"Reverse" Culture Shock

• Stage one: Disengagement may happen before you leave your host country and often times occurs because of the pace of work, goodbye dinners. As a result, you begin to distance yourself from friends and host country nationals.
• Stage two: Initial Euphoria may also occur as a result of leaving your host country and returning to the US. This is where you may have formed idealistic views of home, and what will happen upon your return. You are happy to be home! This feeling of euphoria may last a few weeks, but may inevitably give way to feelings of loneliness.
• This is Stage three: Irritability and Hostility, which is the realization that life at home went on without you, and as you were learning new things and making subtle changes, they were too. You may feel that friends and family don’t understand or want to hear what you experienced abroad.
• Patience and continued reflection will lead to Stage four: Readjustment & Adaptation. You may see the world through a different lens now, but are quick to find that the cultural differences you once thought so great are, in reality, infinitesimal. You have learned to incorporate the changes you’ve made within yourself, into new goals and ideas that don’t negate your own culture’s norms and values. You have attained a balance between both cultures.