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Dealing with Unresolved Grief
At
the age of seven I moved to Nigeria with my parents. Looking back,
this move, and the many moves that followed, have had a huge impact
on me as a person. I was uprooted and had to leave everything behind.
On Friday, I was still in The Netherlands, on Monday I was at school
in Nigeria. At the age of 15 we moved to Singapore. From the
first moment I arrived in Singapore, it did not feel right for me to
be there.
While
living in Singapore, I was extremely unhappy. It was difficult for
me to settle down and make friends, and I secluded myself from
everything and everyone. It was a very lonely period. A period in
which I felt that no one understood me. I blamed myself for feeling
the way I did. I felt stuck in Singapore and wanted to go back to The
Netherlands. In my mind, everything would be okay if only I
could return to The Netherlands. After two years, I left Singapore,
alone, and I went to boarding school. Back in The Netherlands, my
feelings did not change, and I still asked myself the same questions:
“Who am I?” and “Where do I belong?”
After
years of struggling, I was already in my twenties, and I decided to
get help. It took me several years to finally find a therapist that
understood what I had gone through. She explained to me that most of
my suffering was caused by the losses I had experienced in childhood.
Realising this marked the beginning of my healing process.
What
is grief?
Leaving
a familiar place and people you love is a loss and needs to be dealt
with properly. Grief does not go away, and unsolved grief can lead
to, for instance, depression. Usually, grief is associated with the
death of a loved one (child, partner, friend). However, unsolved
grief can also be caused when there is not enough time to process a
loss. Everyone that suffers a loss needs time to deal with the pain,
mourn their loss, and, eventually, accept their loss in order to move
on. How can you, as a Third Culture Kid (TCK), mourn for your loss if
there is no ceremony, like a funeral, and the people around you have
no idea what you are going through? They might even get impatient
with you when you are not enthusiastic about the (new) move. Because
the loss of a TCK is less visible, a TCK will be comforted less
frequently than a widow.
Being
a TCK means you will be exposed to losses, some being more critical
than others, and some experienced differently by each family member.
Below
you can find some examples of loss:
-
the loss of your home
-
the loss of your friends and family
-
the loss of your favourite places, like the park, a sportsclub, or
your favorite restaurant
You
are struggling. You feel that there is something wrong but you cannot
nail it down. Well, this is grief or, even, expatriate grief! It
might surprise you. You had no idea that it would be so hard to
leave, for instance, your friends or sportsclub behind.
To
mourn a loss is a difficult but healthy process, and it is never too
late to deal with unsolved grief! You cannot go back in time, but you
can talk to your parents about your experience as a TCK, both good
and bad. Discovering that your feelings are “normal” can help you
to understand your feelings more cleary. This will not solve all of
your problems but it can be the beginning of your healing process.
Anne-Marie
Faassen www.cosmeacoaching.com
