{"id":324,"date":"2022-05-27T10:07:07","date_gmt":"2022-05-27T09:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/be-well\/?p=324"},"modified":"2022-05-27T10:07:07","modified_gmt":"2022-05-27T09:07:07","slug":"returning-to-a-place-i-once-called-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/be-well\/2022\/05\/27\/returning-to-a-place-i-once-called-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Returning to a place I once called \u201chome\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Psychology student Kaylee Low shares her experiences of returning home after studying in the UK and offers some insightful and practical solutions to dealing with reverse culture shock.<\/p>\n

Home has changed, and so have I. The shock hit me when I travelled from Bath to my home country, Malaysia. It was totally uncalled for\u2026<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s backtrack to when I finished my first year of university, getting ready to spend my summer holiday back home. I again found myself all excited and emotional on the plane, just like when I first left home to study abroad. I could not calm myself down, knowing that I\u2019d soon be surrounded by family, friends, and everything I knew.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t long after I realised that I was completely wrong. The whole \u201ccoming home\u201d experience was anticlimactic \u2014 the same foreign feeling when I first arrived in the UK rushed through my veins. Except for this time, I felt detached at a place I once called \u201chome\u201d. I experienced what is known as a reverse culture shock, and the process very much follows this curve:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how reverse culture shock manifested in me:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Having tasted the sweet life of freedom, coming home to an at best, tight-knit, or an at worst, enmeshed family was difficult. I long for the liberty of going out without having to report my whereabouts. I too long for the community I\u2019ve built back in university and despise the fact that I\u2019ve outgrown my friends here at home. I felt isolated.<\/p>\n

I was engulfed in a toxic loop of comparison that I couldn\u2019t break free from. I found myself constantly comparing my life at home versus my life in Bath. One of the differences that I\u2019d noticed is the social etiquette between both countries. In England, people take pride in being courteous \u2013 words like \u201cthank you\u201d and \u201cplease\u201d goes without saying. In Malaysia, however, being on time is not a thing! Whenever I arrange an activity with my friends or family, I must double-check if we\u2019re actually meeting at 8 pm or 8 pm \u201cMalaysian time\u201d. The worst part is that I\u2019ve known the punctuality culture here for a long time; it\u2019s no different today from how it was a year ago, yet it felt so out of place.<\/p>\n

Coming home and realising it\u2019s not what I\u2019d imagined it would be is baffling enough as is. Unable to express that feeling without coming off as some preachy person who has lived abroad and came home wiser is even worse.\u00a0There\u2019s also this expectation from others to be the person I once was. Often, I turn into a hermit to be my real self in private; the person I like to be now.<\/p>\n

It was challenging, and I\u2019m not going to downplay the whole experience. But as a person who has been through it all, I\u2019m confident in telling you that it does get better. One sentence that gave me a silver lining to readjusting at home: if you could travel to another corner of the Earth and adapt to the culture, what\u2019s stopping you from readapting to your own?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what\u2019s done and tested:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Manage your expectations<\/strong><\/p>\n

I found it helpful to scrap all of the expectations I had from coming home and start building it all from ground zero. Treating every experience as a new normal is a good coping strategy. Understand this: the more resistant you are to change, the harder the transition back.<\/p>\n

Be obsessed with the good things\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our brain is hardwired to fixate on the bad part when we\u2019re in a bad state. That\u2019s our negativity bias. I actively tried to immerse myself in the things I enjoy when I couldn\u2019t abroad: family time, Malaysian food, having conversations in English with injection of Malay and Chinese words, and jogging in an actual puddle of sweat.<\/p>\n

Be a tourist in your hometown<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s no reason not to look for an adventure close to home. I probably had visited more places than I had before I went abroad. Having seen so many new spots in Malaysia, it feels refreshing to be home, but again I doubt myself; why do I even leave this beautiful place?<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \"\"<\/p>\n

Our cave and waterfall in Malaysia \u2013 of course it\u2019s going to be difficult to say goodbye to this!<\/p>\n

Get plugged in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Find a community that you love, even if that means introducing yourself to new people, like the effort you put in during Freshers Week. One of the main symptoms of reverse culture shock is loneliness and isolation. Being around people who enjoy the same things as you do helps. I started hiking again when I went home, which brought me to a community of hikers, hence the adventures! If you\u2019re lucky, you could even find others who are in the same shoes as you who could understand what you\u2019re going through.<\/p>\n

All in good time<\/strong><\/p>\n

One thing to keep in mind is that shock takes time to fade. So be patient with the people around you as you slowly show them who you are now; \u201cexpectation shock\u201d can be mutual too! It took me two good months to move on, and I am still finding my new normal.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Psychology student Kaylee Low shares her experiences of returning home after studying in the UK and offers some insightful and practical solutions to dealing with reverse culture shock. Home has changed, and so have I. The shock hit me when...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1296,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd4PsN-5e","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/be-well\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/be-well\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/be-well\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/be-well\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1296"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/be-well\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/be-well\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/be-well\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/be-well\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/be-well\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}