Coping with reverse culture shock can get messy unless you develop some internal boundaries and let them gate-keep your emotions. There's only so much emotional excitability that a body can tolerate at any given time. Although I wouldn't go so far as to say that you need to sit down and make a list of things that you will allow yourself to be bothered about (stuff you can do something about) or not be bothered about(stuff that is really not under your control), some sort of mental exercise along these lines wouldn't hurt!
I'm trying to think how I coped with my reverse culture shock after I returned to the USA from Australia. That was 14 years ago next month so it has largely faded from memory. I know one fantasy I'd had - that America was a land of milk and honey - got shattered when I took a boring, antiseptic job at GNC being paid $5.25 an hour. Aussies would revolt for those kinds of wages (I was being paid $17 an hour in Melbourne for part-time receptionist before I left in 1997) but it's all relative, depending on where you live.
ReplyDeleteLove the monkey picture. I've been seeing monkeys all day. Guess I better go look it up on Lin's Domain. . . .