, myself included. I wish I had been warned and educated about it sooner, like the way side effects are listed on a medication leaflet. Although my experience was not a good one overall, I still wish you the best, for you and for your children, if you choose this path.

– Béatrice

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