Repatriation Blues: Expats Struggle With the Dark Side of Coming Home - Expat - WSJ - 0 views
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expatriate travel cultural dislocation psychology foreign
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the deep, dark secret of the expat experience is that coming home – repatriation – can be even harder than leaving. “When you go abroad, you expect everything to be new and different,” says Tina Quick, author of “The Global Nomad’s Guide to University Transition.” And when you return home, you expect life to be basically the same. “But you have changed, and things back home have changed since you’ve been gone,” she says.
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Many expats coming home go through a period of grief, says Ms. Quick, until they “give in to the homesickness” for their host country.
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a Facebook group, also called “I Am a Triangle,” so that people going through similar experiences could connect. A “triangle,” she says in her original post, is a person who might be from a “circle country” but move to a “square society,” that is totally different. Eventually that person evolves into a triangle, with elements of both cultures. Moving home doesn’t change that, she says.
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Other expats find that their alienation – sometimes called reverse culture shock – can take a more serious turn
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Ms. Okona stopped leaving the house and cut herself off from friends. Finally, her father asked her if she wanted to see a therapist. When she did, she was diagnosed with “situational depression,” or a depression caused in her case by her inability to adjust to the transition of her new life.
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it’s easy for returning expats to feel isolated. “Nobody gets it. It’s like having somebody dying and there’s no funeral and you’re not supposed to talk about it. You feel guilty talking about it.”
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The Rev. Ken MacHarg, who served as a pastor in six countries around the world, says that he tells people that moving overseas will “mess you up for the rest of your life. You’re constantly torn between those places, and you’re a changed person.”
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Children, who may appear to be excited to return home and reunite with old friends, sometimes hide their identities as Third Culture Kids. Ms. Foley, who had lived for years in France with her family, says that her children were fluent in French. But when one daughter took a French class back in Canada, she spoke French with a strong Anglo accent.
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Many repatriated expats find it hard to connect to friends again at home. Ms. Hattaway says that expat life draws people together: “You’re in a circle or tribe with other expats. But back home, you’re only one in a sea of people. Some of them have never left, some don’t have passports. And you look like everyone els
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Tina Quick, who lives outside of Boston, says that although she’s been back in the States for 10 years, she still doesn’t have a best friend, someone she could call in an emergency. She didn’t understand why she never heard from the other soccer parents she met after the season ended
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many companies limit the amount of time employees can spend in a particular posting. “They may say you have to go home or go somewhere else. But you might say, I actually like living here,” he says.
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Expats need to know that the toughest assignment of all might be coming home. “Send me home?” asks Ms. Pascoe. “It’s easier to go to Bangkok than to repatriate in Vancouver.”