Do not despair if you fear that you may be struggling with separation anxiety, for there are a number of proven relocation depression strategies to help you find a way out of your current cul-de-sac and start enjoying your new life as you should have done by now. Don’t just hide in your home but go out and get to know your new city. So we sat down at Cord Moving and Storage and came up with some ideas for you to overcome those “blues” with all the branches in Saint Louis MO, Memphis TN, Belleville IL and Dixon, MO chipping in to assist our transferees to get over the hard patch in their lives.
Try hard to make new friends
Making new friends may not be a walk in the park, especially if you don’t have it in you to befriend strangers almost seamlessly like some people do. And yet, it’s imperative that you do your best. It’s no secret that friends will give you exactly what you need to break free from your nostalgic post-relocation sadness. Start small until you regain your confidence. For example, why don’t you go over to your new neighbors, say something like, “Hi. How are you?” and maybe even invite them to a humble housewarming party? Be friendly to your new colleagues at work and make an effort to go out more often and meet new people with a smile on your face.
Get to know your new city
Unfamiliar settings can easily bring about ungrounded fear and darker thoughts. The solution? Turn the unfamiliar surroundings into more familiar by exploring your neighborhood first and then your city. Be brave enough to step outside the illusionary safety of your new residence and you’ll see how fresh possibilities will open in front of you one by one. Take a walk in a beautiful city park, dare to go shopping in a crowded shopping district, visit historic city landmarks and locate important places (hospitals, post offices, police stations, etc.). The more you get to know your still strange city, the less strange and more appealing it may become in the end.
Introduce familiarity to your new home
One proven way to overcome relocation depression, which is partly due to your unwillingness to accept abrupt change, is to surround yourself with familiar items and place them in familiar fashion so that you make your new place feel more like your old residence. Arrange the furniture pieces exactly the way they were before the move and install the same furnishings throughout the living space in order to get that well-known and enjoyable warm feeling of home-ness that you’ve been robbed of. Some people will probably not understand your nostalgic home interior recreation and that’s okay. After all, you’re the only one who knows the secret and highly complicated household arrangement pattern that has the power to restore your inner harmony and peace of mind.
Keep meaningful relationships alive
Reliving the joys of your childhood may be just what you need to settle in your new city more quickly. Making new friends is probably the most effective technique out there to fight depression due to relocation. And while your new life is taking you forward, do not forget to look back and keep in touch with your old pals. Nowadays, it takes nothing more than a mouse click or a single finger tap to talk and even see an old friend, so distance is a poor excuse to let great relationships slip between the cracks of your new reality.
If you do happen to find yourself a bit overwhelmed by your new life, keep repeating to yourself that sometimes backward is the only way forward.
Do something crazy
If you can’t seem to find a way out of your depressed state of mind, consider breaking your set daily rhythm and your inner pattern by doing something you wouldn’t do under normal circumstances. Simply put, do something crazy (reasonably crazy, of course) like joining a chess club or signing up for yoga or dance classes or learning how to play a musical instrument. Find yourself new hobbies and interests to clear your head out of any sad thoughts and help you meet new interesting people seamlessly.
Give yourself more time
And most importantly, don’t be too hard on yourself. You have just survived a stressful and testing move which, even without you realizing it, may have turned your world upside down, broken your daily routine to pieces and wreaked havoc on your internal biological clock.
Be patient. Your pre-move and post-move lives are closely interconnected and it will take some time before your life essence balances itself out.
Are you familiar with the concept of communicating vessels? Your new post-move life and your old pre-move life are the interconnected vessels, and you’re playing the role of the medium between these two entities. Now, similar to the homogeneous liquid inside interconnected containers which requires time to balance itself out to the same level inside the vessels, you also need time to acclimatize properly to the unfamiliar surroundings and advance slowly but steadily through the adaptation period. You need more time, so give yourself more time. One little step at a time, just like a baby learning how to walk for the very first time. Right?
The relocation depression strategies described above will help you find the right path much faster but the best way to fight the post-move side effect is to avoid relocation depression altogether. The moment you set foot in your new home, believe in your inner strength to handle change, use your strong will to avoid the cleverly set depressing traps, and counterattack the unexpected enemy with the healing power of positive thinking.