Why Migration Grief Affects Far More People than We Realize
One of the greatest misunderstandings about grief is believing that it only appears when someone dies. Yet if grief were only about death, there are so many life experiences that would feel differently, such as: moving to your dream city, leaving a job you hated, or even watching your child grow up!
Grief is not the brain's response to death, it is the brain's response to loss. And loss comes in many forms: a person, a friendship, a language, a routine, a community, a version of ourselves, an opportunity to do something or be somewhere, a future we imagined but never lived.
This is why someone can arrive in Barcelona full of excitement and possibility and still find themselves unexpectedly emotional months later. Because every new beginning requires letting go of some things, even if moving was the right decision. So if you are feeling blue, or feeling sad, know that it does not mean you are being ungrateful. In fact, one of the most confusing aspects of migration grief is that it often appears precisely when life is improving.
This apparent contradiction often leads people to question themselves:
- "If I wanted this, why am I sad?"
- "If this was the right decision, why do I miss what I left behind?"
- "If I am happy here, why am I grieving?"
The answer is surprisingly simple: Because love and loss are not opposites, and the more meaningful a chapter of our life has been, the more likely we are to miss it when it ends. Every arrival contains a goodbye, and when we fail to recognize that goodbye, we often end up questioning ourselves instead: “Shouldn’t I be coping better?” (Especially if we are high achievers or the move demanded a great effort). In reality, what many people are experiencing is not failure, but grief. And understanding why this happens can transform an experience that often feels confusing into one that suddenly makes sense.
The Hidden Cost of Starting Over
Human beings are attachment-making creatures, which means that our brains continuously create connections, not only to people, but to places, habits, smells, sounds, landscapes, neighborhoods, traditions and ways of life. And these attachments become part of how we navigate the world. They reduce uncertainty, create familiarity and provide a sense of safety.
When we move, many of these invisible “emotional anchors” disappear at once. The local café where nobody needed to ask what we ordered, the friend we called without thinking, and even simpler things such as the language in which humor came naturally, the grandmother who lived twenty minutes away and the certainty of knowing how things work —like insurance, driving laws, banks and taxes.
From the outside, these losses may seem insignificant, but to the nervous system, they are not. Actually, our brain suddenly finds itself working overtime to navigate a world that no longer follows the map it had carefully built. What follows is often interpreted as homesickness, culture shock, sadness, irritability, anxiety, exhaustion or loneliness. But underneath all of these experiences lies a process that is far more universal: Grief.
The Grief We Feel Without Calling It Grief
Some losses are visible, but many are not. In fact, some of the most impactful losses we experience are rarely recognized as losses at all, such as the career opportunity sacrificed for a partner's relocation, the identity of being "the local,” or the teacher who changed schools.
Because nobody died, we tend to place these experiences in a different category: we call them life changes, bad timing, “a part of growing up” or simply just “life.” And in many ways, they are, but that doesn't mean they leave no emotional footprint. Psychological research has consistently shown that major life transitions, role changes, relationship disruptions, and losses of belonging can have a profound emotional impact on our well being.
The fact that a loss is common does not make it insignificant.
And the main problem is that many people dismiss these experiences before they have had the chance to process them. After all, how do you explain that you are grieving a city, a routine, a friendship, a career path or a version of yourself? How do you ask for support when there is no funeral, no public acknowledgement and no socially accepted script for what you are feeling?
Perhaps this is why so many people carry grief without ever calling it grief. Because nobody taught them that it counted.
For internationally mobile families, there are additional losses that often go unnoticed, particularly the loss of support systems and relationships with people who may have quietly become part of everyday life: the nanny who helped raise a child, the teacher who became a trusted adult, the neighbor who felt like family, the grandparent who was always present or the friend who knew their story without needing an explanation. These relationships often provide continuity, familiarity and a sense of belonging, yet when distance, relocation or life circumstances separate us from them, their absence is rarely acknowledged as a meaningful loss, even though their impact on our lives may have been profound.
The Myth That “Time Heals Everything”
Many people imagine grief as a linear process. You may have even heard about its different phases: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. And some processes do unfold through a series of stages, and eventually come to an end, but often it’s not that linear. And most importantly, it never looks or feels as “one day we wake up and realize we have finally moved on.” Real life rarely works that way.
Grief is not a project that we “complete,” it is an experience that becomes part of our life story. And, as our story evolves, so does our relationship with what we have lost. This is why a loss that felt manageable at twenty-five may suddenly feel different at forty. Why the city you left years ago can unexpectedly come back to mind when your child reaches the age you were when you lived there. Why returning to your country of origin after years abroad can feel both familiar and strangely foreign at the same time.
For internationally mobile people, this experience is often intensified, because mobility repeatedly brings them into contact with different versions and moments of their own life, as they visit their “home town” that continues changing while they are away, or places that remain exactly the same while they themselves feel have enormously changed. And sometimes a life event (a marriage, a birth, a retirement, an empty nest, the loss of a parent, or another international move) can bring an old grief back to the surface, just because we are now experiencing it through different eyes.
Perhaps this is why healing is less about "getting over it" and more about integrating it.
This is where rituals become so important. Because if grief is part of being human, then we need ways to acknowledge what mattered, honor what has changed, and create space for both the endings and the beginnings that shape our lives.
We Cannot Leave What We Never Said Goodbye To
This is why rituals are so important. However, in today’s society, many of the losses (generally associated and accepted as “a part of this expat life”) are never properly acknowledged. We simply pack our boxes, update our address, learn a new routine and move forward. At least on the outside.
Yet human beings have spent thousands of years creating rituals around transitions such as: farewell dinners, birthdays celebrations, good bye letters, moments of reflection— all for a reason. And that reason is that these rituals helped us pause long enough to recognize that something meaningful had happened and perhaps changed.
In many ways, rituals give loss a place to land and expatriation rarely allows for that pause. And what is not acknowledged often remains emotionally unfinished. It is actually this lack of acknowledgment and time to process that makes the loss bigger, not the opposite. Because as you recognize what mattered, honor its place in your story, you also make space for whatever comes next. To allow what we have loved, lost, experienced, and learned to become part of us without continuing to pull us backwards.
Perhaps this is why grief is not evidence that we failed to adapt but the evidence that where we come from and what we have lived before the present moment mattered.
Acknowledging loss does not keep us stuck in the past, quite the opposite: when we give ourselves permission to recognize what we have lost, to talk about it, write about it, celebrate it, or create small rituals to honor it, we transform those experiences from unfinished chapters into part of our story. And what is integrated no longer needs to demand our attention in the same way.
For those of you just arriving in Barcelona, this may be one of the most important reminders of all: You do not need to choose between honoring where you came from and embracing where you are. You can miss what you left behind and still be fully present for what is in front of you. You can love your old life and your new one at the same time.
Karina Lagarrigue is an expat psychologist and researcher specializing in global mobility, multicultural relationships and human adaptation. She is the founder of Expat World Psychology and EMIGRA Leadership.