9 Ways Expat Life Breaks You Down And Builds You Back Better

Living Abroad Doesn’t Just Test You. It Rewires You

Forget Culture Shock. This Is What Happens When Your Identity Stops Making Sense

Have you ever looked in the mirror and thought, “Who the hell am I now?” 

Not in a midlife crisis way, but in a, “how did living in Ukraine in 1999 turn me into a guy who feels guilty not bringing flowers on Women’s Day and instinctively avoids manhole covers on the sidewalk” kind of way. 

If not, you probably haven’t lived abroad long enough.

Because trust me, after a few years in places like Georgia, Ukraine, or Albania, it’s not just your diet that changes (hello, pickled everything), it’s your brain.

Your reflexes and your idea of what’s “normal.” 

• You start questioning why Americans smile so much.
• Why French people argue like it’s foreplay.
• Why in Albania, your neighbor’s cousin’s goat is somehow your responsibility now.

I didn’t plan for this kind of transformation. I just wanted a little adventure. 

• To walk the Camino De Santiago, meet like minded individuals from other countries, while drinking some good wine and having a few laughs along the way.
• Improve my Spanish.
• Move to France, experience “la vie en rose” and brush up on my French.
• Join a French humanitarian group on a trip to Ukraine.
• Fall in love.
• Learn some Russian, build a life, and figure out how to survive post-Soviet Ukraine.

But, somewhere between a Cyrillic-alphabet induced panic attack on the Kyiv metro and learning how to clink glasses without offending the men at the table for not drinking enough at a Ukrainian dinner, my mind started to bend.

By the time it all clicked, I barely recognized how I used to think.

This isn’t about funny expat mishaps or the quirks of grocery shopping in a country where mayonnaise is considered a food group. 

This is about how living abroad slowly tore down the mental scaffolding I didn’t realize was holding me up.

It then rebuilt it in 3 new languages, a bruised ego, a growing comfort with feeling lost, and an unexpected fondness for pickled everything.

By the end of this article, you might start wondering whether the real passport control happens in your head.

And if you’ve ever tried to explain your identity after three years in Eastern Europe, you already know what I mean.

1. I Lost My Sense Of Time And Gained Patience

In Albania, a scheduled two-hour bus ride turned into four after we picked up school kids, dropped off packages, and somehow made room for a live chicken.

No one complained. No one asked why.

It was just Tuesday.

That used to drive me nuts. I came from the American school of hustle where “on time” meant five minutes early and impatience was practically a virtue.

But eventually, something shifted.

I stopped checking my watch. I stopped needing a reason. I learned to wait without picking a fight with the moment.

Lesson: If you’re always racing against the clock, you’ll miss what’s happening in front of you.

Let places teach you their tempo.

2. I Unlearned The Idea That Busy Means Productive

In Ukraine, at the first school where I taught English, the staff treated Turkish coffee like a sacred ritual.

Meetings began with gossip, drifted into horoscopes, and often never made it to an actual agenda.

It used to make my American brain twitch. What are we doing here?

But they weren’t panicking. They were present. I was the only one still equating motion with meaning.

Eventually, I stopped needing to fill every moment.

I realized being constantly “on” didn’t make me valuable. It made me anxious.

Lesson: Presence is often more powerful than performance.

And coffee breaks can be life philosophy.

3. My Internal GPS Got Destroyed And Rebuilt

Living in Kyiv before smartphones meant I got lost.

A lot.

Cyrillic was a wall of beautiful but unreadable symbols.

Every metro ride was a guessing game, and I once ended up in a part of town that looked like it had been abandoned since Brezhnev.

But the more I got lost, the more I paid attention. My brain started making maps without me knowing it. I learned to trust my gut.

I noticed things like statues, kiosks and graffiti tags, that no Google Map would’ve told me.

Hell, Google Maps didn’t even exist!

Lesson: When you stop relying on apps to guide your every step, your brain kicks back in.

And it’s smarter than you think.

4. “No” Became A Tool, Not A Rejection

Saying no in America felt like a rejection letter. Abroad? It’s a boundary.

In Spain, when someone said “No, no puedo,” it wasn’t personal, it was factual.

No meant “not now,” not “I hate you.”

And when I started saying no, something funny happened.

People respected it. Even thanked me.

In Alsace, turning down a second glass of schnapps earned me a nod of approval instead of a guilt trip.

 I started protecting my time, my energy and my sanity.

Lesson: Saying no is not rude. It’s honest.

And it might be the most underrated self-care practice out there.

5. I Felt Invisible Until I Learned To Pay Attention

In Georgia, I once sat in a café for nearly two hours and didn’t speak a word. Not out of shyness. It was just no one noticed me.

No one asked where I was from or why I was alone.

I wasn’t a local, and I wasn’t quite a tourist either. I was somewhere in between.

At first, it felt like rejection. But then I started watching.

Friends disagreeing with just their eyebrows. Vendors shouting over each other like family members at a holiday table. Old men playing backgammon like it was a lifelong rivalry.

Lesson: The less I tried to be seen, the more I saw.

Turns out, invisibility isn’t empty. It’s clarity.

6. My Social Battery Was Recalibrated

In Ukraine, small talk wasn’t a thing. Strangers didn’t care about your weekend.

Eye contact on the metro was a declaration of war. But when you broke through, the connection was more authentic.

You knew where you stood.

I stopped feeling the need to be “on” all the time.

Silence didn’t need to be filled. I had fewer friendships, but they meant more.

And I saw just how much energy I’d wasted trying to be polite instead of real.

Lesson: You don’t need more conversations. You need better ones.

7. My Pride Took Hits But My Empathy Got Stronger

I’ve butchered more languages than I care to admit.

In France, I proudly told my friend that his wife was “good,” not knowing it meant sexually hot and easy.

In Russian, I tried to tell my girlfriend’s mother that I was full, but didn’t know the phrase. So, I said “I’m finished” with an exaggerated gesture. 

But without the prefix in Russian, I ended up saying her food “gave me an orgasm”.

Humiliating? Yes.

Character building? Absolutely.

Being the outsider teaches you to take the hits, lose the ego, laugh at yourself, and rely on strangers more than you’d like.

That kind of humility sticks.

Lesson: Pride keeps you safe. Vulnerability makes you human. Pick wisely.

8. I Mourned My Old Self More Than I Expected

There’s a strange grief that hits after a while abroad. Not homesickness.

More like identity-sickness. 

I wasn’t who I was back home, but I wasn’t local either.

In Ukraine, I once stared at a loaf of black bread for fifteen minutes.

Not because I cared. I just didn’t know how to be me anymore.

My old instincts didn’t work, and the new ones hadn’t kicked in yet.

Lesson: Losing yourself is part of the deal.

Growth shows up looking like confusion.

9. Eventually I Stopped Explaining Myself

Somewhere between Spain and a solitary metro ride in Ukraine, I stopped giving the backstory.

No more explaining why I lived abroad or when I’d go “home.”

I didn’t owe anyone a tidy version of my life. So I stopped trying to interpret it and just started living it.

Messy, unfinished, and mine.

Lesson: Not explaining yourself is a freedom most people never get.

What Living Abroad Broke Open In Me

Living abroad didn’t make me cooler. It didn’t give me some glossy, influencer-worthy life.

What it gave me was a total mental reset.

A rewiring with a quieter brain, a louder heart, and a radar for bullshit I never used to have.

You don’t just leave a place when you move abroad. 

You leave versions of yourself behind.

You trade certainty for uncertainty, and somewhere in the chaos, you find transformation.

When you let go of the familiar, you gain a peace of mind you never knew you had.

What part of yourself changed the most when you left home?