Migratory grief: a story of resilience and personal transformation

I arrived in Alicante from Colombia in 2022 with my six-year-old daughter, Sofia. I remember that I didn’t know the city, or anyone in it. Even so, being the good “urban swimmer” that I am, off we went to explore Alicante and get to know it together.

At some point, my path crossed with that of a young Colombian woman who introduced me to a lady, and I started working two hours a week. Everything seemed normal. I was living somewhere safe, I had a job and Sofia had started the school year full of excitement. But I was the one who wasn’t all right.

Without my being aware of it, my body had begun to speak to me, but I treated its signals as normal… I wasn’t sleeping well and never felt properly rested. I was always on edge, worried. I was doing lots of things at once and, even so, it seemed normal to me…

Until one day I realised I wasn’t well. My mother had moved to Spain and, when I talked to her about it, we decided to go to the doctor. It was there that I put a name to what I was going through: generalised anxiety and migratory grief.

It was the first time I had heard that expression: migratory grief. It caught my attention and even amused me, but I didn’t give it much thought. After all, I was fine, or so I believed. I thought it was simply nerves, because I had always considered myself a nervous person.

Some time later, my mum told me about the work of the Health and Community Foundation (FSC), as she had taken part in one of its projects in Alicante (Conóce-T Empléa-T). She was the one who told me about Milena, the support worker helping her with her job search and, after hearing about her experience, I decided to go along and join the same programme as my mother.

When I met Milena, I felt understood. As well as giving me careers guidance, she began to support me on a personal level, which helped me to know myself better, to understand myself and to develop tools for dealing with situations such as making decisions.

She understood me in so many situations and, little by little, I began to notice something I hadn’t been able to recognise until then: I felt lonely. I came to see that finding someone who could understand what I was going through was also part of the migration experience.

I also believed I had everything organised and, to a certain extent, I did. However, there were other things holding me back that I hadn’t been able to identify: beliefs, prejudices, a lack of information and, above all, the need for a guide to support me through that process.

My meetings with Milena and our phone calls, in which she always encouraged me to reflect, reason things through and put my thoughts in order, gradually guided me towards a process of growth and inner organisation. I began to look at myself from a different perspective, to recognise myself as a woman and to understand better who I was and what I wanted. That journey of self-discovery helped me to trust myself more and to recognise that I had the power to take charge of my own life.

It was then that I was dismissed from my job, and not exactly in the kindest way. I found myself engulfed by frustration and uncertainty, afraid of losing the job security I had worked so hard to build, as if I had to start from scratch all over again. I was forced to go out looking for work once more, to face uncertainty and to live through situations that, from my experience, I would describe as forms of “hidden racism” in attitudes, gestures and other barriers that make you feel you aren’t starting on the same footing as everyone else.

That was when I remembered Milena’s words, which had stuck in my head like a broken record and which, time and again, came back to guide me through the hard times. This time, I decided to listen to them and take action. At the age of 38, I made a decision that would mark a turning point in my life: to study for my compulsory secondary education certificate (ESO) as an adult. I told myself: “Enough!” It was time to close some chapters, to face what had been left unfinished and to bet on myself. I knew that getting this qualification could open new doors, make it easier to find a more stable job and help me build the financial stability I so badly needed. But, above all, I understood that every step I took brought me closer to the life I wanted to build for myself and by myself. And I did it. I got my ESO certificate and today I am taking an intermediate vocational training course.

As I moved forward, I also became aware that there was a part of me that needed attention. My emotions, my fears and my uncertainties were still there, lying dormant. Although I was making progress in many areas of my life, there were still wounds, insecurities and personal issues that I needed to address.

Milena told me about another FSC project: SIAF (Comprehensive Family Support Service), which offers psychological and therapeutic support to families. In my case, the support focused on my particular circumstances as part of a single-parent household.

I carried on working with Milena and, thanks to her, I met Carolina, who also works for the organisation. In Carolina I found a frank and direct therapist who helped me to discover the Viviana who had been hiding for so long. She made me recognise that inside me there were many positive qualities, abilities and strengths that I couldn’t always see. She also helped me to identify the attitudes and patterns through which, without realising it, I ended up putting obstacles in my own way, and which I needed to work on to stop sabotaging myself.

Today I am still on that journey of self-discovery. I don’t have all the answers and I haven’t finished discovering myself, but I am now more aware of who I am, what I feel and what I need. I look at life from a different perspective and I see myself differently as a mum, a woman, a daughter and, above all, as Viviana.