Looking 4 Adventures

Reinventing yourself because it feels safer abroad

What kind of sane person with sensory sensitivities enjoys traveling?

I know it makes no sense. Why would someone who gets overstimulated by sounds, smells, unpredictability—choose to travel? But here’s what nobody tells you.

My mum keeps telling me about a memory of when I was around 12. I went to a church camp in Switzerland, and while all the other kids were standing with their parents, crying, I had vanished. She wondered where I had gone and went looking for me. And I was sitting in the bus, waiting for everyone to finally leave.

I always wanted to be away. I honestly never thought about why this was the case. Let’s unpack this a little.

Traveling is a disruption of Routine, or is it?

It’s not that I dislike trying new things, but sprinkling in some familiarity into the day has always served me well. Then I am also more ready to do things that I would otherwise not be comfortable with.

Travel is breaking out of a day that does not serve you

And while the “getting there” was always the major difficulty for me with airports and train stations and noise and bright lights, arriving at a place that is new and exciting, was beautiful.

The thing is, I was masking my whole life. It was the norm, basically since I was in primary school, because I feared to be rejected when I was being myself. I recently found my old school reports. Looking at them with neurodiversity in mind, I noticed patterns I had not realized before. Being described as “calm” and a “balancing role in class” stuck out to me. I learned early on to notice group behaviours and avoid friction. I tried to keep peace in every situation because I did not want to be rejected. This only helped up to a certain point, because obviously later on the differences were clear. I was not like the others. I did not understand the social cues and the jokes and I was bullied heavily throughout my teens.

Traveling was a relief. Being away and in unfamiliar grounds was comforting. In such places, being different did not stick out so much. Being confused about the culture and not knowing how to fit in was perceived as normal. It was better for me to have my routine disrupted. I preferred that over being stuck in an environment where I did not fit in anyway.

It started as traveling first – summer vacation was a treat! Going to Italy in summer was a way to be more myself, or at least different from how I used to be. It was a mini new start. I could try out being a different me that might not be rejected as much. But it did not stop there. I wanted more; I wanted to break out of the small village life where everyone knew me and considered me weird.

Moving away = Breaking the cycle. Unfortunately, that only works so far!

After a few years I need to leave, because then I feel like my carefully constructed mask crumbles, and I am still afraid to show people who I really am. I am working on this! It’s getting easier, but I just started, and it might still take a bit. Mirroring, micro-adjusting and masking is still an automatism. Sometimes it’s frustrating that I cannot just drop it.

I left twice, temporarily. I went to Finland for an exchange semester and then to India two years later. And in India for the first time, I felt it. The surrounding was so unfamiliar to me. The culture was so different from my own, I was able to breathe. I think it was then that I realized something important. Even if I am weird to them, they’ll understand. They understand because I am a foreigner and obviously different anyway. Adapting to their culture felt easy, because I adapted and micro-adjusted in my daily life anyway.

Coming back home afterwards was worse every time. I came back to a life that felt wrong because I had changed. My convictions had been influenced by my surroundings, and I had hoped maybe I finally got closer to the core. Maybe this was finally my own personality and not something I had assembled from the people around me.

I am aware that sometimes this is quite normal. It is normal to be influenced by your surroundings. I agree with that to a certain degree. For me it is a survival mechanism, though. I adapt, I adjust, so that people like me. I remember that when I was a child that I was actively hiding my interest in a certain artist depending on who I was with, because I knew or thought they would reject me because of it. I did the same thing when I grew up and was told that liking Pokémon is childish. So, I hid the fact that I watched the show and collected stickers. I did that, so I would not be rejected by my friend’s group. I did not even consider that this was hiding or denying them a part of myself.

A therapist once told me that “not everyone likes chocolate ice cream” and I understand that notion. The problem is that my fear of rejection is deeply ingrained in my brain. I struggle to accept that someone might not like me.

So, I turn to traveling. For a short period of time, it does not matter who I am. It also doesn’t matter if they think I am weird. For me, travel was never just about seeing the world. It was about finding spaces where I didn’t feel like the weird one. Where I could rebuild, even if I didn’t know what the ‘real me’ looked like yet.

And as a bonus you are seeing the world

In the early morning hours, barely anyone is up. The streets are empty and covered in the early morning light. Learning something is a big part of the travel experience for me.

Hence, when I started counting countries I deviated from “spending a night” to “having learned something fundamental about the country I am visiting”. If I do that, I am counting to have visited a place. It’s not enough to get to know the culture, though. Choosing a career that allows me to do such a deep dive was the next step.

And I built my way around the world in such a way that it is comfortable for me. I plan everything as precisely as possible, prepare for the flights and include some daily routines that help me. It still feels like a little bit of an escape sometimes, but also, it gives me the opportunity to learn as much about the world as I possibly can.

Maybe the reason I travel or move around the world is because it’s one of the few ways I can shape the world around me to suit my brain—instead of always reshaping myself to suit the world.