When I was eight years old, I remember my parents telling me that we were moving to Boston. I remember the tears that I cried for hours on end because of how afraid I was of change and that I would lose my friends. I remember thinking that my life would never be the same again. Birmingham, Alabama to Boston, Massachusetts seemed like the greatest distance ever. 1,182 miles to be exact. Growing up I valued the ability to have several close friends I could confide in completely because it gave me a place of safety. The difficult and heartbreaking emotions tied to moving challenged me in countless ways. As a teenager or adolescent, you don’t have the power to make these life decisions, only your parents can, and this often creates further frustration and hopelessness.
Moving across the country does more than simply change your location, it causes a lack of familiarity and comfort. All people respond to moving differently. For some people, it gives them a feeling of freedom and a fresh start. For others, it is stressful and makes them feel completely alone. But the idea of moving is especially hard for teenagers. When you have lived somewhere for a long time you can build strong relationships with the people in your community. Repeated interactions, conversations, and shared experiences over the years in the same place afford the opportunity for these friendships to take root and flourish. In 2016, a study was done in Australia surveying 108 high school students to see how their direct social relationships affect their mental health. Finding that these interactions had a huge influence on their overall health, it was easier for teens to cope with a stressful event with their peers rather than it was with adults.
At first, when you move, you don’t have those connections because they take time to build, this can make you feel isolated from society and cause there to be social stress. Social stress is the anxieties and stress caused by a social relationship or social environment. Long-lasting relationships provide a social buffer that helps absorb that stress. Having a close friend to share struggles, fears, and losses gives you a way to process these situations. The lack of these strong social ties when moving can also lower your academic success since you are trying to fit in and belong. Various data show the difference between academic success in nonmovers and movers is linked to this.
However, moving can have a positive benefit for growing your personality. Moving forces you to be more social and outgoing in order to make new friends and be part of the community. As a young child, I was shy and never wanted to branch out to meet new people. It was difficult for me to extend my friendships beyond the few close-knit friendships I had. Moving challenged me, and in the end, gave me a new confidence to let people see who I really am and let them into my life.
According to the New York Times Mr. Harper, a hairstylist from Los Angeles, made the move to New York, admitting that it was to find a better place and situation. Moving constantly as a child caused his moving obsession and the want for the perfect situation. Many people say that you should never move or that moving is the only solution to your problems. Both of these mindsets are too extreme. Psychologists have studied the root cause of moving for many people was wanting a new beginning to escape bad experiences like loss, anxiety, and fear. As someone once told me, “It has been said that people move ten times in ten years looking to form relationships that take a lifetime to build.” Moving isn’t the perfect way to make your situation better, you have to live somewhere long enough to create trustworthy bonds with people that will help you get through those hardships and loss. But never moving causes a fear of change and the unknown, this causes you to never want to challenge yourself or take chances in life.
The idea of moving doesn’t have to be scary. It is presenting you with the opportunity to better know yourself. It can allow you to change when changing seems impossible. If you are always ready to move, you may be challenged to stay in one place to face the things that are challenging you. In whatever situation that you are in the idea of change can often shape who you are for the better.
