What is ‘reverse culture shock’. It is when ‘home’ feels like a foreign country! It can happen if you’ve been gone a few months or many, many years.
I googled ‘reverse culture shock’ and came up with a couple great blogs.
The first was Women on the Road. What great insight!! She also gives some great tips on how to deal with it.
The second is actually called Reverse Culture Shock. This one really hit home as it is about an American lady who lived in London and now has returned back to the USA. Go figure. Sound familiar?
Anyway, the biggest thing to remember is that you are returning home a different person and the people you left behind are for the most part the same people. Everything you experience GOING to another country you will feel again COMING back.
As I am concluding this post I’m thinking a separate one about what I observed coming back to America is probably in order.
There and back again…where have I heard that before?!
livingoverseasandlovingit 
I totally want to hear more of your story!!!
I ordered 2 books that hopefully will arrive today, because as I type this, the thought of “reverse culture shock” seriously terrifies me (blog post on that coming soon). The books I ordered are “Burn-Up or Splash Down: Surviving the Culture Shock of Re-Entry” by Knell (I think you recommended), and “Homeward Bound: A Spouse’s Guide to Repatriation” by Pasco.
Thank you for telling me about RCS, until a couple weeks ago I had no idea it was even out there!
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Shanelle, coffee as soon as you are ready! Enjoy the reads. I know Marion Knell personally and she is so know so much on the topic! You will survive! It will be ok. The power of positive thinking is a must…more on that from me later 🙂
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What great timing! I’ve just spent the past few days thinking/experiencing in some way reverse culture shock. Today I’ve got to that sick feeling point of “I want to go back to where I feel comfortable… where ever that is!”
So I’ve not returned to my “home” country. But I left my current country of residence for Dubai and then Sri Lanka. Now stepping from a war zone into Dubai is CRAZY. Things like electricity, shopping malls, being able to walk, civilized living, drinking coffee in a coffee shop really hit me. All things I’m used to back “home” but have become acclimatized to not having. Then today arriving in Sri Lanka driving down the street and seeing a church, with a cross, and a sign saying what it was… I totally freaked out a bit, then told myself it was ok.
So yeah… I think you can experience reverse culture shock when you don’t necessarily go home but you go somewhere more like home than where you live.
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Emilie, ‘I want to go back to where I feel comfortable…where ever that is.’ There is no place on earth that is for me and I can not wait for the day when I run through the streets of heaven and give you a big hug. Love you, Lady!
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