You Can Love Australia and Still Grieve Home

Last weekend I participated in a workshop about death and dying. Participants shared moving stories about their own losses and mourning processes. The workshop was set in the incredibly beautiful hinterland of the Byron Shire; a place I have been fortunate to call home for the past twenty-six years.

During one of the breaks, I found myself speaking with another participant who, like me, had migrated to Australia. There seem to be so many of us wherever I go. Over lunch we shared stories about what life was like before we got here, why we came, and what happened afterwards.

The stories are often remarkably similar.

We came for love, for adventure, or for a new job opportunity. The love story may have ended in the meantime. The job may not have worked out. The adventure eventually became ordinary daily life.

Yet we stayed.

These stories and the feelings that accompany them are something I know deeply.

Life in Australia is good. The lifestyle, the warm weather, the opportunities. Yet again and again I notice that almost every conversation I have with people who moved here as adults, no matter how willingly and happily they came, contains a quiet undercurrent of grief and loss.

People speak about the geographical separation from family, the loss of familiarity, and the absence of support networks. Especially those of us who did not raise children here often talk about a lingering lack of belonging, changes in identity, a drop in social status, and other tangible and intangible losses that can slowly erode our sense of self.

When we move to another country, whether by choice or circumstance, we do not simply pack our bags and close the door behind us.

We carry our identity with us. Our language, which shapes our thoughts. The smells that anchor memories. Cultural rituals tied to seasons. Familiar ways of communicating and understanding the world. Together these things form part of the very structure we are made of.

And then suddenly we find ourselves unable to lean into that structure.

Instead, we feel somewhat unsteady.

Our accent, appearance, habits, and occasional misunderstandings reveal us as different. We become visible to ourselves in a new way. Marked as outsiders, even while standing in the safety and privilege of what Australians affectionately call "the lucky country."

And even while feeling grateful, we grieve.

Not because we necessarily wish we had never come.

But because there are moments when we wonder what life might have looked like had we stayed.

What career would we have built? What friendships would have deepened? Who might we have become?

Researchers refer to this experience as migratory grief, cultural bereavement, or emigration grief. It emerges from both factual losses and losses that are far more difficult to define.

We grieve the friends who seem to have moved on without us. The workplace banter. The familiar atmosphere surrounding culturally significant holidays. The language that never required translation.

And the food. Ah, the food...

At the same time there is often guilt. We do not mean to complain. We know we are fortunate. We chose this life, right? It somehow seems more acceptable to grieve the loss of a loved one, a pet, a job, or a house than to grieve a country we voluntarily left behind.

And so the grief often remains unspoken.

Yet migratory grief, however unclear or difficult to define, is real.

Psychologists sometimes describe it as a form of ambiguous loss. The people and places we miss are not entirely gone.

Family and friends are still there, living their lives. We can video call them and watch their children grow up through a screen.

But we cannot hug them.

We can watch cultural celebrations online.

But we cannot feel the atmosphere.

We belong to two worlds, and yet at times it feels as though we fully belong to neither.

Mental health professionals suggest that living with this ongoing sense of ambivalence can make it harder to put down roots and make important life decisions. The result can be a lingering sense of separateness, loneliness, uncertainty, and dissatisfaction.

So what helps?

From my perspective as both a migrant and a psychotherapist, it begins with acknowledging what is happening.

People who grieve silently often experience secondary consequences. Relationship difficulties, increased reliance on alcohol or other substances, withdrawal from social life, or a general sense of hopelessness, and an inability to work.

There is no simple formula for managing migration grief.

But perhaps the most important step is giving yourself permission to grieve.

Mourning loss is not a sign of weakness. Nor does it mean you made the wrong decision.

It simply means that something mattered.

Instead of asking how we can defeat grief or get rid of it, perhaps we can learn to build a life that honours it.

Where we came from will always be part of us.

We may always feel a little torn.

Perhaps the task is not to resolve that tension completely, but to allow it to shape us and become part of what we contribute to the world we now call home.

Get in touch

Inga Rodenberg

Email

Phone

SMS: +61 422 621 465

ingarodenberg@therapist.net

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