Relocation, Life, Powerful Hedonic Adaptation, and Positivity.

The depression that comes with relocating is real, I have experienced it. Hedonic adaptation might be an unfamiliar term to you reading this, but it is always beautiful to learn something new. So, I am happy that while reading this story, you will also understand a concept of your very nature as a human being.

Without further ado, hedonic adaptation is the observed tendency of humans to return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes. This is often referred to in discussions about money and humans wanting more after getting used to what they possess at a particular time.

But it has also been used in discussions that generalize our ability to adapt to change in cases of negative experiences or occurrences (in my case, relocating, language barrier, amongst others).

I left my country for Germany to study in 2022, and I am currently doing my Master’s degree program. I have had my fair share of the depression that comes with relocating to another country alone, leaving all my family members, friends, and everything I was familiar with.

Coming here, a lot of things changed. My environment, the people around me, the language, culture, activities, type of work, and lots more. I was struggling mentally and physically, and this affected my health at that earlier stage. I cried a lot, found many things difficult, and lost interest and motivation in the things I loved.

JOB

The type of jobs I found myself doing were jobs I never in my wildest dream thought I would do. Stressful and back-breaking jobs, where I have to practically be engaged with activities for 6 – 8 hours without sitting unless it’s a 30-minute break. Before the break, I had to clock out and clock in when the break was over, a nightmare and a new reality. For some personal reasons, I had to take up multiple jobs to sort out myself, so it was more stressful than I can express.

Back in my home country, I would sit at the office carrying out administrative duties, and I was good at them. I felt like my creativity, knowledge, years of work experience, and intelligence were put on hold and were wasting away.

Academics

My academic timetable and requirements were tedious and I wasn’t coping well with the new academic system, fast-speaking lecturers, the freedom of study without strict requirements and regulations, new concepts in research, reading and writing scientific papers, and lots more.

Another nightmare having to normalize these in combination with multiple work shifts. I spent most of my time at the library struggling with things I wasn’t familiar with. I had to go to the library because I could only achieve so little at home.

Loneliness

I constantly told myself that I had no time to be lonely. I was occupied with multiple work shifts, school workload (lectures, papers to write, data analytics software and tools to learn, homework and assignments, lecture videos, slides, presentations, and lots more), not to mention, learning one of the most difficult languages in the world.

I felt like a robot regulated by time and my academic activities suffered. I was learning a lot of new things, yes, but I was completely an unhappy person with no physical friends or associations. I get back from work, prepare something to eat, sleep, wake up, rush off to another shift, go to class, go to another shift, and then finally go home for a few hours. I was burning out.

I had no friend to talk to, no one to go shopping with, no one to study with or motivate me physically with their actions, and no shoulder to cry or lean on, everything seemed so far-fetched. I completely forgot about the human nature of being social animals. I was a complete mess emotionally and nothing made sense to me. The worst part is everyone thinking I am doing great because I am living ‘abroad’. I wouldn’t blame them, because pictures are deceiving.

Adjusting and Managing the Struggle

Time is powerful, time reveals and heals. This is where the concept of the hedonic adaptation of human nature comes in. With time, I began to adjust, started getting used to my new environment and I started to adapt. I learned how to manage things better, and I started to work on my mental health. My first decision was to join the International Student Council at my first University. This helped me and I got engaged with meetings and organizing the Global Village event held on the 4th of March, 2023. Here is the link to the beautiful speech I gave at the event titled ‘The Hate in the World and Remedies‘.

As I continued to adjust and improve, I also decided I needed a fresh start, and with the knowledge I had gathered I would perfectly settle down well doing a more preferable specialization in my Master’s degree, I applied to another university to do a more promising program, so I transferred.

I started to organize my schedules, embraced the jobs I had while working to improve my German language level, started completing more modules in my academics and I am learning some programming languages that will help me easily secure good roles in data analytics and business management after my studies, i.e. if I don’t choose sticking to writing professionally.

I became more open and happily embraced new acquaintances, communicated more, handled the stress of my job more physically than mentally, fought imposter syndrome, worked and acted smarter, and became super optimistic and proud of how far I had come.

I started to write on my blog again in my spare time and made positive decisions. I also tried to find some time for myself. I watched animations a lot as they are my favorite, and I smiled better. These were not easy to accomplish, but as humans capable of adapting to situations and getting used to new realities, time and positivity are all we need.

If you are planning to relocate to another country for a long stay to work and study, or for other reasons, know that many negative things may occur including depression, but also know that with the right decision, time is all you need. Just embrace and do your best, your human nature of hedonic adaptation will help you normalize your new reality.

Thank you for reading.

Chidinmna L. Ngameduru.