Expat life & mental health

[deptrai]

I felt privileged, with a great job, the opportunity to see the world, living in relative luxury...but after almost a decade in paradise, abroad, i found myself struggling. I also saw a few people go borderline insane, alcoholism, depression (goes hand in hand), and i feel i just narrowly escaped. Theres probably more factors to this than just expat life, but i was wondering what insight others can offer, how do you stay sane as an expat, in the long run? A very open question but there's always something to be learned from more experienced people

[Pretendorious]

If you have a family bring them with you if possible. Stay away from people whose social life revolves around drinking, do try to get a social life that include locals. Find a hobby or leisure activity that requires physical activity and contact with locals if possible. In my experience the biggest mistake expats make is isolating themselves from the society they now live in.

[fantom]

Drinking? Well, don't go to Kuwait.

[lenses]

Deptrai,
funny that I just post a message in another section, exactly about that !
and I feel relieved, sorry to say, that Im not alone and was wondering how many of us could feel the same.
As pilot, I always heard that we should accept expat life just because a pilot travel.
But for me , it's not normal. Only a few jobs request to be expat.
and travelling and living in another country (that we did not necessary chose) is different.
Personnally, I want to come back to Europe (that was my message in thoe thread) and was asking how is the market...
Expat life made me feels isolated too, and when I go out, it's always for beers, and nightclubs...
I got ups and downs a lot.
Pretendorious is right, but not so easy to make friends...I make friends but most of the time it's girls because they find occidents boys cute.
Personnally I look forward to coming back :/ I fly on A320 it's a nice plane but after a while, I start thinking about QOL and not following the plane.
Expat life IMO is not for everybody even if we are pilot. Pilot does not mean we should accept anything.
by the way, most of american pilot do not need to be an expat. Most of expat I meet are european.
We should be pilot in our own country. That's the way of life should be.

[Shack37]

Everything that Pretendorious said. Assuming you're in a non English speaking country I guess you have a good knowledge of the local lingo after almost 10 years. If not, study and get yourself fluent, it will help integrating with the locals. Do you get regular spells back home? Try it, it might make your current place seem more attractive.

[deptrai]

Thanks for the good advice. Im more or less fluent in the local language, i also thought being well integrated would be helpful but maybe I overdid it. I used to have a "my home is where my bank account is" mentality, a modern mercenary maybe, and years ago it also seemed very interesting to learn, and "understand" the natives but at some point I guess I just felt some cultural issues will never really make sense to me anyway, even if they can be explained...some things seem decades behind... A few good sane friends from a similar cultural background (as opposed to misfit type expats and locals only), physical activities/sports, and of course - i think this is something i underestimated - regular time at home seems to be key. Lenses - yes, sounds familiar wish you all the best in figuring this out

[flightknight]

Seems like the single guys/ family back home are the folks who are getting into trouble with their medical due to overindulgence. QOL and a long career should be the alternative to a quick buck.

[Pretendorious]

QOL and a long career should be the alternative to a quick buck.

There's no doubt a lot of miserable expats out there who endure simply for the money. Waste of life.