A Practical Guide to Supporting Suicidal TCKs
(from someone who’s been there)

JESSI BULLIS

TRIGGER WARNING: This article discusses suicide and suicidal ideation. If you are in crisis or thinking about suicide, please reach out for support. In the U.S., you can call or text **988** for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. If you’re outside the U.S., you can find international hotlines here.

Sometimes when people talk about heavy topics, in order to distance the pain, the discussion can become impersonal. Instead I want to be honest and vulnerable; I want to put a face to the struggle:
This is the face of an expat kid (me) who was struggling with suicidal ideation on a daily basis ➡️

  • Our family had recently walked through a medical crisis causing us to spend a year displaced in our passport country 
  • We had just moved to a new country (with a new language and culture I was afraid of)
  • At this point we’d had 4 major moves
  • I was navigating a new school where I felt completely unwanted and alone
  • And the year before an older child made sexual advances on me (which I’d told no one about)
It was a recipe for a mental health crisis.
Of course every transition causes some mental and emotional challenges, but this was definitely more than simple culture shock. 

Almost every day my nervous system was completely dysregulated and I was navigating terrifying thoughts I’d never had before. 

I was walking through life like I was in a foggy cloud, and it took everything in me to simply survive. I spent as much free time alone as I could and would request to be excused from almost every class so I could go to the bathroom to just blankly stare in the mirror. I began spending hours everyday fantasizing about how, in the event terrorists came to my school or home, I could offer myself as a scapegoat. Or I would mentally prepare for every possible natural disaster I could think of, and all of those preparations happened to include sacrificing myself. 

As these heavy thoughts became all-consuming – thoughts I knew a little girl shouldn’t be having – I was constantly afraid people would find out and label me as “crazy.” I didn’t want to be a burden on the important work my parents were doing abroad. Or worse, I didn't want us to have to move back “home” to America because of my struggles… potentially meaning they’d lose their jobs and my brother would lose his community and the only life he’d ever known. I couldn’t risk that. Not if it hurt them.

Eventually I came up with a solution that seemed like it would fix everything: taking my own life.
I believed the emotional pain I felt on a daily basis was worth the cost of losing my life.
I believed if I was gone my family would be relieved of the “burden” of caring for me. 
And I believed the world was better off without me in it.

So I began making a plan of how I would kill myself. 

But in the meantime, while I planned, I kept existing. 

And as much as I was afraid someone would notice…there was also a part of me that really wanted people to know. I even hoped someone would notice. In fact, there were times I thought the way I was acting was so obvious that eventually someone would ask. I would ask classmates what they thought the most painless way to die would be, or would “drop hints” to people around me that I just wanted to be done, in heaven with Jesus. But I didn’t tell anyone the full truth. That felt too big to say out loud… too scary to acknowledge... I didn’t know how people would react.

Truthfully, I don’t remember what “got me out” of that season. I remember it being very painful and much longer than I would like it to have been, and has even been a common thread throughout other struggles in my life. Spoiler alert though, I found healing and survived.
This is what my story looked like. This is not what it looks like for every third culture kid (TCK) struggling.

But unfortunately, if you’ve been around the TCK community, I can all but guarantee that you know a TCK who has experienced something very similarly.

According to our 2024 research, representing over 1600 adult TCKs, 47% reported struggling with symptoms of suicidal ideation. That number is sobering. (For TCKs who experienced childhood trauma without protective factors, that number jumped to 78%)
Our team has walked alongside dozens of them, tearfully hearing their stories and doing our best to provide hope and healing. 
I know their faces. I hear their voices. My own memories echo in my head. 

There were people around me who could have helped. Who would have loved to help. But I couldn’t discern who felt safe or not or who could handle what I was going through. I didn’t want to be a burden on their already heavy plates.
So I want to give you these 6 very practical ways you can be a safe person for a TCK struggling with suicidal ideation (so they know they can trust you and share with you) - actions that I desperately wanted an adult in my life to take:
1. Have your own healthy support systems

Teach them to utilize support systems through modeling. How they see you handle heavy or hard seasons lets them know what tools, resources, and systems could be good for them too. Modeling isn’t just taking care of yourself but communicating how you’re taking care of yourself so they can learn those skills too. 
Also when you’re at your healthiest then you can support them best!
2. Receive ALL of their struggles well (even the “small” ones)

How you respond to their “small” struggles teaches them whether they can trust you with the big ones. Many kids subconsciously share mundane struggles with you first to see how you’ll react before diving into the “big” things. 

