The Anger Beneath the Stress of Living Abroad: Protecting Your Peace in an Imperfect World
- Locus of Life
- Jun 26
- 5 min read
Living abroad stress can sometimes build quietly in the background for months
before we even notice it.
This week, however, it arrived all at once.
I found myself feeling unusually angry.
I'm not someone who typically shows anger very openly.
More often, I tend to tell myself, "Never mind," or assume
that the other person probably has their own difficulties and pressures.
After more than twenty years of living in the UK,
I've also become used to things that might once have frustrated me.
Situations that would have felt shocking years ago are often met with a quiet shrug
and a "That's just how things are."
But this week was different.
Three separate situations happened one after another.
And for perhaps the first time in a long while, my patience wore thin.
A Week When Everything Seemed to Go Wrong
My son's orthodontic treatment had already involved months of waiting.
Eventually, I discovered that important information had not been properly shared
between the hospital and the dental practice,
and the X-rays had never reached the people who needed them.
In the end, I found myself acting as the go-between,
trying to work out what had happened.
No one seemed to know the full situation.
No one appeared willing to take responsibility.
And no one apologised.
I felt deeply frustrated.
Around the same time, I was waiting for documents from my credit card company.
After several follow-up calls,
I eventually discovered that the request had not been processed correctly.
Then there was my son's mobile phone provider.
A promised action had never been carried out,
and as a result, his phone line was suddenly suspended.
Of course, mistakes happen.
I've made mistakes myself.
What upset me wasn't simply that errors had occurred.
It was the lack of ownership.
The lack of accountability.
The sense that people could inconvenience others
without seeming particularly concerned about the consequences.
That was what I struggled with most.
"This Would Never Happen Back Home"
Throughout the week, one thought kept appearing in my mind:
"This would never happen back home."
Of course, that's not entirely true.
Mistakes happen everywhere.
No country is perfect.
And honestly, compared to many parts of the world, life in the UK is often very good.
Yet when people don't communicate with each other,
when promises disappear into the system,
and when nothing moves forward unless you personally chase it,
I still occasionally find myself thinking those words.
Even after all these years.
Realising I Was Always Chasing Something
A few days later, another thought surfaced.
Perhaps this wasn't just about this week.
Perhaps I had been chasing things for a very long time.
Life overseas
Parenting
School communication
Healthcare appointments
Administrative tasks
If I didn't keep things moving, they often seemed to stop altogether.
Somewhere along the way,
constantly checking,
managing,
organising,
and following up had become normal.
So normal that I hardly noticed how much energy it required.
My Partner's Perspective
My partner listened patiently and then said something simple:
"I understand why you're upset. But it's a shame to spend so much of your energy on this."
Part of me knew he was right.
My anger wasn't going to make the X-rays arrive faster.
It wasn't going to restore the phone line immediately.
For my own wellbeing, perhaps it would be easier to let some of it go.
But another part of me resisted.
A question kept returning:
"But is this really okay?"
"If everyone simply accepts it, doesn't nothing ever change?"
What the Stress of Living Abroad Was Really Showing Me
The more I reflected, the more I realised that my anger wasn't really about inconvenience.
It was about values.
I believe people should keep their promises.
I believe responsibility matters.
I believe we should try not to make life unnecessarily difficult for one another.
Those beliefs haven't changed.
And perhaps they never will.
What has changed is the question I'm asking.
These days, I'm less interested in asking:
"How do we eliminate unfairness from the world?"
And more interested in asking:
"How do I protect my peace in a world that will never be entirely fair?"
Because the truth is that unfairness exists.
People make mistakes.
Some people avoid responsibility.
And sometimes, the people who care most end up carrying the heaviest emotional load.
I still feel angry when I encounter these situations.
I haven't become endlessly patient or completely detached.
When something feels wrong, I still think:
"That isn't right."
But I have started wondering something else.
How long do I want to live inside that anger?
Because if I allow every disappointment, every act of carelessness,
and every unfair situation to take up permanent residence in my mind,
then the person who suffers most is ultimately me.
Perhaps speaking up and protecting my peace are not opposites.
Perhaps both matter.
I don't have the answer.
I'm still figuring it out.
But these days, I'm trying to focus less on changing the world
and more on protecting my own sense of steadiness within it.
I used to think that feeling angry meant I wasn't coping very well.
That if I were wiser, calmer, or more mature, these things simply wouldn't affect me.
Now I'm not so sure.
Maybe the goal isn't to stop feeling anger.
Maybe the goal is learning how to live alongside it without allowing it to take over our lives.
I still want to care.
I still want to believe responsibility matters.
But I also want to protect my own peace.
Finding that balance is something I'm still learning.
And perhaps that is not only a challenge of living abroad.
Perhaps it is part of being human.
🌿 A Small Step for You: Free 30-Minute Online Session
Living abroad can bring challenges that are difficult to explain to others.
Sometimes it isn't the problem itself that exhausts us.
It's the constant responsibility of carrying it, managing it, and dealing with it alone.
When anger shows up, there is often something else underneath it.
• Disappointment
• Sadness
• Exhaustion
• Or perhaps a longing to feel safe again
At Locus of Life,
I offer a calm and supportive space for people living abroad
to explore loneliness, stress, relationships, identity, and emotional wellbeing.
You don't need to have everything figured out.
You don't need to explain things perfectly.
And it doesn't have to be a major crisis.
Many people living abroad carry things on their own for far longer than they need to.
Perhaps this can simply be a place to pause.
A place to talk.
A place to feel heard.
Perhaps the world won't always be fair.
But you don't have to carry that weight entirely on your own.
🔽 Book your free 30-minute online session here
If you'd simply like to get a sense of the space first, that's absolutely okay too.
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