If you’ve just returned to your home country after a long absence, you’re likely to experience reverse culture shock. It occurs when you’ve been away long enough to find strange what was once familiar, because in the meantime you’ve adapted to living somewhere very different and your home country has probably changed a bit, too.
That isn’t to say you’re not glad to be home again. But if you’ve been away for years, it’s not necessarily easy to settle back in as though nothing’s happened. Why?
You’ve changed.
You’ve had experiences that perhaps your old friends and family can’t understand or relate to. Perhaps they consider your travel tales big-headed or redundant. But your perspective has changed, so you may well see old things differently.
Symptoms of reverse culture shock include:
- Frustration. Perhaps things seem too slow, or too fast, or you just don’t like the way something is managed, or how people behave.
- Disappointment. Perhaps you expected nothing to have changed, but it has. Settling back in, reconnecting and finding a new job can be hard.
- Depression, or feelings of isolation, that no one understands what you’ve been doing.
- Homesickness. This one may surprise you, because you are “home”. But if you’ve been living in another country, then you made that country your home. You are bound to miss it.
Ways to cope
- Get support. Many countries have organizations to help ‘repats’ readjust to living back home again. Try a web search in your area.
- Accept your feelings. Don’t fight them. Everyone returning after a period away will experience them while readjusting. Be patient with yourself and others.
- Create a routine. Part of the alienation phase is the lack of having a regular daily pattern. Even if you don’t have a job yet, make some daily plans and stick to them. Make social plans and create goals.
- Make a list of the most positive aspects of your time overseas. Keep them in mind as you readjust and seek work. You might feel your OE has alienated you, but many employers will be impressed, and people will come to appreciate how it has shaped the new you.
July 26th, 2007 at 6:19 am
I wish I’d had a chance to read this before returning from three years on the road… it would have saved me some grief and given me some good practical advice!
On the other hand, I remember some funny things – in Rome, after landing from Eritrea, I saw a traffic light for the first time in nearly a year – and wasn’t quite sure what to do! So I stood on the curb for a few sets of changes, finally got my courage up, and waited for a group to cross – and just hid among them!
And another bit of culture shock…
That same trip, because I’d been living in Addis and Asmara (both over 2500 meters above sea level), I was in great shape. I arrived back home (Montreal at the time) bounding up every staircase, wondering why everyone else was bothering with the elevator!
July 26th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
Scribetrotter, that’s great! It’s a post in itself: ‘Ways I Changed After Traveling’.
I’ve never been away long enough for anything very dramatic to change, but after my longest stint in Germany I returned with the order of words in my sentences a little out of whack.
July 29th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
I love this post. I know I had it when I returned from living in Mexico. I still miss it. The thing that was most “shocking” to me upon my return was buffet restaurants. They suddenly seemed so extravagant and wasteful.
July 29th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
Yeah, they are pretty wasteful. I like the choice with buffets and salad bars etc but the hygiene’s always pretty dubious too – at Wholefoods in NY I saw people dipping in all the time to sample things.
How long did you live in Mexico?