Psyched With Dr. D: How to Make Relocating Less Stressful

Speaker 2:                           01:54                     And I was like, it's only three years. We'll finish the contract and come back. And it's been 14 years. They passed the five year mark in Kuwait. I truly believe if you go past five years, that's it. You're a lifer. It's true way like it's embedded. A lot of people love living here. I mean they have so many, it's easy. It is x and then it's really easy and you get comfortable for it with a certain lifestyle. Right? So here the three years I was supposed to stay in go and it's like, to me it's like it's automatic and I've covered another three years and another three years. So somehow being here wasn't as bad as I thought was going to be. And most of the time it's an easy life here. You already have people helping you all the time, you know, you make good money, it's easy to have like a nanny and do your own wash.

Speaker 2:                           02:39                     You don't have to do anything. That's true and you don't. And some nannies even cook and they can, you know, prepare at least the lifestyle is easy. You make good money, you start to get accustomed to certain things that you would do here that you probably don't do in the u s or anywhere else that you've come. Relocating comes with its own stress. 100 we have, we can't deny the fact and being an expat myself and also working with other ex bads is that when you first relocate, there are so many variables that you have to keep in mind and it's also possibility of getting stress and depression and especially if you've never done it before. Like for me, I came back here but I was born here a long time ago. Of course I don't remember it, but still somehow coming back here was a little bit that felt like there was roots for me.

Speaker 2:                           03:27                     You know, I always admired like Americans and Canadians [inaudible] all over the world. They come here and they'll, I mean at least I speak Arabic, like there's other people that don't speak Arabic. So it must be terrifying to be able to come to this part of the world and not know what to expect. Especially when you leave your family behind. Like the biggest thing for us, we all come here, we don't have family, we've left them behind. We've loved our friends, our roots. We've left the streets that we know in the, you know, everything is familial and, and now we're in a new place. We don't even know where we're going to live. What are we going to do? How are we gonna like our friends? So relocation is very important, especially for people.

Speaker 1:                           04:05                     Can you think it's really tough for college students even when you're a college student in the states and then you&

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

The project pride, Kuwait Clark Lit. Are you relocating? If you are relocating, you want to know what it feels like to be a person that evolved. I was someone that relocated 14 years ago. And also sometimes like there's some people that really go extreme stress when they're relocating. Is that normal? Not Normal. What should you do? How to prepare yourself. This is the show for you so you can always, you know, listen to this show and it's some support. And if you're young and you relocate after college, we also give some tidbits on that's when you can do coming back. And how long depression should last. Yes. Situational discontinuation or depression. We're not talking about clinical depression. Yes. So sit back, relax, enjoy this episode. And for ex-pats. Dr d talks about all the resources you can find Kuwait and the benefits of moving over to Kuwait. Many who would've thought[inaudible] not as bad as you're saying. Sounded so cheesy. I should. Why do you, let me say stuff like that, but don't sit back. Enjoy this episode guys. And uh, shoot us a message. If you have any questions. All this add boring today's episode. So it's peak peak

Speaker 2: 1:12

time. All right. In the Middle East right now, this is when all these teachers are coming into quartz fade, June, August. You know what? They're all googling what to expect and I can tell you right now, you guys are screwed. You guys can expect depression,[inaudible] Chile dust storms. That's dumb. That's true. Keep it. The thing is is that you know, all of you know, I'm an expat. I came in 2005 do you know when I came here, of course I came through the university and and there was like, my contract was three years and then I was like, you know, at that time, you know with my husband, I said to him, look, we can just go on. My son was only five months old and then we thought, you know what, we better do it before they're teenager cause it's hard to relocate them when they're teenagers. And I was like, it's only three years. We'll finish the contract and come back. And it's been 14 years. They passed the five year mark in Kuwait. I truly believe if you go past five years, that's it. You're a lifer. It's true way like it's embedded. A lot of people love living here. I mean they have so many, it's easy. It is x and then it's really easy and you get comfortable for it with a certain lifestyle. Right? So here the three years I was supposed to stay in go and it's like, to me it's like it's automatic and I've covered another three years and another three years. So somehow being here wasn't as bad as I thought was going to be. And most of the time it's an easy life here. You already have people helping you all the time, you know, you make good money, it's easy to have like a nanny and do your own wash. You don't have to do anything. That's true and you don't. And some nannies even cook and they can, you know, prepare at least the lifestyle is easy. You make good money, you start to get accustomed to certain things that you would do here that you probably don't do in the u s or anywhere else that you've come. Relocating comes with its own stress. 100 we have, we can't deny the fact and being an expat myself and also working with other ex bads is that when you first relocate, there are so many variables that you have to keep in mind and it's also possibility of getting stress and depression and especially if you've never done it before. Like for me, I came back here but I was born here a long time ago. Of course I don't remember it, but still somehow coming back here was a little bit that felt like there was roots for me. You know, I always admired like Americans and Canadians[inaudible] all over the world. They come here and they'll, I mean at least I speak Arabic, like there's other people that don't speak Arabic. So it must be terrifying to be able to come to this part of the world and not know what to expect. Especially when you leave your family behind. Like the biggest thing for us, we all come here, we don't have family, we've left them behind. We've loved our friends, our roots. We've left the streets that we know in the, you know, everything is familial and, and now we're in a new place. We don't even know where we're going to live. What are we going to do? How are we gonna like our friends? So relocation is very important, especially for people.

