Hi everyone,
I would like to ask you for some advice or for your experiences regarding being a foreigner.
I'm an Asian girl who moved to Austria when I was 19. Now I'm already 27. I came to Austria to study because I wanted to challenge myself after high school. I was always a bright student in my home country, and spent my young years surrounded by love and appraisals from my family and friends. Maybe because of that I had an illusion of myself being a talented person. Only when I came to Austria did I step out of that fantasy world. I live here with relatives of my parents. This is the first time I live with strangers - those who do not love me as much as my parents and never in the last 8 years gave me a compliment. These relatives are so complicated and I've been having a really tough time living with them. But I can't move out because I cannot afford living alone - my parents never supported me financially. I help them with the children and house work. In exchange I have food and shelter. But I do not feel much love from them, many times they talk to me as if I'm not welcoming in their life. I've always feeling lonely and sad since I came here. At the university it was so hard to make friends. Even though I excelled in all of my German class and even became a German tutor for my friends, and even though everybody tells me that my German is excellent and I'm a totally gifted person in languages, I still feel that I cannot understand and communicate with people on an academic level, discussing academic topics with friends and professors. On a day to day basis I have no problem, but I still feel that I'm excluded from this society. I know it's a cultural factor that the Austrians are more serious and colder than other folks, and as I'm a very sensitive and emotional person who always wants to make friends and get close to people - just like Asians do, I cannot integrate into the society. I struggled a lot at the university, I had little friends who are also foreigners like me but they were financially supported by their parents so they studied faster than me. I had to work almost full time beside studying so I fell behind most of them. For an A1 student-used-to-be like me it's a shock. Life was not happening as I expected - so I started blaming myself for everything sad that happened to me. That was just the beginning until I had depression, I cried almost everytime when I saw my friends posted on facebook or LinkedIn about their success. I can't stop comparing myself with others and feeling like the biggest loser of all time. I try to participate in many students' organisation but I can't attend the discussion - everytime I say something I feel so stupid and inferior. I've noticed recently that my self-esteem - used to be so high - is now touching the bottom. I feel so worthless and as an outsider in this country. What can I do now to live a happier life?
Thank you very much in advance for reading and helping me.