When Returning Home After Living In Another Country Is A Problem
Going to live in another country not only involves a culture shock when arriving at the new house and adapting to the local customs of the foreign land. Many times, It also represents a second shock, yes, which arrives with some time lag Specifically, when we return to our country of origin and realize that everything has changed.
This is a phenomenon known as reverse culture shock and is one of the consequences of the uprooting and anxiety that emigration brings. And it is a sensation as vivid and intense as it is difficult to describe.
When someone emigrates to a distant place, they must not only invest time and effort in adapting to the new landscape and the customs that prevail in it; He is also making another kind of sacrifice, although this second one is not as noticeable. Specific, He is missing everything that happens in the place where he put down his roots and that is linked to their memories, their learned customs and, therefore, to their identity and self-concept.
This very discreet facet of uprooting has another drawback. Unlike what happens when we struggle to adapt to the foreign country we have gone to live in, the impact of arriving home after several years and realizing that we are no longer so linked to it is something we do not expect. that surprises us and that, therefore, gives us an extra dose of stress
The reverse culture shock appears precisely in that friction with sparks between the country of origin that we are visiting and what we expected to find when we arrived there.
Strangers in our own home
Time passes for everyone, even for those who are going to live abroad. That’s why it’s a hard blow to return home and realize not only that we’ve missed a lot of relevant events, but also that we don’t even know how to “get around” this place very well.
What friendships do we have left? Where have some of the businesses and businesses we used to go to gone? How could the people we loved change so much? All these questions, added to the fact that over time the people in our social circle have become less accustomed to spending time with us, They can cause us to experience three sensations: isolation, confusion and doubts about our own identity
Reverse culture shock
Reverse culture shock is, precisely, what is experienced when you feel that you do not fit in with the way of doing and acting with the culture to which you considered yourself to belong due to the fact of having lived in it for many years in last.
On the one hand, life in the country of origin has not remained static, but has evolved both materially and culturally. On the other hand, the way of acting and thinking of the country to which we emigrate also It will have left a mark on our brain, even if we do not notice it and that is why it is very likely that when we return home we will see everything with different eyes.
The fact of returning home and not feeling entirely from one place or the other makes us feel uprooted and that we need to readjust to life in the country where we grew up.
Frustration with new customs
Returning home and being frustrated by not finding large stores open on Sundays, despairing with the way our compatriots speak, not finding ingredients that we learned to love beyond the borders of our own country… The sum of these small daily events can do that we feel frustrated and stressed, and even unable to make our plans and schedules work well for a while.
Returning home in the best possible way means being clear that we will have to dedicate minimal efforts to adapting to this place that is so familiar to us. After all, both what we have learned during our years living abroad and what we forget about our own land going through what we thought would remain the same in our own neighborhood, can make us feel very lost, alone and confused if we do not remedy it.
Learning to live in our country again
What to do in these cases? The main thing is to break the possible isolation that can take over our lives if we assume that we can return to our country of origin and act as we did before. We may have to expand our circle of friends and do more to stay with the friends we keep.
Likewise, it is best not to pretend that the years spent abroad have not existed: embracing what the distant lands have taught us is a good idea, since those kinds of memories have become part of one’s own identity and trying to suppress them would be an imposture, in addition to being a blow to one’s own self-esteem. If we have to hide those signs of having lived abroad, does it mean that the mark that the other country has left on us is undesirable and that we are worth less for having let it enter our way of thinking? Of course not.
