After 7 years abroad, I feel emotionally detached from everything
Posted by NoAd8833@reddit | expats | View on Reddit | 40 comments
Has anyone else hit a point after 7+ years abroad where they just… lost emotional attachment to the place and maybe even to life structure itself?
I feel strange because objectively I’ve experienced a lot in Germany: jobs, relationships, different apartments, different versions of myself. I gained things, lost things, rebuilt multiple times. And now it feels like I’m emotionally detached from almost everything.
I recently got a new job, which should feel exciting, but instead I just feel tired thinking about doing the same cycle again like a machine. Work, survive, repeat. I’m not even deeply sad every day more like numb and directionless.
What scares me most is not failure, but slowly losing interest in life itself. Not in a suicidal way, more like losing curiosity, attachment, excitement, and the feeling that I’m moving toward something meaningful.
I wonder if this is common for long-term expats after enough resets and instability. Did anyone go through this phase and eventually reconnect with life again?
beforeyoureyes@reddit
Didn't need to read any more after this haha.
PhilippineDreams@reddit
I dunno. I got caught up in the Boston bombings and moved to the Philippines about 12 years ago. It can be challenging but I also got married and we have two daughters. That is pretty much my life now, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. And as Yet-Another-Persona noted, it is part of getting older.
helluvaprice@reddit
wdym caught up in it?
PhilippineDreams@reddit
I got a bit bloody from the first bomb detonation.
stumpkat@reddit
Sorry to hear this. That sounds horrifying. I'm sorry you were there and that it happened at all. Glad you've found a nice life in Southeast Asia.
stumpkat@reddit
This is common. I am in the same boat. I lived overseas from 2012-2021. Now I have few friends and cannot relate to people that seem to care about predominately "American" things. I wake up every day like Red from Shawshank, just waiting out my time, hoping to get paroled. It sucks. I want to move back overseas like yesterday.
Alive-Membership107@reddit
or he got enlightened ... reached nirvana 😅.. Germany does that to you.. after your 4636282. letter most probably. 🤣
ineedtimetoreadmarx@reddit
Ι think it's expat burnout. I live in DK, where whatever I do, I never feel like I fully belong. Doesn't matter if things go well or bad. This feeling of being an outlier as a foreigner in culturally and ethnically (mostly) homogenous society, sticks. It's always there, and keeps on draining me. I met many foreigners with whom we discussed feeling exhausted for always having to justify and excuse our mere existence in the country. After a point, it feels safer to just roll with a mundane routine, until it doesn't.
Yet-Another-Persona@reddit
This is called "getting older."
Ambitious_Rabbit9120@reddit
OP Welcome to Adulting!
HighwaySetara@reddit
Or depression
Authentic-scoundrel@reddit
Or burn out (which is a cousin of depression)
Critical_Mongoose939@reddit
As an old, burned out, semi-depressed expat, I wanted to confirm the feeling.
But there's something else at play: look at the state of the world. Is not like society gives us any meaning or reason to be excited about anything. The world in 2026 is quite a hellscape of late stage capitalism:
- Cost of living crisis, housing crisis, mental health crisis, obesity crisis, loneliness crisis, cultural wars, gender wars
- The news cycle: Most people are consumed by fear and anger due to the way things get reported in mainstream media
- Fake news, malicious agents and idiotic agents are polarizing everybody and destroying democracies with exaggerated takes on everything.
- Social media was designed to hijack human brains and promote bizarre content. Humans get addicted sooner and sooner (children raised by screens), accept bizarre stuff as normal
- Technology made life a weird thing where stuff doesn't happen face to face but through screens. We're connected in real time but lonelier than ever
- Job market is cooked due to AI. No one knows wtf is going to happen
- Senseless, needless wars evidence the failure of humans to get along and cooperate as species, generate pain, death, illness
- Stock markets are manipulated by billionaires who can't be bothered anymore even to hide it
- Big criminals getting scotch free for crimes that impact societies at large (2008 crisis, Epstein files...) while regular citizens get increasingly more scrutinized for no reason (anti-money laundering laws, anti-privacy laws, anti-free speech laws, etc)
And then... every job has its own flavour of bullshit to deal with. Most people, get either under-paid or over-stretched, or need to deal with unreasonable assholes at work because people are cooked due to all the above bullet points.
I mean... no society in history was perfect but fucking hell what a time to be alive.
Thebuttholeking69@reddit
You forgot the threats and effects of environmental degradation and climate change
Foreign_Whereas8231@reddit
Yes, this ⬆️!! The world has become a really weird place. It’s so hard to feel auhentically connected and grounded. Wish I had an answer or solution for you.
owzleee@reddit
I agree.
This would probably be happening in your home country. It’s easy to mix them up.
tabidots@reddit
I'm more or less feeling the same thing now, but I don't think it's necessarily due to the time I've been abroad. In the past, whenever I've had to reinvent myself, there was always a clear pull toward something and it was feasible to design a life around it. This time, neither of those things are true.
The pandemic also did a number on the foreigner social fabric in the place where I live - the adventurous, curious, and interesting friends I had before have all scattered elsewhere, and they've been replaced by clueless newbies lured by Instagram reels. So my town is being gentrified and becoming like "any other tourist town," which I resent very much. Though the pandemic could also be blamed for just making life a little less lively more broadly.
thefxview@reddit
The bit about there no longer being a pull toward something feels very familiar. I watched Sofia have a rough version of that in Birmingham after her QE placement became normal life - same bus down Bristol Road, same winter dark at 4pm, but none of the “new country” energy left.
