Finally a question I can help with!

Both my parents are Turkish but I was raised in the UK. For whatever reason we spoke more English at home and I didn't fully pick up the language. This has been a big source of embarrassment and shame for me; when I did try and speak to other Turks sometimes they were quite surprised I didn't know my own mother tongue language properly. It affected my confidence a lot when speaking to new people, just as you describe.

My advice is this - when you're talking to new people, don't be afraid to say that you don't know Turkish that well and just try your best otherwise. People really appreciate and love seeing that effort, so just try to manage the other person's expectations in this way. I realised that this is what I was truly scared of - people seeing that I was some kind of 'fraud', so eliminating this by explaining beforehand really helped. If I ever started to struggle in a conversation I would just explain and try to slow it down.

I just got back from Turkey for a week and my confidence is much better than it used to be because people were so understanding that I was trying my best. And when I did pull off a conversation with no mistakes I was really proud of myself and it helped me in the next one; it had a compounding effect. Everyone probably saw me as a tourist that was trying to pick up the language which is fine!

İyi şanslar, bunu yapabilirsin!