Written by: Akshita Pandey, Muskan Shah, Moitrayee Das
When Home Becomes More Than a Place
There is definitely something melancholic about going back somewhere you once called your own and realising that things are not quite the same anymore. The room looks the same; the furniture is still the same; the roads outside look the same as well. Something has changed. Defining the concept of “home” has gotten harder and harder in our ever-changing world.
The youth migrates to other cities for education and employment, family members are dispersed geographically, and the trend of temporary lodging has become widespread. Thus, the idea of home is no longer confined to its literal definition but rather to that of an emotional experience.
In Beck’s analysis (2011), “the connection between people and their home goes further than merely the place where people live.” The place becomes associated with memories, personal identity, and even a feeling of security. “When that bond is severed, people can feel a sensation of disorientation,” as if “they no longer know themselves anymore.”
The Emotional Cost of Constant Movement
Nowadays, the world is unstable in nature while at the same time people are meant to be emotionally flexible. Youths are told that it is good for them to move, make new friends, and adapt immediately despite not knowing for how long they will stay in that environment.
Homesickness, which is often viewed as immature behaviour, is a known psychological phenomenon. Brennan (2021) explores the impact of homesickness on mental wellbeing, especially in cases where it is prolonged and intense. Homesickness might be experienced together with anxiety, sadness, insomnia, or loneliness.
Homesickness does not always concern the desire to be near a structure; sometimes it is associated with nostalgia for the lifestyle, routine, and identity that go with a certain location. Students and young professionals can be stuck between locations where they have not fully adapted to either before moving away from the other one. The same applies to revisiting childhood homes when people grow out of the identities they once had there.
Connected Everywhere, Rooted Nowhere
Ironically, the more digitally connected we become, the less likely we will feel a sense of belonging. Although technology helps us maintain contact from great distances, it is not able to duplicate the feeling of eating together, hearing familiar voices, or engaging in normal household activities.
Such small things can create a fabric of being a part of a place. Their lack can emphasise distance even when there is regular communication. One can be forced to try to recreate a feeling of being at home through relationships, coffee shops, music, and even the Internet.
There is also a question of economics in relation to this instability. Higher prices on housing and job insecurity prevent young adults from establishing themselves. It is not only the willingness but also the possibility that determines whether one is ready to put down roots. Young adults have been accused of refusing to commit because the prerequisites are out of reach.
When Home Is Not a Safe Place
However, it is important to note that home is not always an environment of comfort for people. For many people, it is an environment of conflict, with certain expectations or lack of space. The research done by Roster et al. (2016) investigates the connection between domestic clutter and well-being, showing that things can become sources of discomfort.
While people know that going back home is not necessarily a good thing for them, they could be missing certain things about the place. There is longing for food, past memories and even relatives, all without wishing to go back to a situation.
This is significant since the objective is not to ensure everybody returns back to their physical home, but rather to understand the various meanings associated with the idea of home.
Making Room for Homesickness
If home is becoming more psychological rather than purely physical in nature, our approach to homesickness needs to adapt accordingly. We need to stop thinking about homesickness as something that needs to be quickly overcome and embrace it as a valid reaction to transition.
Small practices can lead to a sense of continuity. Making oneself familiar with familiar cuisine, making scheduled phone calls with one’s friends or family members, placing photographs that are significant in an environment that is unfamiliar, or even setting up one’s week with certain routines in a new town can lead one to form connections with their new environment.
Universities and workplaces should also do their bit. They could recognise the need for the creation of a sense of bonding while addressing the emotional challenges of moving to a new place. Everyone does not move at the same speed, and feeling homesick just because one moves away is not something that should be downplayed.
Home as Something We Continue to Build
“Home is no longer seen as a definitive point but rather as an interplay of remembrance, identity, and comfort versus displacement. It may be a location, a web of relationships or even a series of routines.”
Maybe the greatest tragedy is not only that people move away from home, but rather that people move away without recognising how much it takes out of them.
We cannot always control where our life is going to take us, or whether or not places that once were familiar are still going to be familiar. What we can do is hold on to meaningful rituals, make connections and let go of the places that we no longer fit into.
The next time a person is open about their homesickness, perhaps it shouldn’t be met with the suggestion that they move on. Instead, ask them what they miss and how they can take some of it with them into this new home they’re trying to build. Finding a new home doesn’t mean we must forget about the old one.
References
Beck, J. (2011, December 30). The Psychology of Home: Why Where You Live Means So Much. The Atlantic; The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/12/the-psychology-of-home-why-where-you-live-means-so-much/249800/
Brennan, D. (2021, October 25). What to Know About Homesickness and Mental Health. WebMD. https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-to-know-about-homesickness-and-mental-health
Roster, C. A., Ferrari, J. R., & Jurkat, M. P. (2016). The dark side of home: Assessing possession “clutter” on subjective well-being. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 46, 32–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2016.03.003
Akshita Pandey is an undergraduate psychology student at FLAME University, Pune; Muskan Shah is a research assistant at FLAME University, Pune; and Moitrayee Das is an assistant professor of psychology at FLAME University, Pune.