Speaker 1: 4:05

Can you think it's really tough for college students even when you're a college student in the states and then you come back to Kuwait and I joke around, every student that I meet that comes and moves back here, I'm always like, so do you have the a three month depression? There are like four month depression cause it's a real thing. I came back from the states and this was in 2005 of course my brother had just died also. So it was like a double whammy. And I get back here and it's like my entire life is different. I can't go outside during the summer because it's hot as hell. You know, you saw yeah, no one's going to relocate and then you can't really walk outside because you know, again, it's hot. There are no sidewalks. It doesn't promote walking outside. And all I had then was the gym, you know, the gym was like the gym was all I had. It was literally I'd go out for an hour and this was before university, so it sucked even more. Whereas in the states there's so much going on, you can go to a park, you could go do this, you could go do that. And here it was such a depressing feeling because even I couldn't even work, you know, in the states, if you're in between jobs, you can get a job at like seven 11 or whatever and get away with it, you know what I mean? Or in my case landscaping or whatnot. But here you couldn't, I couldn't do that. They were like, Oh, you need a college college education. And I was like, what? So I can't be a salesman. And my dad was like, are you an idiot? Like, you know? And I was like, well, I just lived in the states. I, yeah, I worked at Party city for Christ sake. You know, like I was selling Halloween costumes and, but you know, we're not used to at your age, go into most of these places are, and we talked about this in a previous episode about boredom and I got bored and because there was nothing else to do and I couldn't work. And I think most people shouldn't be working 100% if you're a teenager, I strongly working because it teaches you a lot of life stories then you can, yeah.

Speaker 2: 6:00

So your CV and you know, even volunteering would be good to stay out of boredom because if you're bored, you're gonna Watch TV, you're gonna be gaming, you know, so at the best and you are accumulating.

Speaker 1: 6:09

Yeah. That sense of depression though. Like it was a gut feeling. It's, yeah, it really sucked until I got into university. And even then, it was still there until I'd say like, till I met my friends and got that close circle of friends. And even then, I didn't feel like I was a part of society because I had lived abroad for seven years and most of my friends were Americans. And we're talking legit Americans, townies, you know, hockey players, baseball players. Even me, I play baseball. So yeah, it was so weird. And even until this day, it's hard for me to relate with some guys in Kuwait because it's on a different level and you're going to hate this. It's on a more masculine level, you know what I mean? Like the masculine. Yeah. It's like I thought you were more feminine. I mean not feminine. You early on to women's rights and so are we putting social constructs out? No, I'm married to a feminist. I am a feminist. I support women and I support like these gender constructs that we have and we don't have. But I am also a realist and I'm the type of guy where I'll horse around, friends punching, whatever. And it didn't really exist with my circle when I came from the states. So it was like, alright.

Speaker 2: 7:24

But you know, the thing is is that I think you're making a good point. You know, when we're talking about people relocating this very important that they know what they're good at with this skill. One of the thing I remember when you were a student is that cause you'll play baseball and then you also trained, I remember you used to be a coach, right? Yes. So I think the ideas is that, so in order for it, you know, so you came and of course you came under different circumstances. You had to come back. I mean for you, you, you were a baseball coach. So it kind of like knew what your hobbies were and then you knew where you love was and then when you relocate you obviously came under different circumstances. Your brother had died and you needed to come back. So it's not by choice. And maybe there are people that are relocating that didn't come by choice because they need to relocate in their company, send them here. But the majority of the people I know for example, they do come here by choice because they need the job and they're relocating for their job. So I always recommend, you know, for you, for example, getting into baseball, meeting people in baseball, although you know you're, you're half Kuwaiti, the ideas is that you recognize more of your American way. So you weren't the typical guy that just went to[inaudible] is like they do here and you realize that you're much more comfortable with the Westerners for example. So you immersed yourself in like a baseball team or

Speaker 1: 8:39

it wasn't, but it wasn't really like immersing myself with Western is that comfort zone of playing the sport like that. I just really, I grew up playing sports. Yes.

