To feel like I want to go home, even though I'm already at home?

It's the hiraeth ❤️

A blend of homesickness, nostalgia and longing, "hiraeth" is a pull on the heart that conveys a distinct feeling of missing something irretrievably lost.

I find this too.

I know the feeling. Have you lost someone? My mother died in 2021 and I often feel homesick (even though I have lived in the same home now for 25 years). It’s a slightly different feeling to grief. But for me it’s related.

This time of year can be particularly bad for prompting melancholy and anxiety (though I do actually really like Christmas my pleasure in it has to make space for these other feelings too). There is a pining, yearning quality to a longing for home that can leave a person quite unsettled. As I have got older I have got better (don’t always succeed) at letting different feelings sit alongside each other and just ride out the less positive emotions. For you though it may be as simple as an indication you are ready to find a home of your own.

I used to say this a lot when I was younger to my parents, even if I was at home
They thought it was something to do with a past life 😅

@Spinet I literally spat my tea out laughing! OP I used to get this feeling a lot not so much now I'm in my 50's.It's funny not uncommon but noone really talks about it. I wonder if it's a kind of sadness before you build your own life/home/family. Or that longing to feel safe or happy when you feel the opposite?x

It's similar to my 90yo aunt who has dementia and asks to "go home" or wants her mum. She wants to have that feeling of comfort, support and love that she had as a child from her mum.

Yep all the time. I find myself saying out loud “I want to go home” multiple times a day without meaning to or realising I was going to say it.

I think it's missing the security of home as a child, where there were parents to solve most problems. Maybe part of growing up? Bless you I feel for you.

I was thinking this a while ago is it something to do with past lifes.

I sometimes miss home but i am home.
I miss the country side so much I never lived in the county side.
Also miss the people cant explain that one.
If im out for a day or a drive around and i end up miles in the county or in a small village in the middle of nowhere i feel so at home.
It's very odd i am normal i swear😄

Sometimes when I’m in bed I really long for being tucked up in bed… so weird. For me it’s about feeling where I’m at, feeling my body and feeling comfortable.

Yes I get this horrible homesick feeling. I've had it since I was a child. It happens less now.

I used to wonder if I was adopted as it was such a strong, undescribable urge.

I get this. Particularly just after having my baby

I get this. It's not a literal desire to be at home. For me, it's more about wanting to be a child again and feel safe and secure and looked after.

That's odd. Do you think you lived a previous life somewhere @WantToGoHomee ??? And that is why you don't feel you are home?

I have never felt that I am 'not at home,' but I grew up in a big busy town, and moved to a tiny low population village some 7 years ago (35 miles north of my 'hometown,') and I felt like I had 'come home' when I moved here. I have never felt so comfortable and happy anywhere.

I mean I wasn't UNHAPPY in my old town/the places I have lived before, indeed I have been happy where I have lived before - but I feel 'at home' here IYSWIM. People are really friendly and welcoming, and when I first got here, and walked around some of the lanes/by the canal/along the riverside, I felt as if I had walked these walks before, and I feel as if I have belonged here all my life.

My oldest DC will repeatedly say "I want to go home," when soothing herself during ND overwhelm. She's done it since she was tiny. I used to find it heartbreaking, but now see it is like a mantra of reconnection with the home she's in, as she experiences herself as out of her zone when in overwhelm, like she's weaving a spell of security and comfort around herself.

You're not in your own home. You're in your parents' home. This is just what happens when you become an adult.

I feel this all the time. I’m homesick. I don’t know what for. I just don’t think I have ever felt truly safe in any place (traumatic childhood, neglect etc)

It’s a strange restless anxiousness that can’t be soothed. I don’t think everyone feels it tbh, a lot of people I have spoken to don’t feel it or don’t admit they do.

Awww OP. I am ancient and have on one or two tricky occasions recently thought ‘I want my mum.’ I definitely don’t, we’ve swapped places now tbh and she makes shit worse 🤣 What I want is to be small and worry-free and comforted and cared for. Sounds like something similar. Short-circuit in the wiring type thing.

I sometimes feel like this. It's usually when I need space. I have my own home, and my own family, and I feel like it when I'm overwhelmed or haven't been able to decompress properly. I usually take it as more of a "I need to take a moment" rather than a need to actually go anywhere. I need to feel safe and secure and calm.

@Spinet

lmao

The comments above have really been a relief to me. I have sometimes said this or felt like this when I'm stressed or overtired.

I suspect it's a yearning for your own home, your own space, to spread your wings into adulthood and be able to make a space your own, have freedom, autonomy and independence.

I felt this so strongly as a child. Like feeling homesick but right as I was sat at home. If it's a common feeling I wonder why it hasn't spawned additional theories about past lives, genetic memories etc...

In a similar vein, elderly people with dementia often say they want to go home, and they don't necessarily mean a physical place, they mean that sense of comfort and belonging that someone has already described as Hiraeth. It might be that you're ready to start the journey of creating your own home. After all, there's no place like it.

Someone at work was talking about this feeling the other week. They said that they felt home sick even when they were at home.
She reckoned it was anxiety. Unease.