How I handled depression in immigration
All right, now I can write a similar confession, for its time has come. It is the fourth year since my family lives in America. In the city of Provo. This is the state of Utah.
The first thing everyone is interested in is: why is this state not the most famous for Russian people? “Ours” are still closer to New York, California, and Florida.
I myself have never dreamed of leaving Russia. I love to travel, but living in a foreign country seemed too radical to me. But life dictates its own conditions. It so happened that my husband in Russia could not realize himself in science, because he was looking for a job option outside his native country. So we were first in Vienna, and then in Utah. About what awaits me overseas, I did not know.
Without coffee and chocolates
The first year for me here turned out to be terrible: such a sharp contrast after a huge and beloved Moscow. I was depressed by everything.
Small houses with basements that are rented out for living. We lived in one of them for the first year. In the next five hundred meters - three people (although according to Wikipedia, 116 lives here 288 people). Mormon bans on favorite coffee and tea. Therefore, in the majority of stores, there is a net sale in the form of something that remotely resembles my favorite drinks.
Even boredom chocolate and sweets did not work: you take in your hands and read on the label that it contains solid sugar and palm oil.
Solid burgers instead of the usual pancakes. These eternal smiles and phrases: “How are you?” That do not require an answer. Everything seemed unnecessary. And then the only desire was to grab a suitcase and run to the native and painfully familiar from childhood.
My F2 visa did not allow me to work anywhere, and I was depressed, realizing that we would not return to Russia in the coming years, and now our home is Protective. And I started looking for advantages and found answers to the question of how to cope with depression in immigration.
Look further than you see.
The first plus was found, it was enough to raise his head up. The mountains are amazing with their power and beauty, they have a soothing effect on me. Believe me, in any state of America nature is such that no psychologist is needed. It is enough just to get into one of the local parks or drive off a little away from the house.
Grow into a new life
So a year passed. My daughter has grown up, we changed our depressing housing. And along with the change in the uncomfortable home, my mood and vector of thoughts changed. I gradually began to sprout, putting them into the local soil. This turned out to be the real and main salvation from immigrant depression - to stop behaving like an immigrant and begin to grow where you live.
I began to enjoy American smiles and remarks: “What a beautiful coat, boots, and bag you have.” I found products in stores that began to satisfy my tastes. My inner self began to absorb as much as possible what surrounded me.
Find a lesson for yourself
In a new country, you want to feel needed and included, and there is nothing worse than sitting at home and indulging in negative thoughts. There is no opportunity to work - think about your hobbies or acquire new ones. It became much easier for me when I realized that I had a lot of time for my hobbies - books, embroidery and photography.
Keep in touch
Now my nostalgia has been reduced to small flashes in the memory of pleasant moments of the past, and calls and Skype allow me to keep my finger on the pulse of loved ones. It is important to preserve relationships with friends and family. The feeling of being cut off and gone forever is a strong source of stress. Therefore, connections need to be maintained.
And now I am grateful for my life for having thrown me into this village, which taught me to live a wider, more voluminous, rejecting husk.
A little more truth about immigrant syndrome
In the magazine “Science and Life” from 1977 it was written that in terms of the level of stress, immigration occupies the highest point on the stress scale - 100 points. By comparison, the death of a loved one inflicts the same psychological blow. And even if this is somewhat exaggerated, psychologists still have such a term as “immigrant syndrome.”
Immigrant syndrome is divided into five stages:
- euphoria phase - it lasts from several days to several months),
- “tourist” phase - a person begins to look around
- phase of misunderstanding - you have to spend a lot of mental and physical strength due to the discrepancy between what you want and reality
- depression phase - even if everything is fine, a person plunges into a state of stress after the experiences he has had
- activity phase - it can come in a couple of months, or maybe in a couple of years, it all depends on how active the person is and how much he has expanded his social circle.
Therefore, if you now find yourself somewhere between these phases, do not despair. Everything is going according to plan and you, too, will definitely write your confession as an immigrant.
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