Help! I'm a junior in college and I still get homesick!

College Life
1

<p>Hi, I’m new to this board so I’m sorry if someone has already written a question similar to this. Anyways, I don’t know why I get homesick because I have plenty of friends at my school, I get a long great with my roommate, but everytime I come back to school after a long break, I miss home so bad. I cried myself to sleep last night and I just feel pathetic. I mean if I’m still this much of a baby then how am I ever going to grow up and cope in the real world? No one else seems to get homesick so I feel too embarrassed to bring it up with my friends. Plus I’m only an hour and a half away but I don’t want to go home because that will just make it worse. Does anyone else feel this way and/or have suggestions for me?</p>

<p>Thanks!
Jenny</p>

2

<p>My D is a sophmore and still gets homesick. She doesn’t get upset and cry but I know by the number of phone calls that she misses home. She goes to school 3.5 hours from home and can’t come home too often. If I feel she needs a “fix” from home, I visit and do some shopping and dinner. By the time I leave she feels rejuvenated and happier.</p>

3

<p>I think being homesick is a good sign because it means you enjoy being at home. Consider yourself lucky!!!</p>

4

<p>I think it’s normal to be homesick if you have a happy home life. Being away at school can feel lonely and isolating at times. Friends are nice, but nothing replaces family. It’s also hard to be away from the privacy and comfort of your room and having all your things around you. Some kids are more attached to their home and family…nothing wrong with that. I wouldn’t feel bad about it. Just accept it, feel it and acknowlege it. Cry it out if you need to. That is the best way to get through the feelings when they surface.</p>

5

<p>First of all, don’t worry about your age. Particularly if you’re very close to your family or happy with your home-life, there’s nothing surprising about this. In fairness, there’s nothing surprising in the other scenario either (not getting homesick), even if you’re very happy at home. Individuals just respond differently to situations…don’t beat yourself up for it.</p>

<ul>
<li><p>Try to figure out what it is that upsets you so much. You might not be able to fix it, but it could help just to know. There are a lot of things I miss when I’m away from home, but there are three major ones: (1) the crazy dynamics of my family; (2) my dog (seriously, cannot overemphasize this one); (3) people who really know me well, which includes knowing where I come from (I’m a pretty private person, so when I’m away from my family and closest friends, it’s easy to feel lonely even when I’m around other wonderful people). Somehow or other, I’ve learned to deal with each of these, but identifying them was the first step.</p></li>
<li><p>Do you have a close friend (or a few) from school that you could bring home over a weekend, or even just for an evening? This might help you sort of “bridge” your home and school lives. I found that it was a big help for me to have a few school friends who knew some aspects of my home-life. I also enjoyed going over to other people’s houses, because it wasn’t just my own home I missed, it was the feeling of “home” in general…no dining hall, no communal bathrooms, etc!</p></li>
<li><p>Whenever possible, I like to know the next time I’m going to see someone or be somewhere. It makes the waiting time easier. Maybe when you leave home, think about the next time you’ll definitely be there…perhaps that’s spring break, perhaps it’s summer, perhaps it’s a sibling’s birthday. If you go home for a random weekend before that, no problem, but at least you’ll have a date in your head. This can also make it easier to deal with the temptation to head home on short-notice. I personally find it easier to know that I’ll see someone in a month, rather than to wonder every weekend whether I *might<a href=“and%20if%20we%20manage%20to%20see%20each%20other%20earlier,%20then%20great…this%20way,%20I%20can%20be%20happily%20surprised,%20but%20not%20let%20down”>/i</a>. </p></li>
<li><p>Try to find something neutral that distracts you from your home-sickness. Maybe that’s a computer game, maybe it’s watching a favorite movie, maybe it’s pleasure-reading. Whenever I’m upset–rationally or irrationally, and at any hour–watching Friends DVD’s clears my head. It’s like white-noise. They never further upset me, they can be watched alone or in company and at any hour, I can fall asleep to them, and they give me something to do with my head other than dwell on my bad mood (best investment of my college years :p). Other people would be driven nuts by Friends, but find similar comfort elsewhere. And like LilyMoon says, if crying it out is what makes you feel better in the end, then do it…don’t feel pathetic if it’s what you need to do. </p></li>
</ul>

<p>Finally, I reiterate: don’t beat yourself up over this. For your own sake, I definitely hope that you find some coping strategies, but I’m quite sure that guilt won’t be one of them! As long as your homesickness isn’t keeping you from making friends and enjoying school, then deal with it in your own way and at your own speed.</p>

<p>ETA: This advice is coming to you from a graduate who still gets homesick ;)</p>

6

<p>Being homesick is perfectly normal so it’s nothing to be ashamed about. It simply means that you enjoy your time at home and that’s certainly a good thing. Also, I really doubt that none of your other friends are homesick… they might night show it but I’m sure some of your friends are in the same boat too. </p>

<p>I went to a school that was thousands of miles from home (I had to fly between home and school) and everytime I returned to school after a break at home I did feel a bit ‘homesick’ for a day or two (sometimes a bit longer). I usually found the best cure was to stay busy and get back into my normal routine as soon as possible, meet up with my friends and then everything was usually fine.</p>

7

<p>It has been almost three years since I left home. I returned only one summer, during christmast break I stay in hotel. It’s normal to feel homesick right after your breaks because every thing is so fresh, you still have in mind all the good time you just spent home. Your friends might be homesick but don’t talk about it. When I first came to the US, I used to hide my sadness for 3 months and refused to talk about it because I felt embarrased. You should try to talk to someone about it because it helps you relieve your feeling. It will just make you feel good to know that you have someone who knows how you feel. I only felt homesick twice in two years. I thought that because i am used to be away from home, I wouldn’t feel like that anymore but it’s not true. Even if you keep yourself busy, you wouldn’t feel better till you talk to someone because once you are done with your school and EC activities, you will be alone in your room, in the shower, or whenever your friends are not there you will sart thinking about it. I never went home during Christmas but when my friends come back from home, they would feel so homesick. Althought homesickness put conflict to my academic and social perfomance it was a good sign because as someone said , it shows that you love those you left behind.</p>

8

<p>you should maybe ask your parents to send you some local food how to bake you something even if you can find it in your town. Having something you know that was pack by a loved hand will make you feel better</p>