Expat Life: a Danger to Mental Health.

Some people emigrate and love the expat lifestyle but as the years go by many struggle. Depression, anxiety and insomnia are very common and not easy to write off as just “missing the family”.

Getting diagnosed late in life with a psychiatric label is a shock. It confirms what you suspected “it’s your fault”, “you’re defective” and worst of all it takes away your power – your feeling of control over your own life. What makes it worse is the fact that most expats are ‘high achievers’.

The hidden danger of expat life often lies within us!

Early Complex Trauma (Bowlby, 1969) is like hidden rot in a tree! For years the tree survives storm, snow and drought but one day – without warning – it just breaks. I know, I did!

Most people are unaware of the damage and have long since buried the memories. The symptoms are often the very thing that makes them push themselves to excel. We often cope by relying on obsessive and compulsive behaviour.

Recent advances in Network Neuroscience (Raichle, et al, 1996) have shown that the mind works in systems, not as separate generative parts. Professor Lisa Feldman Barrett has shown that the mind is so much more adaptable than the popular view of the brain.

This is helpful because we experience the mind as a set of interacting systems with different levels of consciousness and we can feel it when those systems get dysregulated.

To give you an example of how trauma can catch you out, when I was young all I wanted to do was join the army. I had already blown one chance with the Parachute Regiment by running off with an American girl instead of going to Aldershot, this was my last chance. I had joined the TA Parachute Regiment and if I did well they said they would give me another chance at the regulars.

On exercise in Hankley Common prior to finally starting ‘P Company’, I had an argument with a sergeant about map reading. That night, under a Basha, I couldn’t sleep. My mind was speed thinking. It was the voice of my mum, my family, “You’re not good enough! – you’re useless”. I felt like I was on fire, my heart was beating so fast I thought I would die.

At dawn I admitted defeat and left training and my dreams of a career in the Parachute Regiment.

I know now that I was suffering an anxiety attack and clinical depression. Contrary to popular belief these can be signs of dysregulation of the Default Mode Network not a chemical imbalance in specific parts of the brain.

Over the years, I started studying Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and eventually qualified as a clinical and pastoral counsellor and psychotherapist but I don’t heal anyone! They do!

The truth is, if I am describing you, only you can rebalance your brain’s systems. If you do need help with your mental health, the best advice I can give you is don’t trust labels – trust your own common sense and demand a therapy that makes sense to you.

• Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and Loss, Vol. 1: Attachment, London, Hogarth Press
• Bowlby, J. (1973). Attachment and Loss, Vol. 2: Separation, London, Hogarth Press
• Bowlby, J. (1980). Attachment and Loss, Vol. 3: Loss, London, Hogarth Press
• DOUCET G. E, et al. 2020. Transdiagnostic and Disease-Specific Abnormalities in the Default Mode Network Hubs in Psychiatric Disorders, PubMed
• HUANG, H, et al. 2025. Default Mode Network Disorganization, and Treatment-Resistant Schizophrenia, Oxford University Press on behalf of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Centre.
• Raichle, M, E, et al, 1996, A Default Mode of Brain Function, National Academy of Sciences.