A lot of US people are talking about moving to a different country.

I'm not sure if today there's anywhere to go that will be safe from the future we want to flee. A lot of German Jews fled in the 1930s. The US had closed its doors, so they went to Poland.

BUT, that's not the main thing I want to talk about. If you want to give migration a shot, I say do it if you can. If nothing else, I think that it is a fundamentally human thing to do and a tremendous opportunity to learn and grow. But, like everyone says, it's very difficult. 2/7

#migration

Moving to a new country is a profound displacement. And even though there were very many Russian speaking immigrants in Israel, my parents never recovered from the loss of their community and social networks. Add to that the language difficulties—most adults don't learn a language easily—and how hard it was to recover their careers, the result was devastating. They were lonely and depressed, and their health suffered. My mother died at age 45, less than 20 years after the move. 4/7

#migration

I was lonely and lost in a sea of unfamiliar culture and expectations; my immigration process dragged on and on and I couldn't work; my hastily made marriage wasn't really going according to plan. I think that even though I didn't notice anything wrong at the time, I have completely dissociated myself, and didn't even start recovering my identity until a decade later. In the end I lost my twenties to dissociation and depression, and my physical health to hard labor and stress. 6/7

#migration

When I migrated from Israel to the US, to escape fascism, I already spoke English fluently, I had watched American TV, read American books, been on the American Internet, and I even got married to an American almost immediately (I had met my first wife in Israel), and theoretically had the benefit of her existing social networks. And I was young and (I thought) adaptable. And yet, I think that I was also profoundly affected. 5/7

#migration

And, of course, I lost my family and my parents, which for me was a much greater loss than I'd expected.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that while it's important to have visas and work and stuff sorted out, you should try to be prepared for the mental health challenges to adapting to a completely new environment, which I'm guessing Americans will be even less prepared for than most (unless they go to UK, Canada, Australia, etc). Good luck 7/7

#migration

@alter_kaker If you don't mind discussing it, do you think the move worked out better or worse for you than staying would have?

@riley
I really don't know.

@alter_kaker A part of why I'm asking is, I have once been formally misdiagnosed with 'adjustment disorder' after moving to a new country, and now that I'm older and, perhaps, a bit wiser, I'm somewhat fearful that my strong intuitive pushback of this concept might be too strong and/or not as generally applicable than I have previously felt.

@alter_kaker I see.

@riley @alter_kaker

a flip side to this is deluding yourself into thinking you are adjustable – you grow up avoiding forming close friendships or strong attachments – your social network may be broad, but it is incredibly shallow – and if something breaks your world, you have no buffer

@cerement

I'm familiar with that pattern, too.

Another year goes by. Another transfer, and I go.
To seek another world that holds no faces that I know.
Another sky, another star, forgive me that I flee.
You tried to breach the barriers between yourselves and me.
Now leave me to my silences and let me live apart.
I'll heal your battered bodies — don't try to touch my heart.

I know the things you say of me. You think that I don't hear.
You call me iron maiden. Well how can you know I fear
The day that always comes, that means my visit here must end.
The day I cease to heal a wound, and start to heal a friend.
So please don't offer me your hands or sooner we must part.
I'll heal your battered bodies — don't try to touch my heart.

@alter_kaker