This is a story about a boy, but it could happen to anyone. Maybe because it happened to a boy, when boys are meant to be so tough then we realise just how hard what happened to this boy was.
He was a boy from a big cattle station in remote Australia. He had lived there all his life, but in his teen years his parents had to sell the station and moved into the city. Shortly afterwards he took his own life because he couldn't bare the change.
Anyone, who has ever had to move (unless they are almost inhuman) will know how difficult the first six months are - whether you are moving to Paradise or Hell, the feeling is pretty much the same. Anyone, who has persevered and not run home will also know that this pain ends, it is just part of the journey of adjustment. But how many people are aware of this? How many people find the pain so unbearable that it feels like it might never end when it drags on for months and months? And everyone is different, everyone can cope with this pain if different ways. But there are some things you can learn from people who have been through this before that might make it easier for you. Even just to know that you are not the only one who finds major changes difficult. Before I go into more detail on advice, I want to say the first thing that you need to accept is that change is inevitable. The world is constantly changing, as much as we dislike new developments will always be proposed, weeds will keep infesting new forests and the more we understand our own families we realise that nothing was ever as perfect as we were led to believe as children. If you can come to accept that change is always going to happen and we can't do much to stop it (unfortunately maybe) then this is the first step in accepting change in your life and accepting your status as a newcomer.
It's a total tragedy that this boy took his life. I don't know all the details of what happened. What I do know is that maybe just the words "your pain will pass in time" could have saved him and he might have one day learnt to love and embrace the exciting differences in his new home.
Not everyone is sad when they have to move. Many of us want to move and go on adventures. But many of us go on these adventures and realise they aren't as much fun as we imagined when we read about them in books, so we ultimately feel the same feelings of alienation, rejection, etc of someone who never wanted to move without understanding why this happened when we were 100% certain that this was what we wished to do and saved all our money for! Then you feel ashamed - yes you - to tell people what you really thought about a place! You say it was fantastic and you had a wonderful time, because that's what people want to hear. If you say it was a nightmare then everyone might think you were selfish and pessimistic. This can happen if you leave a place right in the middle of your culture shock when you haven't had time to settle in and get over the big bump in your otherwise amazing experience. The truth is everybody has these bumpy months at some stage in their adventure - there's no need to feel ashamed, like a failure who was incapable of fitting in properly - you are only human - or animal as I will discuss later on as I believe it is more the animal in us then the human in us that can explain these mixed emotions when we are displaced...
He was a boy from a big cattle station in remote Australia. He had lived there all his life, but in his teen years his parents had to sell the station and moved into the city. Shortly afterwards he took his own life because he couldn't bare the change.
Anyone, who has ever had to move (unless they are almost inhuman) will know how difficult the first six months are - whether you are moving to Paradise or Hell, the feeling is pretty much the same. Anyone, who has persevered and not run home will also know that this pain ends, it is just part of the journey of adjustment. But how many people are aware of this? How many people find the pain so unbearable that it feels like it might never end when it drags on for months and months? And everyone is different, everyone can cope with this pain if different ways. But there are some things you can learn from people who have been through this before that might make it easier for you. Even just to know that you are not the only one who finds major changes difficult. Before I go into more detail on advice, I want to say the first thing that you need to accept is that change is inevitable. The world is constantly changing, as much as we dislike new developments will always be proposed, weeds will keep infesting new forests and the more we understand our own families we realise that nothing was ever as perfect as we were led to believe as children. If you can come to accept that change is always going to happen and we can't do much to stop it (unfortunately maybe) then this is the first step in accepting change in your life and accepting your status as a newcomer.
It's a total tragedy that this boy took his life. I don't know all the details of what happened. What I do know is that maybe just the words "your pain will pass in time" could have saved him and he might have one day learnt to love and embrace the exciting differences in his new home.
Not everyone is sad when they have to move. Many of us want to move and go on adventures. But many of us go on these adventures and realise they aren't as much fun as we imagined when we read about them in books, so we ultimately feel the same feelings of alienation, rejection, etc of someone who never wanted to move without understanding why this happened when we were 100% certain that this was what we wished to do and saved all our money for! Then you feel ashamed - yes you - to tell people what you really thought about a place! You say it was fantastic and you had a wonderful time, because that's what people want to hear. If you say it was a nightmare then everyone might think you were selfish and pessimistic. This can happen if you leave a place right in the middle of your culture shock when you haven't had time to settle in and get over the big bump in your otherwise amazing experience. The truth is everybody has these bumpy months at some stage in their adventure - there's no need to feel ashamed, like a failure who was incapable of fitting in properly - you are only human - or animal as I will discuss later on as I believe it is more the animal in us then the human in us that can explain these mixed emotions when we are displaced...
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