So, reverse culture shock? Does that really exist? I never thought so until it happened to me.
You can attend all the meetings, read all the information packets, talk to a million and one people, but you’ll still find yourself thinking that you’ll be more than ready to come home after six months of traveling.
Well, wrong you are—or at least I was. I will admit, I cried when I ran into the arms of my mom at the airport. Déjà vu to say the least, for she was standing in the exact spot I had hugged her goodbye just five months earlier. After the long 48-hours it took to make my way from the islands of Fiji to Pittsburgh, PA, I could think of nothing better than being in the arms of someone so familiar. However, merely minutes later, the water droplets running down my cheeks changed from “HOLY MOLY IT’S SO NICE TO SEE YOU IN PERSON AND NOT SKYPE”, to “WHERE THE F AM I? WHY AM I NOT IN AUSTRALIA?”
That’s right, reverse culture shock hit me like a ton of bricks. The beautiful accents and “surfies” (aka hot surfer gods) no longer surrounded me. Where was the sunshine, the blue skies, the warm weather, not to mention, everything I had come to know and love? It all slipped away faster than I wanted; there were no handles to hold on to and my grip on this dream world was loosening quickly. The memories were slipping away and were being replaced with nightmares and an overwhelming sadness. So what was this “reverse culture shock” that I was apparently going through? I mean, shouldn’t it be easy to come home? After all, I thought the hard part would be adjusting to a new place.
Reverse culture shock is very similar to the basic stages of culture shock, only it takes place at home, rather than in a foreign culture. Culture shock occurs in four main stages: Honeymoon phase, negotiation phase, adjustment phase, and mastery phase. The honeymoon phase is just what is seems to be, an infatuation with the new place or culture. The fascination and amazement replaces all the negative or shocking feelings that may occur otherwise. During my time abroad, I seemed to stay in this romantic phase until skipping right to the final stage of mastery. But don’t you worry, those missing middle phases caught up with me as soon as I arrived home in the states.
The negotiation phase is when you finally begin to realize the differences between old and new cultures, and feel pressure to adjust to the differences. For me, I never found any ‘faux pas’ with the Australian culture, only positives that exceeded all expectations. Because of this, the “adjustment phase,” or third stage of culture shock, never really needed to occur. I developed a routine quickly, and to me, it all felt regular, perfect, and unbelievable.
What I quickly came to realize upon my arrival in the United States was that I had not been living in reality. The world that I became so accustomed to was filled with tremendous adventures, amazing and worldly people, and opportunities of a lifetime. It was the first time in my short life that I openly embraced the opportunity to learn about myself and to take chances. I learned not to accept “no” or “you cant” as an answer, because the only person stopping me was, well, me. I transformed into a person I never knew was inside of me. A person that was no longer scared to jump out of a plane, only to actually land of my feet. A person who jumped off a ledge of a platform, free falling through the air, screaming, “This is the best day of my life.” Who knew I could be this person? I didn’t.
As I wrote in my final blog, “Being abroad has opened my eyes to many things about the world, its people, and most of all, myself. Everyone told me that going abroad changes you and I never once believed that could be true. But here I am. 5 months later. Changed. I never new this feeling of happiness even existed– but now that I know it does, it only makes me want to keep striving for more. I no longer doubt what I am capable of and I know that what is in the unknown only holds the greatest of possibilities.”
Of course, a few weeks spent down in the dumps of reverse culture shock weren’t exactly the “great possibilities of the unknown” I was hoping for, but it’s something all of us “abroadies” are bound to go through. The abrupt transition from feelings of euphoria to feelings of the ordinary, everyday is hard to handle. But who says we have to go back to ordinary? Why not let home life adjust to the new me, instead of the other way around? I cannot let go of who I am now because, well, what was the point of going abroad anyway?
So, embrace the change, teach those who have not had the opportunity to learn in this way, and, most of all, appreciate the life we have now and all of the gifts that it gives us.