LIVING ABROAD. TRAVEL. NEGATIVE SIDE.

7 Reasons Why Living Abroad Sucks

The negative side of living abroad that you don’t see on social media

The biggest assumption that most of my friends back home make about me is that my life is always fun, and problem-free and that I’ve been growing money on trees just because I live in a foreign country.

Most people base other people’s reality on what they post on social media nowadays, so they end up assuming that when you live in another country, you will always be traveling, partying, and having fun.

Well, what if I told you that it’s not like that? There are for sure so many problems and hardships when living abroad that sometimes all I want is to give up on everything and just book a one-way ticket back to my home country.

The best decision of my life was to embark on this international adventure. It allowed me to reinvent myself and live a more meaningful and adventurous life. However, that does not mean I’m exempt from difficult situations. These hardships don’t necessarily make my experience negative. That’s not what I mean. But they surely are a very huge part of my experience.

So, here are some of the top things that I find negative about living abroad.

7- You miss out on a lot that’s happening in your home country, and with family and friends

Behind every person who works hard to make their dreams come true in a different land, you will find years and years of endless sacrifices.

And one of the biggest sacrifices that the people who live abroad make is to choose to live their life while being physically away from their family and friends.

And because they are away, they will end up missing out on a lot that happens back home. Things and events that may seem to be nothing, but are enough to make them question if it’s really worth being away.

I don’t get to celebrate my mom’s birthday with her or spend Christmas and any other holiday with my family. I don’t get to eat ice cream with my niece and watch TV all day long with my sister. These things have such a heavier impact on you when you’re not near your family.

It sucks so much because you start to question yourself and your purpose a lot. Is it really worth it to be away from my parents and miss out on the fact that they’re getting old? Is it worth it to not see my nieces and nephews grow up? Is it worth it to be away from home when they’re dealing with a very difficult situation?

This all hurts so much and it certainly makes you wonder how much you’re willing to keep on going.

6- You feel homesick

And because of the fact you miss out on what’s happening back home, feeling homesick is just part of your life. And sometimes, it comes unexpectedly.

For those who don’t know what feeling homesick means, it’s a sad or depressed feeling that somebody can have from a longing for home or family while away from them for a long time.

Homesickness is real, everyone. It is painfully real.

It’s terrible. So much goes through your mind, and you just think that all you are living is a lie and you shouldn’t be there. When you miss home, you think that the struggles you are going through are not worth being dealt with. You think about giving up more often and you think about your insecurities more often. There’s fear, sadness, and loneliness.

Sometimes you find yourself missing the little and most silly things. For instance, I miss drinking coffee with my mom, sleeping in on Sundays, or playing loud music when I’m cleaning the house. Sometimes I miss the arguments about who is going to be watching the big TV in the living room, and, of course, I miss ordering food at night for me and my family to watch reality TV shows together.

#5: You’re most likely to spend special holidays alone

One of the biggest differences between the U.S., Ireland, and Brazil is that in Brazil there are so many national holidays. And when there’s a holiday, it’s always an excuse for a day trip, for throwing a party, or for having a barbecue.

And like every other holiday, you know that it won’t be the same when you are living abroad. I miss spending Christmas with my family, I miss partying during Carnival with friends. I miss celebrating all the Latin and Brazilian festivities with my loved ones.

I’m feeling extremely anxious right now because I might have to spend Christmas by myself for the first time. I always plan trips for New Year’s Eve, but Christmas for me is a very important family and friends tradition. However, most of my close friends here in Ireland won’t be here, and I might have to work on the 23. Plane tickets to Brazil are super expensive so I won’t be able to afford them to see my family, even though I know they will all be together celebrating this special day.

Last week I just couldn’t stop crying on the phone with my mom. I miss her and I really wish I could afford to go to Brazil. It sucks to think that I’ll probably be alone in my room on this day.

That’s the price you have to pay when living in a foreign country.

4- You’ll get sick and won’t be able to afford the healthcare

It’s never fun to get sick. But getting sick in a foreign country sometimes can be the scariest thing to go through. Having to rush to urgent care, or having to get shots just feels different when it happens in another country.

I will never forget when I had to go to the hospital in the United States. Nobody went with me. I had gotten an infection in my gum. It had swollen so much for 3 days. When I couldn’t bear the pain anymore, I rushed to urgent care.

I got in the car and drove there alone. I spent an entire day there and nobody was with me. My parents back home were so worried. I felt so weak and abandoned. If I had been in my home country, it would have been different. But since I don’t have any family members living abroad with me, I had to go through that by myself. I was very scared that something was going to happen.

And after you go through all of it by yourself, the bill comes.

I don’t care how many wonderful things people say about what we call “first-world countries”, but I will never understand how the healthcare system in these so-called “rich countries” is so terrible. And how expensive and inaccessible they are.

