Listen when something is off.
Listen when people who love you, respect you, and genuinely care about you tell you that you have changed — not in a flattering, glow‑up kind of way, but in the quiet, concerned tone that suggests something is off.
When my mother visited me in Germany for the first time, she noticed it immediately. I was no longer the bubbly, smiley, sometimes witty person who struck up conversations with strangers and made small talk feel effortless. Instead, I was tense. Guarded. Permanently braced.
She told me my body seemed to arrive in a room before my mind did — shoulders tight, eyes scanning, breath shallow. Worse still, this rigidity had followed me into our relationship. I was impatient, distracted, always half‑elsewhere. At first, I brushed it off. Germany is stressful, I told myself. Adulthood is demanding. Everyone feels like this.
But then I started paying attention to my mornings.
I would wake up with a racing heart, before the alarm had a chance to go off. My first thoughts were never gentle. They sounded more like an interrogation: Did I miss a deadline? Who am I behind with? What have I forgotten to do? The list felt endless, and it greeted me before my feet even touched the floor.
Slowly — reluctantly — I put two and two together. Years of trying to recreate and rebrand myself in a country whose language, systems, and cultural codes were foreign to my own had taken a toll. What I had normalised as ambition, discipline, and resilience was, in fact, survival mode.
And survival mode is a deeply exhausting place to live.
When it becomes your default setting, everything feels urgent. You perform constantly. You people‑please reflexively. You aim for perfection not because you want to, but because you are afraid of what happens if you stop. Your nervous system never quite comes down from high alert.
Left unchecked, this way of living fast‑tracks you to burnout, chronic stress, and — for many — depression. It sneaks up quietly, disguised as productivity and responsibility.
Survival mode is a deeply exhausting place to live.
One of the most radical things I had to learn was this: there is no moral virtue in rushing your life.
I had to make peace with being the late bloomer that I had always been, anyway. I had to consciously unlearn the timelines I had inherited — timelines that told me I was already behind at 24 because friends back home were married at 22, or because certain milestones hadn’t yet materialised. I remember genuinely worrying that I was “old” at 24. In hindsight, this feels almost tender, almost tragic.
Detaching from those scripts was not easy, but it was necessary. There is far more to life than checking off socially approved milestones on schedule. If a particular timeline is leading you into anxiety, self‑rejection, or quiet despair, it deserves to be questioned — not obeyed.
Healing, for me, did not arrive in one dramatic moment. It came in small, practical decisions that slowly softened my days.
I learned to go to the spa — and yes, to take a taxi there if needed, without guilt. I made room for prayer, meditation, and intentional stillness, even when my to‑do list protested loudly. I allowed myself to seek support — from a pastor, counsellor and a coach — without framing it as failure. I invested in myself again, finally doing the courses and trainings I had postponed in the name of “being realistic.”
None of these choices fixed everything overnight. But together, they reminded my body that it was allowed to rest. That life was not an emergency I had to outrun every morning.
If you are living abroad — especially as a woman, an expat, or someone from outside the EU — the pressure to prove that your move was worth it can be immense. Add ambition, migration stress, and cultural displacement to the mix, and survival mode can quietly take over without you noticing.
So listen closely when those who know you best say you have changed. Not to shame yourself — but to check in. Something may be asking for your attention.
I am currently working on a practical, reflective resource for people moving to Germany from outside the EU — especially women who want to build full, grounded lives without losing themselves in the process. More on that soon.
Until then, move gently. You are allowed to arrive at your life at your own pace.
Mariam (Wuppertal)