The Geographic Cure: Why Moving Abroad Unmasked My Trauma

I traveled 10,000 miles from home, only to realize the destination was within.

I was forty-six, a year into my life as a divorcee, standing in a neon-soaked bar in the center of Bangkok. It was New Year’s Eve, and I was determined not to be alone.

Around me, the air was thick with the scent of street food and the frantic energy of people chasing a “good time.” It was an open bar, the humid air from outside flooded the overly bright space. Even after all this time, I wasn’t used to the heat, the never-ending heat. My hair was already sticking to my forehead, and I regretted wearing heels, but I am vain, and even in the tropics, I will stay that way.

It was a “digital nomad” gathering, mostly Westerners fortunate enough to work for themselves or stay remote. I was a decade older than the rest on average, but I didn’t care. I was doing it! On paper, I had achieved the “Geographic Cure.”

As a Dutch-Korean adoptee, I had spent a lifetime feeling like a glitch in the matrix, the only Asian face at a Dutch dinner table. Growing up in a small, white, religious village, the contrast was constant. But here in Bangkok, I saw girls my height: cute and fashionable, I felt a sense of relief I never had in Europe. As long as I didn’t say anything, I was “home” here in Asia, where I was born.

Discrimination was something I was used to back in the Netherlands. I still remember riding my bike to work when a man passed me and

hissed, “Hee, psst… China!”

I told myself that moving to Asia was about “roots.” I thought if I could just find a place where I blended into the crowd, the hyper-vigilance I’d carried since childhood would finally go quiet. Standing there, surrounded by fellow Asian women, no one knew I was part of the nomad group. With my Korean looks, there was nothing to deny.

As the evening progressed, I started talking to a girl who looked as uncomfortable as I felt. She wasn’t local, but from a neighboring country.

“Where are you from?” she asked.“I’m Dutch,” I replied.

A long pause followed. She looked at me, confused. “But you can’t be Dutch. You’re not white.”

I had traveled thousands of miles to escape the feeling of being a stranger, only to have my identity erased by a stranger in a bar. For her, it was just a casual sentence; for me, it was my core wound: I don’t see you.

It was a different kind of trap. In the Netherlands, I was ‘too Asian’ to be Dutch. But in Asia, it was the opposite. People didn’t believe I was European; they just saw my Western manners and assumed I was being ‘posh’ or a ‘wanna-be.’ They didn’t see my history; they just saw a version of me they didn’t like. I had traveled halfway across the world to finally fit in, only to be judged for the very things that were supposed to make me who I am.

I wasn’t looking for a home. I was running away from one.

I realized slowly that I am a stranger everywhere. Changing my environment didn’t take away the feeling of not belonging. I was running away from the triggers and the irony of my upbringing. I was an adoptee brought into a white, religious home that was supposed to be my “rescue,” but it became a place of abuse. I spent my childhood hyper-vigilant, trying to survive the very people who were meant to protect me.

I thought that by moving to Asia, I could leave that scared little girl in the Netherlands. I thought if I looked like everyone else, the world would finally feel safe. Instead, 10,000 miles away, I was triggered the same way.

The constant misunderstandings, the struggle with local languages, the expectation that I should conform to a culture I didn’t know, it was exhausting. People expected me to speak Thai or Chinese, a pressure they never put on my white Dutch peers. I was being screwed by landlords who assumed I was a “clueless” foreigner, or being told I wasn’t “inside” the culture enough to hold a meaningful job despite my education.

The last 15 years weren’t a cure; they were a series of triggers.

Through my journey and exposure to Buddhist wisdom, I began to see that the most important journey wasn’t documented in my passport. It was the movement toward “just being”. I realized that getting comfortable in your own skin matters more than the language spoken outside your window.

Through these teachings, I started to realize that the ‘me’ I was trying so hard to fix or find didn’t actually exist as a permanent thing. I had been treating my identity like a statue I had to protect but there is no ‘final version’ of me waiting at the end of a plane ride. Once I stopped trying to pin myself down as ‘Dutch’ or ‘Korean’ or ‘nomad,’ the void didn’t feel so scary. 

I finally acknowledged the part that was missing: that emptiness is mourning.

I was mourning the warm childhood I never had. I was mourning the feeling of a safe home and a mother who squeezes orange juice when I’m sick. I was mourning the fact that I can never turn back time to feel what it’s like to grow up here, as an insider.

After fifteen years of feeling hunted by my own history, trying to build a life in seven different countries only to flee again, the momentum finally broke.

It turned out I was the destination all along.