Blog · Living Abroad
Why Month Nine Abroad Is the Hardest
People expect the hard part at the beginning. It is almost never the beginning.
The shape of the curve
Months one to three: high energy, everything is interesting, minor disasters are anecdotes. Months four to eight: functional, busy with setup, still moving. Somewhere around month nine to twelve: the flat is furnished, the paperwork is done, you know where things are — and there is nothing left to do except live here.
That is when it arrives. Not because anything went wrong, but because the scaffolding came down.
This is a version of what psychologists call the cross-cultural adjustment curve. Our Lisbon practice has written about the clinical model behind it — including what it means when the curve doesn't curve back up on its own.
What is underneath
Grief, mostly, wearing other clothes. You left a version of yourself behind: the one people already understood, who was funny in their own language and did not have to explain themselves at parties. That person is genuinely gone for a while, and losing them is a real loss even when the move was entirely right.
Why the timing catches people out
Because by month nine you are supposed to be settled. Everyone stopped asking how you are adjusting. You stopped having a reason to feel unsteady, which does not stop you feeling it — it only removes your permission to say so.
What it looks like
Sunday afternoons that are unaccountably bleak. Irritation with Portugal that you know is unfair. Scrolling property sites in your old city. Fatigue that sleep does not touch. A sense that you are performing enthusiasm about a life you chose.
What helps
- Stop measuring your happiness against the reason you moved. They are separate accounts.
- Build one repeating commitment with other humans in it, in the calendar, non-negotiable.
- Go home for a real visit, not a family-obligation sprint. It usually resolves the fantasy in either direction, which is useful.
- Talk to someone who is not another expat in the same phase — mutual reassurance is comfortable and does not move anything.
When it is more than adjustment
If low mood has run for more than two months, if sleep and appetite have both changed, if you have withdrawn from things you previously liked, or if you have thoughts of harming yourself — that is not a relocation curve, and it is worth speaking to a professional. In Portugal, SNS 24 (808 24 24 24) can direct you to urgent support, and if you are in immediate danger call 112.