In this deeply personal episode, Doreen Cumberford interviews Sarah Deschamps, author of I Couldn't Tell You. Sarah Deschamps shares the harrowing and ultimately hopeful story of her family’s move from Tokyo back to Minnesota, a journey marked by her daughter's complex medical challenges and the mental health struggles entwined with repatriation. This conversation illuminates the hidden traumas of re-entry, caregiver PTSD, and the transformative power of storytelling.

Key Themes

  • Repatriation Challenges: Navigating family transition, loss, and the complexities of 'returning home'.
  • Invisible Struggles: Living through—and speaking about—mental health issues (ADHD, OCD, PTSD) in the expat and repat context.
  • Caregiving Trauma: The unspoken weight carried by parents facing a child’s chronic medical issues across borders.
  • Finding and Building Community: How identity, belonging, and tribe shift for expats in transition.
  • Power of Storytelling: Why sharing your experience matters for personal and collective healing.

Notable Moments

  • Sarah Deschamps's Origin Story: From moving to Tokyo with a toddler and giving birth in a foreign language hospital to her child’s life-changing diagnosis 01:25.
  • Reentry and Medical Crisis: The unforeseen spiral as their daughter requires immediate surgery upon returning to the US, and the emotional fallout 12:06.
  • Caregiver PTSD and Mental Health: Sarah Deschamps opens up about her struggles with OCD and PTSD, discovering the depth of her trauma only years after repatriation 29:04.
  • The Importance of Telling Your Story: Why Sarah Deschamps says it’s “critical that you find a way to tell your story”—for your own healing and for others who witness it 40:21.
  • The Search for Tribe: How ‘finding your people’ is both necessary and difficult when returning from life abroad 25:36.

Resources & Links

  • Sarah Deschamps's Book: I Couldn't Tell You (and her first memoir about Japan)—available at sarahdeshant.com 43:45.
  • Pull Through Network: Support for families with children facing anorectal malformation and similar medical journeys.
  • Blog & Media Appearances: Follow Sarah Deschamps and her evolving story at sarahdeshant.com.

Pearl of Wisdom

"Make sure you tell your own story. It’s worth it to all the people who will have the experience of listening to your own life and what you’ve done."
— Sarah Deschamps 44:35


Connect


If you or someone you know is navigating the challenges of expat life, repatriation, or complex family transitions, this episode is a must-listen for hope, guidance, and solidarity.

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You can map the move. You cannot map the metamorphosis. Nomadic Diaries explores the interior journey of expat life — the belonging, the identity shifts, the repatriation, and everything that travels with you that can't be packed in a suitcase. This episode may be part of our Re-Entry Series (30 episodes on coming home) or The Belonging Project (29 episodes on belonging across cultures). Browse the full catalog at nomadicdiariespodcast.com and please share or leave a review if this episode resonated.


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