Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board

living alone and wanting to make a change

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Dawning:
Hi.  This is my first message.  I'm a busy person living alone in a large metropolitan Asian city.  I was brought up in the USA and have lived abroad since 1987 at the age of 23.  I've been married once.  Now, I am approaching 40 in this city and - as a female - do not see prospects for the type of healthy communicative relationship(s) I would like.  I have no children but two cats.  

I have been in therapy for 4 years (weekly) and I know what my fears are and how my inner child was hurt.  So many of the posts I have read I can completely relate to.  I wish some of you lived here where I am at.

Finally, now, I am at the point of wanting to make a change for real instead of ruminating in my frustration.  The hard part is getting home from work and having no one to talk to - friends, lovers or otherwise.  I get all these ideas at work about how to make the big move out of this city (where I will always be an outsider on account of my DNA) and I write them down but, once I get home, I lose all momentum and just curl up on the sofa staring at the TV.  

So I would like to know if anyone can relate and, if so, how did you get over the loneliness of living alone - having no one to talk to and no encouragement and no push - to change your life which would require huge resources of energy seeing as how I would have to pick another country to live in and what to do once I got there.  No support.

It is a little scary to write a first post to a group where our situations are so real and so valid and yet so delicate and needing to be "heard."  I will try and do my part to respond to the posts as best I can.  I can commit to 2 hours a week to this board and maybe I can help and give support too.

Thanks for hearing me,

Dawning (in hope.)

Portia:
Big welcome Dawning! This struck me:

--- Quote ---I lose all momentum and just curl up on the sofa staring at the TV
--- End quote ---

Sounds like me in a bad patch, or it could just be that you’re tired! Are you working long hours, weekends etc? And therapy is fine but what about career counselling? Do you enjoy your job? Do you enjoy things outside of work?
Don’t be scared, please! Talk some more…P
PS. Changing country is a huge step. Is that your biggest wish, or is it to find a friend/lover? And you say “ruminating in my frustration” (lovely phrase!): is that frustration with external things (work/environment) or internal (you want to change you)?
By the way, I feel like I’m standing on a similar precipice (?) and am procrastinating with vigour!

Tokyojim:
Hello,

I wanted to first write a quick reply because I think I can understand your situation to some degree.  I used to have a love-hate relationship with Japan.  I often wondered what I was doing there and had self-doubts and thought that maybe I was running away from something, couldn't adjust to the U.S. for the wrong reasons, etc.  I used to feel that I would never really be part of the culture.

One thing that I discovered, and it may or may not relate to your situation.  When I started becoming frustrated with the host country and/or its people, what was really going on was homesickness.  Homesickness due to fatigue, from lack of familiar things, etc.  A vicious downward cycle can ensue in which you start to doubt everything about yourself, your life.  You feel you can never belong there and seem isolated, yet it seems impossible to return to your native land and have a real and meaningful life.  I remember.....

rosencrantz:
Hi Dawning - Gave me the shivers as I remembered what it was like living alone in Paris years ago.  Relationship split up.  Lots of acquaintances.  No close friends, and no cosy 'local' places to go - it was all tourists or people who wanted to be 'seen' by the media, etc.  An alien culture full of outsiders.  My solution was to 'come back home'.

Coming back home may seem too much like going back to the 'real' home of childhood but I needed to be back in my own country to settle for and commit to the future.  I really didn't want to live in exile my whole life.

Have you ever read Colin Wilson, The Outsider?  I can't even remember what it's about but it spoke to me at the time.

Shiver.

Which is worse - facing change or facing stasis?????  Give me change any day!

About this board - take when you need to, give when you can. :D  No-one has any expectations of you as far as I know (except yourself!  :wink:)
R

Dawning:

--- Quote from: Portia ---Big welcome Dawning! This struck me:

--- Quote ---I lose all momentum and just curl up on the sofa staring at the TV
--- End quote ---

Sounds like me in a bad patch, or it could just be that you’re tired! Are you working long hours, weekends etc? And therapy is fine but what about career counselling? Do you enjoy your job? Do you enjoy things outside of work?
Don’t be scared, please! Talk some more…P
--- End quote ---


No long hours unless a big translation job comes in and I don't mind doing that.  I enjoy my work but I feel I just fell into it haphazardly just like I ended up here in this city.  Outside of work, I have no friends or support group here.  I will go to a support group meeting of children from dysfunctional families this weekend.  Maybe I will meet some understanding people there.  Could also do some volunteer work but maybe - yes -  always "too tired."

I have a lot of potential but if I stay in my current situation, I am scared the potential will drain away from me and then I will be at the mercy of my divorced N Mother and Father (only child) again so you can see what I must be setting myself up for.  Only I won't do it.   So I stay here - away from her and her game-playing tactics.  Most of my family has disowned my mother.  Different story.  Just got in touch with my father after 20 years.  Emailing each other sometimes. We have very different perspectives but I am attempting to be open while keeping the healthy boundaries.

But I know I can overcome this lack of motivation.  My intuition brought me to this group.  I just don't know how to get motivated once I get home from work.  How to get on the Internet and keep reaching, reaching out.  My cousin said to never give up hope because hope is one thing no one can take away from you.  But hope alone isn't going to get my a*se off the sofa and out of my melancholy.  I am just so tired of not making any preparations for my future.   Other foreign women in this city feel alienated too but everyone deal with it in their own way.  

My interests are: middle eastern studies, forensic anthroplogy, public health and activism (that is what is on my list so far......)  I am very well-travelled.  Been to 25 countries with a backpack.

Yes, I very well may be tired.  Need to make a schedule.  It seems like such a battle when it should be exciting.  

Thanks for listening to my voice and for welcoming me.  

Dawning.

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