So, I have yet to find a good forum yet to discuss this in....so I'm going to talk about it here because this is one of the few communities I'm in connection with online.

I have been living in Finland so far with my wife for 9 ½ months. I love her dearly and am glad to be with her.

The hard part that's causing trouble here is that I know I'm dealing with culture shock. Homesickness, frustration, longing for familiar things from the states, language barrier... it's all a very frustrating process for me. I was told to try and find people from the USA living in Finland, but so far that's been hard. I live in a city that's not too big, and not the closest to the major cities of Helsinki, Tampere, or Turku. It makes it hard to find people like me from my cultural background.

Add in that I've been facing a lot of mental health problems, I have a lot of trouble trying to find motivation to do much in language learning. My memory is not the best at the moment and it's possible a medication I'm on is affecting it, which is making language learning even tougher.

If someone with international experience in dealing with culture shock and acclimatizing to a new country, I would love to hear what helped you. General support is also accepted. <3

I have done this, I have been three years in Switzerland now, originally from Ireland.
It is very difficult to gain a friends group here, i think it is a mater of culture for sure.
Us Irish are so chill, trying to fit in is not easy. This country is super rich, and I come from the direct opposite in Ireland lol. And the whole being trans thing just compounds it.
So far I have nothing bar friends from work.
I hope you get through it. I know it's tough.

Quote from: ChristineRachel on March 24, 2017, 02:14:56 PM
I have done this, I have been three years in Switzerland now, originally from Ireland.
It is very difficult to gain a friends group here, i think it is a mater of culture for sure.
Us Irish are so chill, trying to fit in is not easy. This country is super rich, and I come from the direct opposite in Ireland lol. And the whole being trans thing just compounds it.
So far I have nothing bar friends from work.
I hope you get through it. I know it's tough.

Yeah. Being trans in a small city is definitely tough for me. I've made a few Finnish friends here, but trying to make connections in the bigger cities is where it's at here, because that's where most of the trans people are living. I came from a poor family myself, and Finland appears to be very middle class to my observations so far. I get along well with the introverted culture here (subtract language), just I miss other things in the states and the familiarity of it all.

Yea it's annoying.
I miss how easy it is to meet people back home. The night life, the car scene.
I am pretty much a loner so it's not so bad for me

Quote from: ChristineRachel on March 24, 2017, 03:10:30 PM
Yea it's annoying.
I miss how easy it is to meet people back home. The night life, the car scene.
I am pretty much a loner so it's not so bad for me

Yeah, I miss just in general the nature of Connecticut/New York/Massachusetts, the GLBT community in the area I lived in Connecticut, and taking for granted how easy it was to communicate with people.

I've never had a problem. I'm from Britain. Ive lived and worked in the former USSR and now live and work in the USA. Ive lived and worked speaking only Russian and I never had an issue. I can say I hate the hard drinking of the USSR though.


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