SCHORNING: I could never get enough sun or enough light in Germany. At the end of the third year, the problem had become so serious that I was put on medication to correct this problem. I've learned a bit about S.A.D., or “Seasonal Affective Depression” since then. It all has to do with the level of serotonin in the brain.

I use the following analogy to explain the role of serotonin... and since the doctors like my analogy very much, I think it's probably not a bad one: If your brain were an automobile, serotonin would be oil and gasoline. If the motor runs out of oil and gas, the car won't even turn over, right? The whole engine just freezes.

That's exactly what happened to me in my third year in Germany. It's what finally pushed us to move back to the States.

What I also learned is that there's a direct connection between the amount of sunlight a person gets and the level of serotonin in the brain. Your eyes must be indirectly exposed to light—and not just any light, but sunlight or a light from a special lamp that simulates sunlight. There's a certain part of the spectrum that's involved here, so ordinary household lamps won't do the trick.

I hadn't realized just how far north Germany lies, nor how far south New Jersey is. And where I am right now, in North Carolina, is at about the same latitude as Northern Africa. “North” America sits much lower latitudinally than does most of Western Europe. Duh...! I'd never thought of that. Serves me right for not paying better attention in geography class, right? I think that I'd conceptualized places more in terms of culture than in the terms of physical geography, and so I'd always connected North America with western Europe, because they fall into neighboring cultural baskets.

Note: Unfortunately, THE GERMAN WAY had not yet been published when Cherie went to Germany in 1993. If she could have read point 15, CLIMATE, she would have learned, among other things: “...the German-speaking lands...lie in the same latitudes as northern Maine or Washington state in the U.S. Zurich is about as far north as Tacoma, Washington. Most of Germany is above the 49th parallel that divides the U.S. and Canada. Germany's new capital, Berlin, is further north than Calgary, Alberta.”

And Berlin is a full degree of latitude (about 69 statute miles) further north than London! — Our geographic mind plays tricks on us. I remember once spinning a globe and being surprised to discover that Madrid and Rome, where many Germans go sun-seeking, are in the same general latitudes as northern California or Pennsylvania in the U.S. - HF

While German culture may well be closer to the American than is Japanese, Germany's climate is very, very different from that of much of the USA! After we realized what I had, we began hearing about other foreigners who had it, to greater or lesser degrees. I began hearing about Middle Eastern housewives and African students who'd shrivel up and die after just a few months in northern Europe. Since I trace my full ancestry to the Mediterranean, I began to wonder whether there mightn't be some connection there.

To explain S.A.D. a little more: if the level of serotonin in the brain drops, the engine that is your mind and body will simply stop. It's that simple. Evidently some people are able to produce and perhaps to “store” serotonin better than others. Well, now I know that I'm one of those who burns it up fairly quickly and doesn't store it very well!

I didn't know that I had this tendency until I was almost dead, and I am not exaggerating when I say that.

As I write this, it's September 4th, 1997. Exactly one year ago today, what they call “summer” in Germany ended for me. I remember this day very well, because that was the day the last of the brighter summer daylight simply ended, and we were again wrapped up in that thick blanket of dull grayness. And that's when I began a descent into a kind of serotonin-depleted hell I would wish on no one.

By mid-September, I was on my last gasp. I was sleeping for about 15-18 hours a day, and during the hours I was supposedly awake, I really wasn't functioning. I'd get up from a chair, walk across the room to pick something up, but by the time I got there, I'd forget whatever it was I'd gone to get. I couldn't keep my eyes open or focus my thoughts on anything whatsoever. My brain felt exactly as if it were an engine that had completely run out of gas and oil. And I had no idea what could have been wrong with me!

This physical reaction was especially frustrating in view of the fact that I'd been able to work through some major personal issues prior to this point. I'd managed to come to terms with my lack of what I considered a proper job; with the culture; and with my social and personal environment generally. I even learned to tolerate hearing the Dutch language with some equanimity. Then—KA-BOOM! The engine decided to just... stop.

Well, one version of the end of this story would be to say: “I went to the doctor, and he gave me some pills. After a few weeks I felt a little better, and by January I was off the synthetic medication and taking St. John's Wort instead. And then everything was back to normal. We moved to North Carolina in February, and after a couple of weeks in bright sunshine, I didn't even need the herbal medication.” That's one way to look at this. Another way is to question why it happened.

A lot of people travel and even live abroad because they think this will “expand their horizons” in ways that cannot be achieved by staying at home. To some extent this is true, but the physical change of location is not what accomplishes this, in the end. A change in your external environment can act as a catalyst which might help you to identify and analyze your own cultural assumptions, which will be constantly challenged by the host culture. For some people, this helps them learn things they need to learn.

But the most important journey you can ever make is the inner one—the journey that can only be made deep within the spirit. Going abroad is one way to start that journey, but it's only one road, and there's no guarantee that you will broaden your mind and expand your spirit, especially when you consider that most expats never really “leave home” in their minds.

