Living Abroad (as a Coping Mechanism)

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I've been interested in this. In college, I'd get along with the foreign students more so than everyone else.

Very interesting posts. Glad I heard about this website.

After I graduate I want to get a job as an English teacher in South Korea. When I get to south Korea I'm thinking of starting a blog to give everyone else with AS tips on TEFL. For now, Im worried about living alone, shopping on noisy streets and being accepted despite not often having a clue what others are getting on about. But Im hoping that the extra privacy will give me time to focus on my interests (in Canada I'm packed in a home with 3 other family members who are always competing for sound space, and I never feel relaxed or focused). Plus Korean culture seems to have a lot of history that people are keeping alive and I want to experience that richness, that is very much lacking in life in Toronto. I hear that they recommend not teaching large classes if you have AS due to sensory overload, but Im going to challenge that by meditating on acceptance of stimuli and always reminding myself to think about my students perspective. I think after some getting used to it, I can become a good EFL teacher.

I have some experience living abroad. I lived in a small city south of Brussels for a year and a half with an ex, and commuted to school in Brussels every weekday. The culture had a lot of pros above Canadian culture. People seemed a lot more interested in their hobbies, which ranged from music to sports to board games, to computer programs. There are also set ways to do things, the order of eating food, of drinking, and even what types of dish towels to use.

On the otherhand, I felt frustrated most of the time feeling obliged to put up a face. But that happens everywhere. Also, the weather was appalling and getting vitamin D was a problem for someone with Indian roots. Lack of sun alone was enough after a few months to want to return to Canada. It gets cloudy here but nothing near to Belgium's chronic grayness. Plus the lack of diversity in Belgium made it hard to tell people apart on the streets and I was glad to come back to Toronto and see all kinds of faces.

I expect Sourh Korea to be better mostly because I'll be working and not studying! Can't wait to have some money to travel to Buddhist temples and roam around the country.

Guilty as charged here too...

Iceland is full of strange people and those with MRDDs, so Aspergers or Autism will not be out of the ordinary.

I literally moved across the world and I feel more at home now than I ever did. Even though I hate the country I live in now, I still feel more at home.

Just found this old post. I'm in the process of leaving the US and retiring in Ecuador. Sixteen days until my plane leaves!

I only figured out I was an Aspie @ a month ago, long after I decided to move. This is a little odd. I have no idea how to find other Aspies in a country where I barely speak the language, or whether to even try to find Aspies in the gringo community. Maybe I don't, just keep doing what I've been doing for the last 60+ years.

Anyhow, I'd love to hear from anyone else who has done this kind of move - where you went, how you adjusted, anything else.

I would love to live abroad but haven't the foggiest idea of how it's possible.

Where would I go?

Greece.

I fell in love with the country when I visited with my then fiance back in 2011. I loved the scenery, the people were very friendly and easy to talk to unlike here in England, I find. Society has become more hardened in recent years, at least from my point of view. It has it's good points but those are very few and far between nowadays.

And I am completely obsessed with Greek Mythology too.

Living abroad is such a big leap to take and I think my husband and I will never be brave enough to jump.

I've never traveled abroad except for a day or two in Canada with my family when I was little.

However, I live in what is now a very multi-cultural neighborhood, with immigrants from all over the world, and with no one dominant ethnic group.

Living in such a neighborhood has some of the same advantages attributed in this thread to moving to a foreign country, and would probably be much easier for many of us.

Definitely. I haven't lived in my own country for 18 years. Feeling like and being regarded as a weird resident alien in a foreign country is better than feeling like and being regarded that way in one's own country.

Would be nice honestly but such things aren't possible for me