A month ago I referred to myself as being in the "honeymoon stage" of reentry, which drew objections from a friend who said that it's entirely unnotable that I'm happy to return home and find value in my own culture.
However, it seemed notable to me because people who are repatriating often do experience reverse culture shock. Many of my friends
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You had a great experience and now another will occur soon.
Best wishes.
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Rather, the claim is that talk of the "honeymoon stage" and "reverse culture shock" is mostly a waste of time. Those buzzwords are rather devoid of content -- they really don't indicate much of anything. Either the words are too strong and apply to almost nobody, or they're too weak and apply to almost everyone but have almost no substantive meaning, or more likely some combination of the above, where the person bandying the buzzwords is likely on the defensive trying to justify their own conversation topic or lecture or therapist or whatever, but in reality is just wasting our time. And that's fucking obnoxious.
Talking about the actual things that impact your life, things that are in some way particular, in some way specific, and in some way actually interesting, on the other hand, those may be worthwhile topics after all.
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... not that I'm opposed to therapists in general. However, I am opposed to people who open their talks with EVERYONE GOES THROUGH CULTURE SHOCK.
-qwerty-
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I think discussing culture shock as an entity is valuable in that some people don't expect to have the kinds of reactions they do, and I think it can serve to normalize those reactions. On the other hand, I've always thought that it was dumb that it was discussed as an entity in itself instead of as a subset of "life transitions." I had much more culture shock going away to university -- or getting married -- than I've ever had from visiting another culture.
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Unless you were eating steak, which seems unlikely, I'm rather curious as to how this was dramatically different across the pond.
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I expect language to be hard for me. I've gotten very used to being bilingual, surrounded by other bilinguals. My Hebrew is peppered with English and my English is peppered with Hebrew. My English vocabulary has become appallingly limited. That will probably come back quickly.
I'm sad to move off a calendar built around Jewish times and holidays, and back onto a Christian/American one. I'm happy to get Sunday back, but I'll miss Shabbat.
Not sure what else.
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ok, but you visited PGH at least one summer (that's how I met you). Was there no honeymoon then?
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Also, when I met you I had just started corticosteriods, which made me overwhelmingly depressed, so I wasn't having much of a honeymoon. :-)
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