Mental health support as an expat — is anyone else struggling more than they expected?

Thank you for posting this — it's more common than the quiet around it suggests, and you're not overreacting to something small. The site has a dedicated mental health resources section with country-specific support options, worth a look if you haven't already. And please don't wait until it feels like an emergency to reach out for support, professional or otherwise — earlier is always easier than later here.

Freelancing and isolated too, and this really resonates. A recurring weekly group — not even mental-health-specific, just a regular activity with the same faces — helped more than I expected going in.

From an older-generation perspective: I almost didn’t post something like this myself, years ago, and I wish I had sooner. Glad you did.

Sending support, this is a really honest post, thank you for writing it.

Therapy in my own language over video call, rather than trying to find someone local in person, worked well for me specifically. Might be worth looking into if the language barrier is part of what’s making it harder.

Following, no advice, just solidarity.

OP here — genuinely thank you all. The video-therapy-in-my-own-language suggestion hadn’t occurred to me at all and I’m going to look into it properly.

This took courage to post, thank you.

What helped me was making one non-negotiable social commitment a week, even while freelancing solo — a class, a club, anything with fixed people and a fixed time. Removed the need to constantly decide whether to bother.

Small update: tried the video therapy route this week. Too early to say much, but glad I finally looked into it instead of putting it off further.