Migratory Grief

While exploring my own family history, I noticed some aspects of migratory grief that felt both far away and familiar. My family’s transition and assimilation to life in Canada was not without its challenges of course, but I felt a strange pain in my heart at the thought of my friends who experienced even more hardship with their migration journey.

As I continued my exploration of what migratory grief entailed, I noticed a few shocking concepts. Having immigrated as a child, my personal migration is categorized as involuntary migration or migration by force. I was not involved in my family’s decision-making process. Instead, the decision was made for me and I was left to adapt to the effects of this involuntary migration.

Listed below are some quick points about migratory grief and how to be supportive to those experiencing it.

An individual, when migrating, is never totally prepared to endure the sudden changes that will require modifications in his/her perception of their inner world, interpersonal realm, and external reality.

Migratory grief: A sense of loss involving geographic separation, loss of familiarity and support networks, and lack of belonging and sense of place.

Ambiguous grief: When there's some degree of lack of clarity about the loss, it's very hard to manage that grief and come to terms with things. Grievers may struggle to pinpoint what they are grieving, especially if they are fleeing unsafe circumstances in their homeland.

Disenfranchised grief: Grief that is not validated by others, who often suppress their own grief, leaving the griever feeling disenfranchised or shamed. Migrants can be made to feel shame for grieving their homeland because their new country is perceived as “better.”

Sense of Homelessness as an emotional self-state: a result of continuous contact with a new culture, the migration experience unchains a process that leads to the transformation of internal structures and internalized object relations.

Culture Shock: Immigration is a reactive process stemming from the impact of a new culture upon those who attempt to merge with it as a newcomer. It is accompanied by mourning for the abandoned culture and severely threatens the newcomer's identity.