Homesick
Feeling homesick means missing home, or the places and people that felt like home, after you've moved away or before you go. It's common at college, in a new job or city, at camp, or after moving countries. Grief researchers call it a "mini-grief", and they argue it mixes two kinds of stress that should be kept apart: missing the old place, and coping with the new one.1
- On the wheel: Sad, then lonely, then homesick
- Next to it: Isolated, left out
- Nearby: Nostalgic, lonely
- Often points to: A separation from the people and places you're attached to
The bread aisle
You're in a lecture and your mind is at your parents' kitchen table. Food tastes wrong. The light looks wrong. Evenings and Sundays are often the worst.
Christopher Thurber and E. A. Walton define homesickness as the distress or impairment caused by an actual or anticipated separation from home, and its hallmark is thoughts of home and of the people you're attached to that keep crowding everything else out.2 People who feel it often report low mood and anxiety, pull back from others, and struggle to focus on anything unrelated to home.2
Look at the word "anticipated". You can be homesick before you've left, taping up boxes for a move you chose and wanted.
"I moved to Toronto for a job I wanted badly. Three weeks in, I found myself in the grocery store almost crying because they didn't have the bread my mom always bought."
Two stresses wearing one name
Margaret Stroebe, Henk Schut and Maaike Nauta describe homesickness as fundamentally about separation, a "mini-grief", and argue that two kinds of stress get mixed together in it and should be pulled apart.1
| The stress | What it's about | What it asks for |
|---|---|---|
| Missing home | The people, places and routines you left | Staying in touch, letting yourself miss them |
| The new place | A new language, job, school, culture or routine | Learning the place, building new routines |
Some days the ache is all about home. Other days it's that you still don't know where to buy a decent coffee, and a call with your mother won't fix that.
Homesick, nostalgic or isolated?
| Feeling | What it's about | Sounds like |
|---|---|---|
| Nostalgic | A warm, bittersweet look back | "Those were good times." |
| Isolated | Little contact with people now | "I don't really see anyone." |
| Homesick | Missing home since you left it | "I want to go home." |
Mostly warm? Read nostalgia. Mostly that nobody's around? Read isolated.
One half at a time
For the half that misses home:
- Let yourself miss it. You have something worth missing.
- Give the missing a slot. A standing call with home, say Sunday at seven, gives it somewhere to go so it doesn't fill every evening.
- Carry one piece of home. A recipe, a photo on the wall, a song for the walk to class.
For the half that's still learning the new place:
- Learn one spot a week. A market, a park, a bus route, the café where they start to recognize you.
- Watch whether it's getting in the way. Intense homesickness sometimes leads students to withdraw from school, Thurber and Walton note.2 If you can't focus, sleep or get to class or work, talk to a counselor or a doctor.
What do you miss most about home: a place, a person or a feeling? Write it in detail, then write one small way to bring a piece of it into this week.
Answer this with JoyQuestions people ask about homesickness
How do I get rid of homesickness?
No need to. Keep a steady line to home, and build small routines where you are, since those are the two halves the mini-grief model separates.1
What are the stages of homesickness?
The stage lists you'll find online don't come from the research on this page. Thurber and Walton describe homesickness by how much distress it causes and how much it gets in the way.2 It can come back at holidays or birthdays, even after it eased.
Can you be homesick for a place you've never lived?
People use the word that way, for a country their family came from or a life they imagine. That's closer to longing, which has its own page.