- Niesha Davis is a writer currently living in Thailand; you can keep up with her here.
- She's been living outside of the US for five consecutive years now, but when she first moved abroad to South Korea, she found her mental health faltering.
- Her depression and anxiety were exacerbated, and this continued even after a move to a new job in Shanghai.
- She started engaging in more self-care, used online therapy services, created a medication plan, and actively sought out community.
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I was first bitten by the international travel bug at age 21, when I went to study abroad at The University of Amsterdam. I loved traveling around Europe, experiencing new-to-me cultures, and having the ability to soothe my depression and anxiety with legal, high-quality weed.
I loved the anonymity that life in Amsterdam provided me. Being immersed in a different culture gave me freedom and license to not only enjoy new experiences but life there gave me an opportunity to see life from other people's perspective. As a person who is always striving to learn, I knew that if I wanted to gain as much knowledge as I can about the world, travel needed to play a big part in my life.
Nearly two years after graduating from undergrad, I decided it was time to leave America again. In the end I decided on a "gap year" of sorts teaching English abroad. After a few months of applying, I landed a job teaching primary school kids at an English language camp in Daegu in South Korea.
Almost immediately things started to go south, and I felt totally overwhelmed. There was no real training for my job, which made me very anxious as a first-time teacher. I had also underestimated the stress of living on campus - in the mountains - surrounded by a revolving door of new Korean kids to get to know each week. Besides work and life issues, adjusting to a culture so different than the Western one I was used to was also daunting. I had always dealt with depression and anxiety, but being so far out of my element sent me into even more of a tailspin.
The following year I moved to Shanghai, thinking that a better job in a more metropolitan city would be the answer to my struggles. Spoiler alert: It wasn't. It would take a few more years of crippling depression before I finally took control of my life and started making the changes I needed to thrive in the lifestyle I chose. Here's what I do now to take care of my mental wellness while living outside of the US.