Expats tend to isolate themselves within the foreign community. Really getting yourself out there, learning the language, getting to know the local people, and genuinely immersing yourself in a foreign culture can be a truly terrifying thing. I think that very few expats manage it, regardless of what they do or how long they stay abroad.

Typically, expats and trailing spouses are given some standard advice: “Learn the language. Get out and mingle. Join an expat club. Volunteer.” All this is fine, as far as it goes. It works well for some. For others it doesn't go nearly far enough.

People used to hound me all the time to join these expat clubs. I went to a few meetings, and came home far more depressed than I was when I left. Here I'd thought all along that “coffee” was a beverage... and in mid-life, to learn that it was an event!

All the suggestions about “getting out more” and joining clubs and so on are fine as far as they go, but a lot of people “get out” only to sit with a group of others who are equally depressed. Then all these equally-depressed people spend untold hours sitting around engaging in endless discussions concerning the minutest details of how to plan their next shopping trip.

GW&M: After 3-1/2 years in Germany, what is the outstanding thing that you take away from the experience?

SCHORNING: When all was said and done, I realized that these three years had been a life-changing experience indeed. I now realize that I was given one of the greatest gifts a human being can ever receive. Here's what I mean: In Germany, I had no job, no label. Many of us don't realize how much of our self-definition and sense of self-worth hangs precariously on these artificial, external labels until someone or some set of circumstances causes the label to be ripped off: “I'm a CPA. I'm a lawyer. I'm a nurse. I'm a computer programmer. I'm a teacher.” Ah, but what happens when expatriation turns you into a Useless Caboose, and you have nothing under your “Hi, My Name Is...” sticker except... your name...? Scary thought, no?

I had no label. I couldn't really speak the language, and so my social contacts were very limited. I didn't know anyone when I first got there, and the expat clubs just weren't for me. Fortunately I had one very close friend who was in a situation similar to mine. But in the second year I was there, she found a job, so the time we had to spend together decreased dramatically. I had tried to get a proper full-time job, but with no success. After some time, I had to admit that it would be almost impossible to continue with my doctoral dissertation from there, and so eventually, I had to let that go too. No labels whatsoever now—I couldn't even say that I “was working on my dissertation” anymore, because I wasn't working on it.

I had no family of my own; no old friends, and my in-laws were speaking in Dutch, not even German, on the holidays. No job, no title, no label. There were cultural differences I found very hard to deal with, particularly in the German style of communication.

After three years, I'd come to terms with all of that... but then my brain decided to stop functioning because I wasn't getting enough sunlight.

At this point, I figure that I was pretty much stripped down right to the bare bones of the self at that point. (Now you can strip a person down much farther than this, I grant you. One thinks of starvation in a prison camp, for example.) But for me, this was more than sufficient for a proper stripping-down, thanks!

But when all was said and done, I realized that everything had happened, as they say, “for a reason.”

I learned that my identity and my sense of self-worth must not hang on what I do professionally, nor on how others regard me or treat me. Those things are just 'labels,' and they're not at all important in the last analysis. I believe that what I experienced is very similar to the process a lot of men suffer when they retire. They begin to question just who they are, because they've lost their familiar labels, and suddenly, life seems to have no meaning. Their sense of self-worth has been shattered. But it's been shattered because it was based on the wrong foundation in the first place. Labels aren't important, in the end.

I now believe that this “stripping down” and nearly dying of S.A.D. was a cosmic wakeup call. The entire experience renewed my spirituality profoundly, and my life since then has taken an entirely new direction, and it's a wonderful direction. I'm having trouble framing just what I want to say about this for such a general audience, actually... among many other things, I found that I lost my fear of death... and I recognized that there is in fact a higher intelligence in the universe. Connecting with that Being and finding a spiritual path in one's lifetime is what's important to me now. Labels and other transient human knickknacks are mighty insignificant.

So as painful as it all may have been at the time... there was indeed a good reason for it, and that's the final lesson of this period of my life. The challenge for us is one of faith in the wisdom and love of that higher power during these dark nights of the soul. So often during this time I would ask myself: “Whatever did I do to deserve all this punishment?” I no longer believe that anything that happens to us is a “punishment” from the deity. If punishment exists at all, it occurs because we're punishing ourselves in some fashion and we're refusing to learn the lesson that the universe is trying to teach us.

So I would add another item or two to the standard advice given to expats: if you're having a difficult time overseas, you can certainly join a club, or volunteer, or try to find some job, however menial, in order to pass the time. But you might also stop now and then, in the midst of all that outward activity and ask yourself: “Aside from the external catalyst of the corporate transfer... why am I here in this place right now? Why am I so uncomfortable? Is there a spiritual lesson I'm being asked to learn right now? What might that be?” Joining clubs and running around busily in futile attempts to distract oneself will not provide the answers to those questions.

I believe that people are led into situations for very good reasons, and in each situation, however painful, there is a very important message that Someone is trying to get through to us. But I suppose that some of us need a louder alarm clock than others. Sometimes that alarm clock takes the form of an expatriation.

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