Erasmus is back — and it has left many young Irish people with a bitter-sweet taste in our mouths. Being able to spend a year studying or training abroad again, after lockdown’s interruption to the European Union’s student-exchange programme, has shown lots of us just how colourful life can be outside Ireland. It also raises a key question: why must this better version of life end for us at all?
Like the culture shock you can experience when you arrive in a new place, reverse culture shock occurs when you return to your home country
I’m a final-year student of linguistics and French at University College Dublin, and I’ve just spent a year in France, in Lille and Paris. My experience has been similar to lots of other people’s. A fellow Erasmus student in Lille, Aleesha Wiegandt, from University College Cork, says: “Living in another European country opened my eyes to the professional and personal progress that were possible in the time that in Ireland I normally spent commuting or working to pay for housing and healthcare.
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“I love Ireland and would see myself building a career and life here. However, emigration becomes tempting if you are offered heavily subsidised healthcare, psychological support and affordable housing in another country.”
Wiegandt, who’s social-inclusion officer for Erasmus Student Network in Ireland, is not surprised, given Ireland’s rather bleak realities, that more than seven out of 10 young Irish people are considering emigrating, according to a somewhat unsurprising, if still shocking, recent survey.
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If you or someone you know is struggling to readjust to life back at home after completing an exchange abroad — not just an Erasmus swap, in fact, but one to any country — you might be experiencing the very common phenomenon of reverse culture shock.
The term was coined by a US anthropologist, Cora DuBois, in 1951. Like the culture shock you can experience when you arrive in a new place, reverse culture shock occurs when you return to your home country.
One of its stages is a “recovery” or readjustment process, where “sojourners”, or temporary residents such as Erasmus students, face issues such as nostalgia, confusion, loss of identity, poor acquaintance with their home culture, challenges to interpersonal relationships, and linguistic problems when they arrive home. A sense of reverse homesickness, a loss of independence and/or a sense of resentment towards one’s home country are also common symptoms.
We prepare ourselves so much for our big move abroad but underestimate the struggles we can face when we make the equally big move home. The good news is that you can readapt after this transition period
In simple terms, you learned to cope and adapt to a different life, a different version of yourself, in a different country. You may now feel that you have outgrown your home country and that you don’t fit into your old life. We prepare ourselves so much for our big move abroad but underestimate the struggles we can face when we make the equally big move home.
The good news is that you can readapt after this transition period. Whether you’re suffering from post-Erasmus depression or summer-abroad comedown, here are some tips that can help.
Take a recovery period
Jumping back into your normal routine can be overwhelming. Try to recalibrate beforehand by spending some time alone or by doing the small things, with familiar friends in places that make you happy at home. Recognise that change, as natural as it is, is challenging and worthy of treating with sensitivity.
Reflect
Celebrate your time abroad and acknowledge that it was a valuable experience. Ask yourself some big questions. Could you see yourself living abroad again? Are you avoiding issues in your life at home by fantasising about life back in your exchange country? Is there anything you are lacking at home or something/somewhere new you’d like to explore?
Avoid looking back through rose-coloured glasses. Nowhere is perfect. Accept that life abroad consisted of challenges and that you will also face challenges at home
Don’t compare
Avoid looking back on life abroad through rose-coloured glasses. Nowhere is perfect; every country has its issues. Accept that life abroad consisted of challenges and that you will also face challenges at home. Living elsewhere can’t always remove these challenges.
Avoid ranting about home
You don’t want to be that person who moved abroad to live their best life for a few months and now constantly moans about everything wrong with Ireland. Try practising gratitude and consider aspects of your native country that you may have missed and can now appreciate more that you’ve lived elsewhere.
Keep connected
Stay in touch with friends and contacts you made abroad. If possible, consider planning trips back to your exchange country or inviting new friends to visit you. Network. Find others in the same boat who can share their experiences and coping strategies for reverse culture shock. Also, communicate with friends and family at home. Tell them that you are struggling to readapt and talk about the ways you have changed.
Although reverse culture shock is perfectly normal, and will pass after a couple of months of readjustment, it is not something to be brushed off or undermined as mere post-holiday blues. Coming to terms with change is not easy and is an important part of the construction of our cultural identity, growth and goals.
The anthropologist Miriam Adeney once said: “You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart always will be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place.”
Eve Moore is deputy editor of UCD’s University Observer
If you live overseas and would like to share your experience with Irish Times Abroad, email abroad@irishtimes.com with a little information about you and what you do
This article was amended on October 15th, 2022, to attribute several lines to Aleesha Wiegandt rather than to Eve Moore. The error occurred in the editing process
