Post #1100611
2026-04-10 06:03 UTC
Replies (16)
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@soph@grrl.me 2026-04-10 06:08
@scarlet@plush.city I moved to NZ right before Trump got elected the first time. The tides had already shifted by then. And while some things aren't universally better, detoxing from the US is absolutely worth it.
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@CheetahFluff@nyan.network 2026-04-10 06:12
@scarlet@plush.city okay I will have a lot to say about this, but it will take a while to write up and I'll probably have to wait until tomorrow because today will be a full day. But! I want to share. Soon... :cat_eyeonyou:
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@yakmacker@society.kalli.st 2026-04-10 06:18
@scarlet@plush.city also, how?
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@Leviamicky@meow.social 2026-04-10 06:37
@scarlet@plush.city if you think you want to, pick some destinations and start eaaaaarrrrly cuz long-term immigration takes a lot of fucking around with paperwork
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@MamaLake@beige.party 2026-04-10 06:56
@scarlet@plush.city I knew in 2016 that I would find a way out of America. The hardest part was honestly letting go of what I had built in America, hard to let go of a dream that just wasn’t coming to fruition. I moved to Thailand in 2023, it is a much kinder land. Getting paperwork in order is of the utmost importance, filing for visas before leaving is highly recommended. Let me know if you have other questions, public or dm is good.
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@GoldenRetrieverGF@blahaj.zone 2026-04-10 07:42
@SleepyCat@mk.absturztau.be To build off of this the stereotype for eastern europeans here is "filthy thieves" but the stereotype for Americans is "Uneducated Idiots" so when you can't speak German in Germany or French in France ( or whatever ) you are going to prove a xenophobes point. You are going to be called an idiot, you are going to be insulted and held in low regard but I find that's a minority. It's hard at first but it gets better over time, in my experience at least. But also be aware it's integrate or fail as Immigration holds the keys to your future. @scarlet@plush.city
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@raccoon@hollow.raccoon.quest 2026-04-10 07:14
@scarlet@plush.city "Speaking for where I am now, I know the grass is not greener on the other side, but I also feel like sometimes it is about finding grass that works better for my footwear." Pretty way to phrase it :)
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@benjamingeer@piaille.fr 2026-04-10 07:31
@scarlet@plush.city I think it was in 1986, I was listening to NPR and there was a report about Denmark. They interviewed a well-to-do Danish woman who said, “It’s fair that I pay more for childcare than my neighbour does, because I have a higher income.” I had never heard anyone in the US say anything like that. That was when I started to think that another life was possible, elsewhere. I left in 2000 and have always been glad I did. If I’d known more about the job market and work permits and that sort of thing, I might have made a rational plan, studied different things at university, and left sooner, but I'm glad things worked out the way they did.
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@GoldenRetrieverGF@blahaj.zone 2026-04-10 07:37
@scarlet@plush.city I left as soon as the borders opened again post-corona. I have studied a lot and knew the direction the USA was headed since 2001. But I really knew it was time to leave when I woke up every morning and I felt like running. My flight or flight reflex could not understand the distance to canada or mexico but it still screamed "run". So I started making my plans. They took a few years to implement and crystalize but I've been living in Germany for almost 5 years now. How do I feel? I inadvertently walked into a country whose culture is very calming to how my brain actually works. How Germans communicate is very similar to how I communicate. It was the best decision I ever made. How my footwear is made is designed for a German Clime to hearken back to your metaphor. Insofar as the grass is not always greener. In the first year, I've honestly never felt so alone, even living with someone else. To go from highly educated to barely being able to form a sentence is a hell of a ride. Road Signs were exhausting as my brain tried to make sense of the language. Integrating into another country was the hardest thing I've ever done and I was fired from a job for being queer. That shouldn't scare you off. I'm a head chef at a locally famous restaurant now and my German is close to mothertongue. While it was the hardest thing I have ever done it was also the most rewarding. Everything Germany does badly the USA does worse and everything the USA does well Germany does better. Working in Germany right now is pretty tough due to ridiculous worker shortages and the USA and Russia fucking everything up but that's not a Germany problem that's a world wide problem.
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@ireneista@adhd.irenes.space 2026-04-10 12:14
@scarlet@plush.city encouraged by a friend of ours who'd done something similar, we made a list of concerning political developments that could conceivably happen and would affect our rights, our ability to leave, etc. like several dozen items. we thought they were all extremely speculative and improbably and would take many years to happen........ the entire list happened within three months
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@Susan60@aus.social 2026-04-10 12:43
@scarlet@plush.city The grass might not be greener, but there might be less dog shit lying around on it.
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@lalah@sakurajima.moe 2026-04-10 12:44
@scarlet@plush.city I haven't left yet but I have wanted to leave for a while. Recently Canada adjusted their citizenship by descent laws, so I am technically a citizen there already since I have ancestors from there - I just have to collect all the records to prove it, like birth certificates and such. So yeah, my plan is Canada. I have some responsibilities here still so I won't be moving right away, but it's in my plans for the future.
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@jake4480@c.im 2026-04-10 14:32
@scarlet@plush.city I haven't left but have certainly wanted to leave for almost 30 years.. every time I thought about it, the money and difficulty dissuaded me. Key is having a job somewhere else, maybe. But best of luck to you if you do, I still wish I could! HATE the USA haha
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@itspomf@chitter.xyz 2026-04-10 17:35
@scarlet@plush.city you and me both. I haven't anywhere to really go, but as soon as I can find somewhere, I am gone. Mostly because my parents are middle-class sluggard boomers comfortable in their apathy who couldn't be arsed to press their aging (and, lately, expiring) family members for proof of citizenship when they fled Italy and Poland during WW2. Yeah, sure, maybe our ancestors were Belerusian, or maybe they were Polish, but I'd sooner be an EU citizen than be trapped here.
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@crow@irlqt.net 2026-04-10 22:04
@scarlet@plush.city I am now making an "ordered retreat" where I plan to be abroad by a year from as soon as I get a remote job, if not sooner. I am heartbroken at the idea of having to leave my beautiful home I put so much effort into. However I recognize my stress is not sustainable, and it is eerily reminiscent of the stress pre transition. Where I had big problems I could not begin to articulate or solve and so I boiled myself in stress which mired me in stagnation. Not this time, I can recognize the stress, and I can articulate what's causing it, and I have assuaged my conscious by fighting against it and now I am taking a similar leap of faith into a new life, just like before. I can't live like this, always waiting for the shoe to drop, slowly grinding my teeth down each night. Watching this thread with great interest.
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@Elizafox@social.treehouse.systems 2026-04-10 22:26
@scarlet@plush.city Working on moving to Canada (eventually). Anyone who leaves the US expecting utopia is wishfully thinking. US society is incredibly dysfunctional yet it's hard to see how dysfunctional it is until you see elsewhere. We get gaslit about how great it is... by people who've never been anywhere else. Canada is not perfect. There are problems there too. There are problems everywhere. Fascism is not unique to America either, nor is racism. Transphobia is on the rise everywhere. Pretending these are uniquely American problems is self-delusion. Canada's treatment of first nations has been historically appalling and they've consistently fought actually returning promised reservations and unceded land to tribes. Just like the US.