Dear EKC,
I’m just angry all the time lately and I don’t know why. My family moved abroad almost a year ago and even though I was excited about it at first, I’ve started to realize how much I’ve lost. I had to leave my best friends behind. We promised to stay in touch, but things aren’t really the same anymore. We don’t talk as much, and when we do, it feels like we’re strangers. It’s not what I thought would happen. We were BEST friends.
Part of it’s definitely that I’m angry at my parents for making us move, even though I get their reasons. I’m also angry at my old friends for not making more of an effort, even though I know they’re busy with their own lives. Sometimes I’m just angry at everything. I feel bad because everyone tells me how lucky I am, that moving abroad has given me so many opportunities, and it’s true—I have met some really great people here. I feel like I should be happier than I am.
I overheard my parents talking about me, and about the stages of grief the other night. I always thought grief was mostly about being sad, like when someone dies. I don’t feel sad all the time. I mostly feel really frustrated or angry and I don’t know what to do with that. Maybe they have a point though. Is it possible to grieve friendships and an old life like this, even though nothing actually “bad” has happened? If this is grief, why does it feel more like anger than sadness?
—More Angry Than Sad
Dear More,
I’m really glad you wrote in because I think you’re talking about something we don’t discuss nearly enough. We do often associate grief with sadness, but you’re absolutely right to make the connection with anger. Grief can show up in a lot of different ways, at different times, and anger is one part of it. You don’t have to be crying or feeling sad to be grieving something you’ve lost.
One thing worth knowing is that grief doesn’t follow a neat, step-by-step process. Your parents were talking about the stages of grief and you might have seen that familiar diagram, which suggests that we move through different emotions in a particular order. In reality, we know that the “five stages of grief” is a debunked myth.Grief isn’t linear. You might feel sadness one day, anger the next, better after that—and then find yourself feeling angry all over again, weeks or months later. There isn’t a specific point at which you’re supposed to be “done” with one feeling and “ready to move on to the next.”
For TCKs like you, this can be especially important. When you move countries, you can lose a lot of things at once: your home, your school, your routines, places you love, and (of course) your friends. It’s also really common that people don’t realize how much they’ve lost until much later, after the excitement around the move wears off. You’re doing a lot at once, like getting used to a new school, maybe even with a new language, and meeting new people, while your brain and body work through the feelings about everything you left behind.
I think it’s a real strength, actually, that you’re able to name these feelings and talk about them as openly as you are. All the different emotions associated with grief can give you information about what you need in a particular moment. For example, sadness might be telling you, “let’s slow down,” while anger might be saying, “let’s do something about this.” Neither feeling is wrong and both deserve a little attention.
For TCKs, there’s sometimes another layer to this, too. If you’ve moved several times, or had to say goodbye to friends more than once, you might notice similar feelings coming back with each move. Maybe you become used to making new friends and trying to stay in touch with people from previous countries. But just because you’ve done it before doesn’t mean it gets easier every time. Could your anger be reminding you that living far away from your friends has been really hard, and that this deserves more acknowledgement?
Sometimes, when a family moves abroad, so much attention goes towards everything happening next. You have a new house to settle into and lots of practical things to organize. People around you also might focus on the exciting parts of moving: everyone saying “think of all the things you’ll see!” “Think of all the new people you’ll meet!” While all of that can be true, it doesn’t mean you haven’t lost something important. You can be excited about your new life and still miss your old one terribly.
I also wonder what you typically do when you’re angry. Anger can be a difficult emotion for many of us, and sometimes we try to hide it because we’re worried about how other people will react. Other times, we act very quickly and say or do something we regret later. Maybe you’ve experienced one of these responses yourself.
What if, this time, you tried something a little different? You’ve already done the first part by noticing and naming your anger. When it comes up, you could take a moment to think about what it’s telling you and what you’d like to do with that information. Is there someone you want to talk to? Is there a friendship you’d like to put a little more effort into? Do you need to tell your parents that you’re still struggling with the move, even if you’ve been living abroad for a while now? What I hope for you is that you’ll be able to use the energy that anger gives to do something that feels important to you.
And there’s another important thing here, too: you don’t have to choose between appreciating your new life there and grieving the one you had before. You can love your new friends and miss your old ones, be grateful for the opportunities your family’s given you and still feel angry about having to leave. Those feelings can exist alongside each other.
You’ve already come a long way in understanding what you’re feeling. Be patient with yourself. You don’t have to work through everything at once, and you certainly don’t have to be happy about every part of growing up abroad.
Warmly,
Inka Homanen
Ad Hoc EKC Therapist