Speaker 2: 8:49

Relief. See when people relocate, I truly recommend that they find what they are comfortable, you know? So if you're, if you're into sports, so when you want to, I mean nowadays it's easy. Back in the days when we used to relocate, you know, we didn't have this access. So we either dependent on the company to give us somebody that we can ask for things or we used to, you know, usually the man would come because if it's his job and then he come, he gets secures everything, a place to live, whatever until the wife comes by. Then he has learned a little bit about the environment. I mean, thank God Kuwait is a small place so you don't have no need to know a lot of the, you know, the intra infrastructure. At least we have Google now. My best friend is Google map, but even my best friends Google map, because you can put back in the days, it's like, think about it. People came to this country and didn't really have a lot of information or about them or they've heard all these horror stories. It's hard. You're going to hate yourself because you know there's a lot and then they find out all the negative or women have to be, I love the way whenever I go back home, they're like, is it true? Women have to be covered. No, women don't have to be covered. How do you cover it? In that hot heat, for example. That's not true. So you know, when you're relocating and you've heard these things, or you've watched movies that are like portraying, you know, Arabs that are like, we're all riding on camel, I can't believe it's 21 century. And people still make comments like, do you really have a car? Are you really, you know, draw riding a camel? Like are you living in the desert? We don't live in the desert. And so these stereotypes makes it more scary to relocate in this part of the world. And then when people come here, they're, they're filled of these labels, you know, oh no, I have to wear something more conservative. I have to, I have to cover up. No, I have to live with only American now when you're moving with an American family or if you're with the embassy or whatever, maybe that, you know, they provide these services where you are. It's a lot easier for like the embassies of course. But it's also becoming easier. I mean, I know with our university for example, they age are, you know, sends you all the information you need. They send you links now to look up. They also, I mean now a UK for example, has housing back in those days when you were there. We didn't. So when I moved, for example, they had a state at a, at a place or like a furnished, uh, whatever accommodation for a month. And then within that month we had to go walk around and find an apartment. We have to furnish it in and now it's easier. They never get you like a place to stay. No, and I mean they gave us a place to stay, but it was just temporary until you find your apartment. So we have to go walk around trying to find where the places, trying to get an a, you know, a place, a car to rent, but then they, you know, they tried to help you, whatever. But now it's like company that even the university is much more equipped. So now they can send you links to places. And if you look like Facebook for example, has these like websites, like expats in Kuwait, uh, you know, uh, sales people that are selling their stuff. If they're leaving something or have it in Kuwait. So there's all these like resources that you can get in touch with and you can ask questions like, you know, I have one or two, I can't remember what they're called.[inaudible] garage sale in Kuwait. I don't know all these websites. Now we also have live in Kuwait. Living Kuwait is like tells you all the things you can do back in the days they didn't have. So now what you do is is that you can ask a question like where can I get a formula for my kid? If you're coming with an infant, anyone selling a lot of their stuff, you can buy it, you know, use stuff. Or they'll say like, where can I go for a doctor? Definitely like pair families that have kids. They are much more stressed because now they got to change doctors. They get to change. I work in, you go for like emergency, what hospitals are good hospital to use, what schools? I should all these, even though the company might have these answers and now a lot of companies have pockets like a relocation pack. If they, you know, with information, but it's so easy now and I think it's like, and it's much easier for people that have relocated and other places I find less depression happens with people that have relocated before because they just know like, it's like people in the embassies, for example, they've relocated every two or three years, so they got used to and the embassies gives them a lot of support. This, our embassy does, they a, you know, a lot of, but then if you've never relocated, it's going to be harder for you. So expect that you might be able like having a situational depression. How could you deal with situational depression? I mean from relocation, Sophia from relocation, you know, so that's what it is. It's like you try to, if you, you know, some people just their personality, they're not flexible, right? They worry about going somewhere where they don't know anyone, which is a lot of us worry about it. Then if they're not social, then they worry about not having that personality to me. So the first thing you want to do is for me, I feel like you need to go online and get all the resources you can about groups that you can belong to. In Facebook you definitely can do that. So Facebook is like saying I'm moving to Kuwait, what should I do? Have all these questions. People answer you all the time. Then what do you do is that you know, trying to be able to, when you come and trying to connect to your kid's school if your kids are going to school or do some stuff with the husband's work. Like for example, if your husband's working at this company and he, you know, meet someone and his wife is also staying at home. Another colleague for example, try to get the wives to connect. Anything like this will help. Now definitely if the wife can, it would be nice to work but sometimes it's very hard here because if she doesn't have a, you know, she's not dependent with her job, then she can't drive. But still like with kids, I know a lot of parents, like you know, moms have connected to other moms at school and then they can make a lot of more of their connection that way. Definitely you can isolate yourself. You can't have that mentality of like every, I hate this place. It's too hard. Can look at the negative. As long as you continue to look at the negative, you're not going to adapt very well. That makes sense. I mean, if you stay positive about your relocation, it's the best way that you're going to deal with it and yes, and it's not from looking from the bright side. You're going somewhere. Especially if you're coming to court, you're coming here to make money. To be realistic. If you're an expert, stop complaining. Right? You come here, you make your money. I knew a guy that took the bus everywhere. Yeah. It was like a teacher, you know, Canadian teacher. How do you take the bus? I found it so weird. Yeah, because then people can afford to rent the car. You can afford to buy a car with your salary. You know? Most of these people he's meeting on the bus. That's true. That would be cool. You know what, that'd be cool man. Like meeting all the characters that like on the buses, that would be hard to imagine. But also this really connect, you know, makes you like teachers at school. Then you know, the first thing they do is do orientation. Then you meet other teachers like yourself that just came or their teachers. I've been here, you know, use your resources from the company that you've come with, meeting a lot of other colleagues like you, you know, helps you finding locals. I don't understand. There are so many people that have lived here for a couple of years, still haven't met any great join a gym. You're just going to say join us like baseball. I mean, um, you know Tad, right? Yeah. Tad like I got them into me, Carol, Carol did softball, softball, that's fine. But I mean tests, you know, he did a lot of baseball. He met a lot of people through this fall and it's really easy to meet people through the commonalities that you can find with certain circles. Right? Because it's not like America now when you go to Chicago, like for example, if you're in Chicago, you moved to New York, whatever, you know, you can go to these like a clubs or whatever to meet people. The ideas is, I hear people are like, what am I going to meet other people? But it's not true. We have so many access now to meet people. It's not as bad as it was 10 or 15 years ago when we didn't have all these planets. It's what are you looking for? If you're looking to party, then it's simple. Yeah. And every two weeks that's right. You know what I mean? Like, Oh yeah, you're right about the positive location. You can travel and we can afford it. I mean look like I was your dude. Is that okay? Yeah, because you're saying you're so sexist, but it's all right. I take it from here. I mean to really, to go back to the point now I really thought about is like, you know, there are places I have visited because I live here and I can afford and there are in proximity like[inaudible] India. Think about all things. Yeah, I mean, and so if you're going to continue saying, I hate living here, like I have a colleague[inaudible] and his wife never wants to come here. He just cannot adapt to Kuwait. A because she doesn't really speak good English or Arabic. So the ideas is that she gets born and she's staying at home. He's tried so many times connecting or because now we have all these connection to these different groups, different embassies. They also have different resources. Now we have council groups, you know, like the American counseling. Oh, scores. That's really cool. I mean, and I tell people always connect the American business. There's a Canadian business, there's, I don't know what these people, when you go, they have brunches, they have events. It has really helped me meet so many people by being in these, in these kinds of, and then one person, you meet another person, they invite you over and it's just get started. And then you just got, oh, we have an open mind. Remember your purpose of why you come here. Serious low. 100% you're right.