Our 20-minute FREE safe space responses course will prepare you to start on the right foot.
3. Be aware of how you talk about mental health challenges publicly 

Kids notice how you speak. They are watching all the time, they pick up on the things you might not even notice. What you say about mental health will let them know if you’re a safe person or not. If they’re currently struggling it may also cause them to feel ashamed and isolated if they think you would judge them. 
Avoid 
  • Making jokes about mental health
  • Expressing judgement towards people who are struggling mentally
  • Showing shame or embarrassment about your own mental health challenges
  • Shutting down conversations about mental health
  • Promising that you’ll keep anything a secret if they share it with you (I always communicate to TCKs if they share anything that implies there’s potential harm to themselves or others that I must share with the right people)
Do
  • Normalize the need for therapy
  • Use the real words - when we avoid the “big scary words” sometimes kids feel like there’s shame surrounding that issue (i.e. “suicide” “suicidal ideation” “self-harm” “cutting” “depression” “kill” “die”)
  • When they ask what things mean, don’t brush off their questions but instead give age-appropriate explanations
  • Apologize if you realize you said something about mental health that was not supportive
4. Explicitly say these three phrases to them personally 

“There’s nothing you could say or do that would make me love you any less.” 
“There’s nothing you could tell me that would be too big for me to hear.”
“You’re not a burden. It’s a joy and an honour to know your story and walk through it with you.” 

Don’t say these phrases just once and assume they really believe you. Repeat them like a broken record. They need to know you’re both able and willing to carry their pain with them if it arises. 

When someone is struggling with suicidal ideation, they often wonder and fear how the people around them will react if they find out. Anyone - TCK or not - might worry that this is “too much” for their parents or a caregiver to handle. 
So please make sure if you say these things, you are ready to receive whatever they may tell you, whether it’s right then or even a few months or years down the road. 

What is most heartbreaking to me over the years has not just been that TCKs haven’t felt emotionally safe enough to share this with people who would have supported them, but when they have shared because someone expressed that they were safe… only to find out that person was not. Please make sure you’re ready! 

(The resources recommended below will prepare you to be ready! Please check out each of them!) 

5. Be prepared to share resources with them

Quality resources make a huge impact. First and foremost a TCK struggling with suicidal ideation needs a licensed therapist. Over the years we’ve pulled together a list of TCK-informed therapists, databases, and counseling centers to be shared. 

I consistently pray for more counseling resources to be accessible. We designed our Counseling TCKs: Therapist Training that any counselor, whether they’ve worked with TCKs before or not, would be equipped to understand the TCK population, avoid misdiagnosis, and truly help TCKs find hope considering the nuances of their global experience. 

They may need additional resources. I’ve included a list of a few more at the bottom of this article you might want to suggest or even watch yourself in order to support them well. 

5. Get trained in suicidal intervention

Suicide Intervention Training provides lifesaving skills. Even when there were protective factors in place and low levels of trauma, still 35% of TCKs reported symptoms of suicidal ideation (from our 2024 research, Protective Factors that Improve Long Term Wellness in TCKs: Research into ACEs, PCEs, and Childhood Mobility.). 

I wanted to highlight this statistic not because I want to scare you. 
But because I want to implore you:
If you interact with TCKs in any capacity, it is necessary for you to know how to provide suicide intervention.

You may never have to use it, but there is hope and comfort that comes in being properly equipped to navigate those conversations. 

We have two different ways you can get access to our Suicide Intervention for TCKs training:

I felt it was time to share my story publicly because I know the gravity of the need. I hear often from those who have received the Suicide Intervention training that they immediately put these tools to use. My heart is heavy for those of you who have felt the weight of walking alongside expat kids struggling with suicidal ideation and not knowing if you’re doing it “right”... especially for those of you who may have struggled with these thoughts yourself, as I did.

My hope is that this article helps you feel a little less alone and a little more prepared to support TCKs. 

I truly believe the more of us who are aware and equipped, the bigger a difference we can make towards this crisis. 

Please know there is hope, and please know you’re not alone. 

Thank you for reading,
Jessi
Other relevant resources:

 About the Author

Jessi is an Adult TCK who grew up in Singapore, England, Turkey, and Germany. She is TCK Training's Director of Adult TCK Services & Marketing, supporting repatriation journeys and developing resources for ATCKs.