Reverse culture shock

This post may seem a little out of place being published now, but I don’t think there is ever a wrong time to talk about culture shock and the waves of emotion and frustration that results from moving across borders. I thought a lot about this during the beginning of quarantine and lockdown, the major exodus happening across the world as citizens were called home before borders closed. I have friends who had to flee Italy back to the U.S. and the Netherlands. Suddenly they found themselves at home and in a totally different situation than they had been for the past few months. My sister had to leave her study abroad program in London during this stressful time, and I have no doubt that the added uncertainty of a global pandemic made settling back at home in Minnesota that much harder. 

I’m not going to focus on the pandemic in this post but rather cultural shock in the broader term. This is something I’ve thought about writing since I got back from studying abroad in Florence in 2017, and more recently from Rome right before Christmas. Instead of having culture shock when I arrived in Italy, I had it when I came home to the U.S. (so I guess it was really reverse cultural shock). I think it says a lot that I fit in immediately when I arrived in Italy, but struggled the most “coming home.” I’ll explain more about that below, but needless to say this is a topic close to my heart because I have suffered from it and I don’t think it’s something that should be brushed under the rug. 

My hope is that this post benefits anyone who has moved to a different country, or moved back, and had a hard time finding their footing. I’ll start with my story, and in my next post I’ll share some tips to show your family and friends, to help you adjust. 

About a month into study abroad, I ran into a friend from my university in the states while out one night in Florence. She immediately began gushing about how no one tells you how hard it is to adjust to being abroad. How much she missed home, how sad she was, how hard it was, etc. I tried my best to console her and make her more excited about the opportunity as she relayed her feelings to me, but I couldn’t relate to her feelings at all. I hadn’t cried once about being homesick (except when I was throwing up all night at a hostel in Switzerland, but I think that would garner tears from me if I was at home, too). 

I hadn’t had the same experience she had, missing things and finding it hard to adjust. I had actually come to resent anything in Florence that was “American,” like to-go coffee and Subway, and I didn’t miss anything from home (except my family and friends, but even then I was getting by with a few video calls here and there). I was proud of myself for how I felt, and it made my conviction to life in Italy so much stronger because it had been somewhat seamless once I got the hang of it. I clearly was doing better than others, and loving every single minute of it without looking back. I mean how could the experience of living in Europe not be the highlight of my life so far? I was in a constant state of discovery, endlessly enchanted by the world, learning about cultures through everyday encounters, speaking a new language, and inspired by everything I saw. I didn’t care about finding a Starbucks or missing anything. 

Fast forward five months when I had to return home and WOW. Reverse culture shock hit me smack dab in the face, and hard. I had a horrible time adjusting back to life in America, mostly because I was unwilling. I didn’t want to adjust (and part of me still doesn’t). I loved the person I was, the person I became while I was in Italy. She was a freer, more independent and confident, carefree, and happier version of me, and I wanted to keep her forever. But I thought I could only exist as that person in that same place. 

I do believe this to be true. I don’t think I can be that same me unless I’m in the same situation, but I also know that when I return to Italy I find a semblance of her again. I know that the person I can be there is one very similar to the girl I had come to love, and that same girl just doesn’t exist in the states. She doesn’t mesh with the culture or blend in with her friends. She is constantly elsewhere, her mind thousands of miles away, her heart beating to a different rhythm. 

It’s been over seven months now since I returned to the states from Rome, and I still feel this way. While the shock has mellowed and subsided over time, anger still rises up in me when I wish things were different.

Below is something I wrote upon returning from Florence, about the reverse culture shock I was experiencing. I think it’s how my friend felt upon arrival, and I wonder if when you experience it has anything to do with where you’re supposed to be. Where you fit in, where you belong. Maybe the shock is only experienced when you leave this place that belongs to you as much as you belong to it. 

No one tells you how hard it is to come back. If ‘back’ even exists, because you don’t exist how you were when you were there anymore. They don’t tell you you’ll forget how to unlock the door, flushing a toilet will feel foreign, or that you’ll ruin the transmission in your car because you don’t recall the rules of the road. They don’t say that driving everywhere will feel like such a chore after being able to walk everywhere. They don’t warn you about the incessant need for people to be on their phones at all times here, this place you’ve come back to but really wish you hadn’t. Because all you see are foreign concepts, you see through them and stare into the past at things you came to know, so quickly and not just out of necessity. You felt them and you embraced them and they became a part of you. And now without them you feel empty, hollow. You want to feel complete again but you fear you won’t until you leave the place and the people and the feelings and the thoughts you left the first time, and return to the place and the people and the feelings and the thoughts that make you whole.

I look back on my last days in Florence with so much pain, it is as if I experienced a major heartbreak. 

And I feel like no one really talks about this culture shock, and maybe that’s because not everyone is affected by it. But WOW who knew you’d forget everything about the way you lived for 20 years upon returning from five months in a different country? It seems dramatic, but it was the truth for me. How to unlock the door to your childhood home? A mystery. How to flush a toilet? This seems foreign. How to drive a car? Wait, there are speed limits? And that’s not even the half of it.  There are so many minute things about American culture that when you add them all up and have to experience them after experiencing other cultures, it can be quite intimidating and paralyzing. Every day there’s something new that you totally forgot about…

When I originally left for Florence, I wasn’t in a great place mentally. People always say you can’t run away from your problems, and I agreed for a while…until I began to truly heal. I think I did need to go away for this to happen, and I wouldn’t have thought it possible if I hadn’t. I wouldn’t have experienced the self-love I felt there, the positive thoughts more frequent than the negative ones, the adventures and the small everyday challenges that gave me the confidence I was never able to possess here. It changed me for the better, so how could I not want to return to a place where I was my best?

When I came back from Rome, I was riding a high. I had once again found myself and loved myself while living in Italy, and I arrived home just in time for the holidays. I had been super stressed and sad to leave Rome, but motivated to return to Italy in the spring or early summer for another extended period. Plans were in the works and I adjusted okay back to American life by creating routines for myself that allowed me to live simply. In my mind I would just be there short term, and I think that really helped my mental health. Then of course coronavirus devastated Italy, then the U.S., and all of my plans went down the drain. I was left feeling a bit hopeless and directionless, and now I find myself repelling American life because I’ve been here for so long, unforeseen.  

I don’t really have the answers to how to beat culture shock, but I think the most important thing is to listen to your heart in these matters. I do know that what makes it easier going from one culture to another is realizing that the lifestyles are different. People live differently, they have to because daily life is dependent on so many different factors, and so you have to adapt in order to survive. Flow with the river instead of fighting the current. This is always easier said than done, but once I realized it, it made things a little easier for me, and I hope this advice helps you too.

Some other posts I have written that are similar to this topic include:

• Leave Yourself Behind, Part I
• Leave Yourself Behind, Part II
• Labels

Have you experienced culture shock too? What was it like? Where were you? Look out for my next post on this topic with tips to share with your family when you arrive home from abroad. If you’re instead having culture shock when you arrive to your new destination, check out this post by Traverse Journeys with tips for how to embrace a new culture. A lot of great ideas!