Dealing with homesickness when home is gone

[Vaster]

I moved abroad when I was 20, about 18 years ago. My DB also moved abroad not long after. And then my parents moved 14 years ago.

We are so spread out that we only really get together every two years.

I have crippling homesickness, I’ve been crying as if someone died all day, brought on by the thought of Christmas past. But I have no home to go to. There’s no one there anymore.

I feel so sad, I want to drink until I can’t remember my own name. But instead I’m hoping someone on here has more healthy coping mechanisms

Anyone?

I get it.

This is going to sound rude (sorry), but is it a sign that you’re not content with your current home?

You can’t go back to a past home. Even if the house and the people are physically there, things move on.

But you can make your current home a place that you want to to be

Not sure I have advice but sympathy. My parents moved abroad, leaving my younger sister with me. A few years later I moved to a different country and then my dad died. For a while I did feel a bit adrift. Eventually I ended up back in the city I moved to after leaving home. I lived with my sister for a bit, the she moved nearly to the other side of the world for 2 years. We are now both married and living in villages either side of the city. My DH is from another country again and rarely gets to see his family. I never go back to where I grew up as I have no friends or family there. It is a weird feeling not having a physical place to have roots in but we all muddle together some form of tradition based on influences from all the countries and cultures we have lived in.

I’m very happy where we are but we have no
family here (well we do, but they aren’t interested).

I had such a close knit family growing up
and so many happy memories of us all being together. I feel so sad that I can’t give that to my children. I miss it so much

Understand completely. My family home (only one I ever knew) gone now my parents have passed. Siblings dont speak. There’s nowhere for us

@Vasterhaving come from a close knit family, you probably had the intention of returning one day? Why did you not?
In any case isn’t home where the heart is? I love my current home more than I loved the home I grew up in.

OP I can relate as I have been abroad and everyone has moved for over 20 years. You level of homesickness after all this time is very extreme.

Most people I know find it hard to move on and get past the very rose tinted view of their ‘old’ life. Accepting where you are and moving forward instead of focusing constantly on the past is a positive step.

Yeah it’s hard to think of children growing up differently and not being around family but kindly you chose to live and could always move back - I guarantee it won’t be the same and won’t magically be the way you remember.

I know many tens of people who are in our shoes and kindly while people are homesick they aren’t crippled by it, don’t want to drink themselves into oblivion and don’t cry all day 20 years later. There is something completely different going on and I think it would help to address this first.

Could it be nostalgia OP? Thinking about the past, and knowing it'll never be that way again (in the form it was in the past, it could be close but different in the future)

I have quite an extreme version too, my children are 11 and 15, I cry very regularly, sometimes daily over them growing up, and thinking about the past, being able to pick them up, wobble them on my lap and lift them in the air. It is incredibly painful and I have to hide it as of course I have work and responsibilities and renovating a house. It started for me much more significantly when we moved out of our old house. It can feel like a living grief. You have my sympathy, give it time, let it out, but try not to ruminate. Think about how you want your life to look and feel.

We have a word for it in Welsh: hiraeth. Definitely not just you.

I think I know what you mean.

Home is where my parents live, where I grew up. I haven't lived near that town in decades, we've moved house multiple times and now live an hour away but that birth town, that will always be my home town. When they're gone, it's going to seem really strange, like can I call it home anymore? Not really but it will always be my home. And I know I'll feel a bit lost after that. 🥺

The Welsh have a word for this - Hireath. It’s a homesickness or nostalgia tinged with grief for a place, time or feeling which may or may not have actually existed.

I understand exactly how you feel - this time of year always brings this feeling to the surface for me too. Partly missing the Christmases of my childhood but also more generally the lost places, people and dreams of my youth.

Ah beat me to it!