Nope, no family to speak of in Oz. Unless you count hubby and kid who came with me. As for loneliness....well that's a difficult one to answer because emmigrating has its ups and downs all the bloody time. I can only speak for myself here...my kind of loneliness was different than the oh-I-miss-my-mom type. It was during the first 4 months of emmigrating that I went through this dreadful realisation that NOBODY in Oz cared about me (apart from hubby and kid) because they don't know me. I went through a horrid time when I'd walk through a shopping mall and know that I wouldn't recognise a single face and that not even the cashier would give me a familiar smile of acknowlegdment. At least now I've gotten to know the people who work at all my regular haunts and now I can proudly say that I *do* get a smile of recognision all the time : -D. I feel so happy when that happens because it means I have made Australia my home. It is verrrrry uncomfortable in the beginning when you don't know how anything works and you feel like a dumbass a lot of the time. I never feel that kind of loneliness any more. It's gone, gone, gone. I'm sure if I move to a different state in Oz I'd go through that again though. It's not as though I haven't moved to a whole new area in my old country...it's just a completely different thing when it's a foreign country. It's a whole new place, knowing you have an ocean separating you from your old life, the time difference makes it a royal pain to try to contact people from your country of origin...it's ALL these things added on top of each other that just knocks the air right out of you. I also went through a stage where I lost all my self confidence. This didn't happen to hubby so maybe it's just a female thing. I lost confidence because time after time people couldn't understand my English and I couldn't understand theirs and it just started making me feel like a legal alien as the song goes. But it goes away. Hmmm, you've brought back some memories for me and now I feel rather proud of myself that I've come this far without antidepressants, lol. Many a true word said in jest, because I very nearly did go to the doc asking for some!!!! And I've never been Prozac but I REALLY felt like I needed it then. Maybe I just should have because it was a horrible time.