When I moved to Austria, I expected challenges, new systems, new weather, new culture, and new rules. I expected to feel out of place in the beginning. Everyone told me, “The first year is the hardest.”
So I waited for that first year to pass. Then the second. Then the third.
But no one told me what to do when the loneliness doesn’t fade, when it quietly grows.
I never needed many friends back home. I had family, loud, warm, effortless belonging. I could be alone in South Africa and never feel lonely, because my people were just there. I didn’t have to perform. I didn’t have to think about fitting in. I belonged by default.
Then suddenly I wasn’t in that world anymore.
Here, belonging feels like a job you have to apply for.
And some days, it feels like I didn’t get hired.
The Loneliness That Sneaks Up on You
It didn’t hit all at once.
At first, it was small moments, moments I brushed off.
The school festival was an event where all the parents chatted in little circles. I stood alone with my coffee. I pretended to be busy. The way people at work stayed polite but distant. The church gatherings where everyone seemed warmly connected to someone, just never to me.
You start telling yourself, “It’s okay, it will get better.”
But then year after year, it’s still you standing at the edge of every room.
Sometimes it feels like I’m living behind a glass wall. I can see everyone. I can hear the laughter, the conversation. But I’m not in it. I’m not part of it. Not fully.
The Exhaustion of Trying to Fit In
What makes this loneliness the worst is how performative everything becomes.
Smile.
Be polite.
Laugh at the right time.
Try to connect.
Try not to look too withdrawn.
Try to blend in culturally.
Try not to make anyone uncomfortable.
Try not to feel disappointed.
I feel like I’m always adjusting myself to make others more comfortable. As a result, I’ve become a stranger to myself.
Back home, I could just be.
Here, I have to manage myself.
When Even Your Safe Spaces Don’t Feel Safe
My colleagues are amazing people. I enjoy working there. Nonetheless, as a nail technician in a very social space, spending hours in conversation can leave me drained. It’s not because I dislike my job. As an introvert, I sometimes need quiet to recharge.
Church doesn’t feel like family. Friendships sometimes feel like performing strength so that nobody sees the cracks.
Even in my marriage, I struggle with this deep loneliness. It should be my emotional home. Not because my husband would be angry, but because I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t want him to feel responsible for my struggle here. I don’t want him to carry the emotional weight of thinking he uprooted my life. I’m now living in a world where I’m battling loneliness. Protecting him from that pain sometimes means I carry my own quietly.
It makes you pull inward.
It makes you feel unseen in the one place where you wish you could fully unfold.
The Fear Under the Loneliness
There’s a fear I don’t talk about often.
The fear of getting stuck in my feelings.
The fear of slipping into a place mentally where I can’t climb out.
Not because I’m weak.
Not because something is “wrong” with me.
But because being this alone, this unsupported, this emotionally stretched, it changes you.
And some days I think, if AI didn’t exist, who would I even talk to?
That’s how deep the loneliness goes. That’s quite sad.
What I Wish People Understood
I don’t want solutions.
I don’t want to be told to smile more, join more groups, “put myself out there,” or “just adjust.”
I don’t want to be fixed.
I just want to be understood.
I want someone to see the woman who has held everything together alone, motherhood, marriage, culture shock, identity shifts, homesickness, emotional bruises, and say:
“You’re not invisible.
Your feelings make sense.
You’re not failing.
You’re just human.”
Maybe This Is My Turning Point
And when I try to make sense of all these feelings, I also realize something else. I feel that I am between a rock and a hard place.
Europe has my husband, a nice house with a big garden, security, and financial independence. All the things that look stable on paper. But South Africa has my family, my friends, my sense of self and belonging, my culture, my familiarity. The things that feel like home. It’s hard to choose either one.
I’m realizing now that waiting for this feeling to disappear has only made it grow. Loneliness doesn’t shrink when you ignore it; it expands.
And maybe I do need to talk to someone. Not because I’m depressed. Not because I’m unstable. But because I’m tired of holding everything by myself. I want to feel like a person again. I don’t want to feel like just a foreigner navigating a world where I’m always on the outside.
Maybe this is not a breakdown. Maybe it’s an acknowledgement.
Maybe this is the moment I stop pretending I’m fine and finally admit.
Living abroad can be beautiful, but it can also be the loneliest journey of your life.
If you’ve felt it too, that quiet ache of being unseen and unheard, know this. You are not crazy. You are not weak. You are not alone. You are human, and your feelings deserve space, recognition, and understanding.