Speaker 1: 17:50

The depression is normal. Please. I want people to understand relocation. Depression for some people comes with it, it's normal, but if it stays longer than three months and you're finding yourself losing interest in a lot of things can sleep, your weight has gained or lost, you know when you have all these symptoms of depression, please make sure that you seek out support or help. Go Call Dr d, call Dr d or send me a message if you're not really sure that is this relocation. I might just, you know, sometimes people don't know is it this or is it that Dr DTM, you know, and yeah, she'll get back to me if you want a friendly conversation or if you want to find a like a baseball resource or a cross. That's true. That's right. But that's another thing for trainers. Like I realize a lot of trainers that I've met, it's pretty easy for them to acclimate because they'll go into their gym environment, they'll go into meeting new trainers and you know, getting involved, specially crossfitters they have like their egotistical community. People aren't going to like the testicles, but I think we should edit it on that testicle. Is that, is that even a word? No, not really, but it's okay. You can do whatever you want. I can, yeah, of course. Because you're a man. Can I be my son's best friend? You guys will know what I'm talking about. Previously, if you was doing one of our previous episodes, they leave me. I am saving you effort and time. Do not. You don't need to be his best friend. Being his dad is enough. Hey, listen to our previous episode and you will totally get this argument in that case, DMS, and if you're a new teacher coming to Kuwait or even someone that's relocating entirely, don't be afraid to DMD doctor me,[inaudible] or[inaudible]. Yes, definitely. Thanks guys. Thanks for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please head over to iTunes to subscribe rate and leave a review. You can also find us on Instagram at the Project Kuwait. Thank you. And join us next time.