What helped wasn’t a big plan, oddly. It was boring repeat anchors: the same Saturday coffee place in Moseley and a Spanish group where she didn’t have to re-introduce herself every week.
mcostante@reddit
That's Germany for you... for most people, anyway.
carnivorousdrew@reddit
Netherlands as well. Any cold grey country tbh. They suck the life out of you.
IntrepidMaybe8579@reddit
The desert does too …no nature around you or anything green and buildings made of sheet metal no nice architecture
carnivorousdrew@reddit
Idk Utah towns can be kind of nice. I'll take those over perpetual grey weather.
IntrepidMaybe8579@reddit
Well yeah same tbh and i prefer the desert too i like the open space and costant sun nowhere’s claustrophobic
aisling901@reddit
Very similar feeling, Netherlands. Maybe it's me not getting the local mentality and all, I feel like in a aquarium, or maybe it's getting more mature
Despite Netherlands not being my first abroad move, I never felt this country was for persons of my type, however I have no wish to blame it, it's gorgeous in its ways and is an ultimate destination for many. I have become more escapist for sure, and tend to surround myself with familiar content, therefore I have no desire to learn the language further and delve into the culture, it feels too foreign and distant and I feel burnt out and overwhelmed when trying. I have not figured out what to do yet, I feel like an alien amongst local people here.
amo-br@reddit
I lived 8 years abroad and made my mind I should go back to my home country. It turned out I felt largely at the same way after a while, and I now have the impression it's more about the state of the world at the moment and its implications to our mental health. I moved from grey Benelux to sunny Brazil, just so you get the point. I believe that whether long grey winters can hit one hard or not, it depends on one's overall life circumstances.
Someone else mentioned the hedonistic adaptation here, which I have the impression to have experienced it multiple times. So, my take now is to invest more in relationships and have more balanced/ordinary expectations of life while embracing it as it unfolds in front of me.
Desdeminica2142@reddit
Currently experiencing this exact feeling in Sweden.
allergicturtle@reddit
Going through same thing, also at 7 years and I am 37. I have been blaming Germany as a problem but maybe it's a mid life crisis. Shedding old identifies and accepting new normals. It feels like a grieving process.
LiveKindred@reddit
Travel is amazing because it allows you to experience so many ways of life, but sometimes this can create a sense of not having roots. And these roots aren’t just with a place or the culture or the people, we need roots with ourselves.
Sit with the bigger questions: what do you value in life? Not because you should but because it’s true to you? What feels meaningful? Only when you can answer that for yourself can you start to move towards it with intention. (And don’t be surprised if/when these answers change over time)
Try tracking your energy for 2 weeks. No analyzing until the end. Just write down (physically) when you felt energized and when you felt drained or numb.
It sounds like the river of your life is changing course. Follow it.
IncreaseGlum6213@reddit
This has nothing to do with living abroad, you’d feel this in your home country too. Welcome to existentialism
Time4fun2022@reddit
I'm still in home country. feel the same. so, idk
sybersam6@reddit
Sounds like low level depression & burnout. Make an appointment to see a psychiatrist, get on some stabilizing meds, review your life goals, get sun & a dog & rltake walks, go back home & touch grass. At least in Germany the health coverage should be good. It's depressing days for nany of us. You'll be fine.
restricteddata@reddit
I've sent this article to many friends who report the same thing at what I am guessing is around the same age you are. It is extremely common. The good news is: it passes.
Ermingardia@reddit
I think the problem is the endless loop of having to reinvent yourself. I've moved every other year for the past 12 years. Don't get me wrong, I love where I'm at in my life, but I think if I have to move houses again I'm simply going back to the family home and never leaving again.
Dismal-Action4270@reddit
Same here… been living in Ireland for quite some time and I can relate to everything you stated. But I value my life here, because I know that I can’t have this freedom back home in south Africa unfortunately, no matter how hard I try to justify the thought of ever returning.
C2H4Doublebond@reddit
You could be home sick too. Try going and back and you may be surprised how much more you come back to life.
Impossible-Snow5202@reddit
Are you moving toward something meaningful?
What were your goals for the last 7 years? Did you achieve them?
What are your goals for the next 7 years? What is your plan to achieve them?
I don't see anything in your post that is specific to life as an immigrant. It seems a lot more in line with, "Wherever you go, there you are."
Where do you want to be?
No-Echo-8927@reddit
Same here, Austria.
JA_UK@reddit
I understand quite well what you’re referring to and experienced something similar. Best advice I received and it worked for me?
Time little ways to re-engage and find connection with the basic things that you do. Then focus on the exchanges and relationships.
Don’t do the comparison thing, find the joy in the small stuff. Take time to reflect on your journey so far and how far you’ve come. There’s a lot more than you realise
Low_Stress_9180@reddit
How old are you? Mid life crisis? Or the New quarter life crisis. Nothing to do with being an expat probably. It's the rat race.
Could be over stimulation, I had a house mate like that, she had been an expat child, travelled all over, and just eventually found any travel boring so watched TV every night and never travelled.
Maybe see a psychologist?
squid_game_456@reddit
Is your emotion related to being expat? In other words, do you feel that given the same circumstances in your home country, your emotional state would be different?