Are you really telling me that hospitals are making profits off of people being sick and the government won’t intervene? It doesn’t make sense to me.

Healthcare in Brazil is FREE. Free of cost for all. Including foreign visitors. You can have surgeries, make appointments, and get medicine all for free. I never ever had to pay a single penny for being treated at a hospital in Brazil when being sick. I never ever had to pay for a single vaccine or medicine.

So, when I lived in the U.S., I just had to endure the pain and see what would happen. Now that I’m in Ireland it is the same because healthcare here is as shitty as it is in the U.S. I can’t stand the fact that if I want to see a doctor I have to pay hundreds of euros for an appointment. People’s health should be every government’s biggest priority. But unfortunately, it isn’t.

3- You won’t have your own house

Another reality that a lot of international exchange students and immigrants have to face is the fact that we don’t have our own house. A lot of us share the house so we can make rent a little more affordable, and most of the time, we even have to share our own rooms with other immigrants.

Rent is so expensive everywhere. And to make it worse, Ireland is going through its worst housing crisis in history, so now rent is not only a rip-off, but it’s also almost impossible to find a decent room.

When you live abroad, sometimes you will have to share one house with two or three families. So at the end of the day, what’s actually yours is only your bedroom. The first house I lived in here in Ireland, I shared it with 15 other people, and in my room, with 4 other guys (who of course, were complete strangers when I first moved in).

Having to share a house with a family that is not yours is really hard. I miss having a place where I could sit in front of the TV in the living room at any time of the day. I miss playing loud music in the house after a long day at work. I miss waking up in the middle of the night and making something in the kitchen. I miss inviting my friends to come over at any time of the day and night and not having to ask for permission. I miss being 100% free in my house.

Today I live with an Irish host family. There are so many things that I have to think twice or three times before doing because I live with them. I know that though I pay for rent, the house I’m staying in is not mine and I can’t really do much.

2- You won’t always feel welcomed into the country

This is a very sad part of our reality. Sometimes the foreign country you are living in won’t really welcome you. Life as an immigrant is hard. We often have to deal with discrimination and xenophobia from those who think we don’t deserve to be here.

Most international students and immigrants want to make friends with local people. It’s just part of the experience.

However, the more I live in this country, the harder I find it to make friends here. There are a thousand communities divided and scattered all around Ireland and these communities will not interact with one another. It’s so weird for me. I try to educate myself the most so I can understand the root of all of this.

Most of my friends are either immigrants or international students. And they say the same thing: They don’t feel welcome in anybody’s group of friends. I don’t have any Irish friends. Friends who were born and raised here and who would love to show me around. It’s always been like that. And that’s so annoying. I just wish it were easier to make friends with the local people.

1- Your loved ones might pass away when you’re living abroad

The worst and the most difficult thing that sometimes we have to deal with when living abroad is the loss of loved ones. That is for sure every immigrant’s biggest nightmare.

What would you do if that happened to you?

That’s the very first question my family and friends asked me when I told them I was going to live abroad for a certain period of time.

It’s the type of question you always avoid answering, but at the same time, it’s always there inside your head.

What if I lose someone? What if a close friend of mine passes away? What if a family member passes away?

Unfortunately, I had to go through this. In 2020, one of my aunts, the sister of my mother, passed away.

I woke up to my mom’s text messages saying that my dear auntie had gone to the hospital 2 days prior to her death, got into a coma, and died. It was so heartbreaking for me. All I wanted was to be there for my mom. She was devastated.

Tia Lucia was my mom’s oldest sister. So she’d always been present, and she’d always been a role model for my mom. I remember she was the aunt who lived far from us. So, going to her house when I was a kid was always a fun trip. She’d welcome us with a warm hug, and delicious food. She was humble and kind.

It was very hard to have to deal with that while being away from home.

I remember 2 months before I went to the U.S. in 2016 my grandmother passed away. I almost canceled everything. I almost called my boss at that time and said I wouldn’t go anymore. This was very difficult for me.

In 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic, I was living in the U.S. and I had horrible anxiety thinking that my parents were going to be next whenever I heard that someone in my family had died from covid.

All of the things I mentioned in this article never cross people’s minds when they want to live in another country. Unfortunately, they are as real and as part of everybody’s life as you are reading this article right now. They can happen. They happen in fact. They make living abroad very difficult sometimes.

So next time you see somebody’s post on social media, don’t assume that they are living the perfect life.

Living abroad has been one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life, but as I mentioned earlier, that does not mean it is always full of positive experiences.

What about you? Do you live in a foreign country? Have you ever experienced any of these negative things?

Do you have friends and family members living abroad? Have these things ever happened to them before?

Which of these negative characteristics do you think would be the hardest for you to deal with?

I’d love to hear from you!

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