Identity and belonging
When someone asks me where I am from, I never know how to reply and I was reminded of this the other day….
I recently started playing tennis again and as with most groups we had to go round the circle, say our name and where we are from. Now for most of you reading this, you’d find this relatively straight forward and think that really isn’t a big deal. But for me, I started to think ‘what on earth am I going to say?’ This was not a new feeling. I have felt it many times throughout my life with different intensities and different feelings. I wasn’t in a panic, but as people introduced themselves around the circle, it was all very straight forward; their name and their country. Finally, it was my turn and I thought ‘can I really be bothered to say the whole story?’ So I just said ‘my name is Gaby and I live in Greenwich.’ If you know me well, you will know why this is such a predicament and you will also know I did not answer the question! What do I say? Do I say where I was born? Do I state where I grew up? Do I talk about the multiple backgrounds I come from? You see, the problem is, I am what is called a TCK or Third Culture Kid.
If you are a fellow TCK, you will feel my pain. We are citizens of everywhere and nowhere. Finding where we belong is hard. The term TCK was coined in the 50’s and came about to describe children that spend their formative years in a country that is not their parent’s homeland. In my case, I was born in the UK (my parents were in between here and Kenya at that time) but swaddled into a blanket and taken back to Kenya at 6 weeks. I was raised in Kenya by my mother (Seychellois) and father (English). To make matters even more confusing, my mother isn’t even fully Seychellois (she is also half Pakistani). And even more confusing, my sister and I look very different, something that puzzled many people. Although not unusual in the Seychelles, we were different complexions, I have straight hair, she has curly hair, I have blue eyes and she has brown. People were always so puzzled. I would get the questions ‘why don’t you tan as much as your sister'?’ and ‘how come you don’t look as exotic’. At some point, we did the ancestral tree for the Seychellois side and discovered there was a real mix of French, Indian and Madagascan blood. My grandmother was one of 7 and they were all different hues with different types of hair. It just was not unusual for them. However, as I became more aware, I started to get more nervous about being asked ‘where are you from?’ and I also started to get confused. I started to I feel I could never be enough for any of the three main countries where I felt connection.
The first time my identity became a burden for me and my being was when I started a new high school. I was one of the only kids in the school with who looked more caucasian - and so I stood out. I had always been at very mixed schools and didn’t really think it was a problem until someone said to me ‘but why are you here? Shouldn’t you be at the american school?’ Now the american school was a lot more expensive and I didn’t want to go there and to be perfectly honest with you I felt I belonged at this new school! It was then that it dawned on me that I couldn’t really figure out where I fit in. My mum said to me at that time ‘don’t worry when you go to university in England, you will just blend in and it will be easy.’
This wasn’t the case! I wasn’t English enough to fit in with the english students. I even remember suffering extreme culture shock when I first came to the UK. Apart from very few family visits, I had no understanding or appreciation of the culture here! I remember very vividly one evening at the end of my first semester begging my mother to let me come ‘home’. My late teens and early twenties were a truly confusing time. I always felt this sense of stress and anxiety….especially when someone would ask me where I was from.
As time has gone by, if someone really gets to know me, I will proudly say ‘well I was brought up in Nairobi, Kenya, my mother is from the seychelles and my father is english.’ Other TCK’s get it and people who are well travelled or from multicultural backgrounds can usually spot the 'strange accent’ I have or the facial features. I do think of myself as a bit of a chameleon, and generally, I can get on with most people and cultures. I know it enhances my understanding of my patients and helps me be a better practitioner.
Being at ease with who you are is so important because it can create stress in the body. I think that is part of the reason why I developed a thyroid issue in my early twenties because I was always scared to speak my truth and always worried about what people would think. Now I don’t care as much, but I still freeze when put on the spot - mainly because I don’t want to answer so many questions. I am still trying to figure out how this affects my being, but with time, spiritual practice and even astrology, I have come to understand it is part of my destiny. Mostly, I realise I cannot carry it as a burden anymore and those who want to get to know me and understand all the facets of my being will.