By moving abroad, you’ll suffer from a powerful and hidden condition that affects all expatriates with various levels of intensity.
Believe it or not, that condition is called grief. Before you stop reading, hear me out: I’ll prove it to you.
The sense of loss that expatriates experience after moving abroad is exactly the same grieving process people suffer when they experience tragedy.
Grief from Bertram Mackennal via wikimedia commons
As mentioned in the definition of grief provided by MedicineNet.com, “grief is the normal process of reacting to a loss. The loss may be physical (death), social (divorce) or occupational (job). Emotional reactions of grief can include anger, guilt, anxiety, sadness, and despair. Physical reactions of grief can include sleeping problems, changes in appetite, physical problems, or illness.”
All changes involve mourning because when you gain something, you lose something. And who will argue that changing from country, home, culture, language is not a radical change?
Moving abroad will thus trigger some grief, one way or the other.
For the purpose of clarity, I’ll name it “expatriate grief”.
When you know what something is, you can begin to deal with it.
Suffering from expatriate grief is taboo. Why?
- Because grief is mainly associated with death
- Because moving abroad is a conscious decision made after weighing the pros and the cons. You made the decision. How could you now feel entitled to complain?
- You generally accepted the move because it was linked to substantial benefits for the whole family.
- For the employee sent abroad, it means more money, more responsibilities, a higher function in the organization
- For the other family members, it translates into better housing, nice destination, opportunity to learn a new language.
Under those circumstances, how can you dare whining and sighing?
You think, it’s simply not relevant, not appropriate, not acceptable.
But expatriate grief needs to be dealt with. Expatriate grief won’t disappear how deep you may want to bury it.
Do you know that one of the major issues faced by adults who grew up away from their home country (ATCK) is unresolved grief?
For years and even decades, people can struggle with anger, guilt, sadness without even thinking that they’re actually grieving.
Don’t waste so much time. Take our 7 part course on expatriate grief.
It’s free here.
You’ll discover:
- Expatriate grief: the loss of losing a home
- How to recognize expatriate grief
- Expatriate grief: what’s the difference between grief and depression
- Find out what you’re grieving for
- The one essential thing you need to know about expatriate grief
- How to take care of yourself while suffering from expatriate grief
- How to support someone suffering from expatriate grief
How do you feel now? Have you ever thought of grief in relation to the losses you’ve experienced in your successive moves?
I’d love to read your comment in the section below.