Migratory Mourning

It is possible that you have emigrated – or will immigrate soon – to another country, for study or work reasons, during an extended stay or for an indefinite period. In these cases, it is common to face migratory grief, which occurs when leaving home, family and friends.

Have you ever thought about what would happen if you separated today and indefinitely from your family and closest friends? If tomorrow you woke up in a land different from yours, where customs and ways of life are completely different? What if, when you wanted to express how you feel about so many changes, the language, accent or vocabulary of others were different from yours and you couldn’t find a way to do it? These are common situations where this type of disorder happens.

The grief situation in the face of a loss

When there is a loss situation, our brain starts to make a series of emotional and cognitive adaptations. These adaptations are necessary for us to adjust to what will be our new reality.

This is what we call “mourning”. Therefore, some manifestations or symptoms of this adaptation process appear. Some examples are loss of appetite, anxiety or sleep-related problems. In turn, emotions arise that we experience as negative, such as sadness or anger.

In the case of migratory mourning, this discomfort usually does not appear at the beginning, when we have just left our land and we are still closing procedures and the extensive documentation of what will be our new home. That is, when our attention is still focused on what is urgent for us to integrate in the best possible way.

However, some time after we left our homeland, we really started to focus our attention on ourselves. This is why migratory mourning is also called the 6-month sickness – which is generally considered as the adjustment period –, although it receives other names from popular culture, such as the melancholy and nostalgia of the poets.

The different factors involved in migratory mourning

As emigrating supposes to add up to several losses, we would be talking, in reality, of multiple mournings. These are the loss of home, the loss of loved ones and relationships, the loss of work, and perhaps the biggest cause of discomfort, the loss of identity. In addition, emigration is often motivated by economic precariousness, situations of violence in the country of origin, wars, persecution, etc. These are reasons, in themselves, quite aggravating the situation of discomfort.

For all that, if you intend to go somewhere far away soon, if you have just settled in what will be your host country or if you know someone who is in this situation, we will show below some tips for adapting to be the as positive and beneficial as possible.

How to favor a positive adaptation

Do not idealize the host country or return to your country

Creating false expectations about the destination country can mean that you will end up being very disappointed in your new home. The best thing is not to create expectations in order to be able to analyze, in a more objective way, the good and bad things in the country afterwards. On the other hand, it is also not advisable to idealize the return to your country, thinking that everything will be better than before.

From my own experience, I lived in Norway for a year and realized that we idealized the Nordic countries too much. Of course, there are many things that are done well and many positive aspects when it comes to living there, but everywhere there are issues that can affect us to a greater or lesser degree.

Normalize the situation

Be aware that life is a process that is constantly changing. Emigration has existed since the origins of humanity, and the fact that you are now obliged, for one reason or another, to move to another country, does not mean that in the future you will not be able to return to your home, or perhaps move to another different country so you can experience more cultures.

With these advices, it will be easier to control the stress levels generated by the change and the process of integration and adaptation to another country, so that this migratory mourning does not have such strong effects on us.