The Shock has hit...

Culture shock comes in two waves. The first comes immediately. The different tastes, smells, sights, sounds…the various senses are shocked by what lies before them. The brain couldn’t even begin to imagine what is in the new environment before it was fully submerged in the midst of it. These obvious differences are frightening. They throw you off-balance. They confuse you.

The second wave is the subtler, but in the end it moves more mountains. I’m talking about the different ideals, the different beliefs, the different priorities. You may be lost as to why anyone would think the way these people think. Most of the time you become indignant, because you feel that these ideals that surround you are threatening your own. You believe at first that your way is the only way that can be right, because it’s the only way you know. But once you take down your defenses and open up to the possibility that yeah, these new beliefs are not right, not wrong, but different, then you start to change. The new ideals start to take root in you now that your door is open. They are no longer threatening to extinguish your traditional beliefs, but peacefully coexist. In some cases, yes, there are 180 degree turns, and traditional beliefs are abandoned completely. But the point is, there is an internal struggle which comes with culture shock, and it can send reverberations throughout your entire life.

Reverse culture shock is much the same, but almost all subtleties. There are the two waves, like the initial culture shock, but the first one is only as extreme as walking into Costco for the first time in a year and being appalled by the amount of useless bulk.

The second wave really lasts the longest, or so I assume, since I’ve only been back for 3 ½ months. It consists mainly of the lessons learned from being submerged in a different culture, and being able to compare them to the life back here. This category also consists of shocks you get from realizing the ideals you miss from your second home, which aren’t found here.

I miss my second home, yes. But more specifically, there are certain aspects of it I miss in particular. That realization, that I actually miss the one-time dreaded “Sprechstunden,” hit me today like a pan to the back of the head. Once upon a time I had difficulty being open. I kept all my emotions and opinions to myself, because that’s the environment in which I was raised. It was one of the most difficult aspects of myself I had to overcome that year. And I succeeded, to some degree. Maybe part of my closed-ness is tied to the part of my personality that cannot be altered.

There are few with whom I can now speak openly with. To be frank, most people don’t care about what I’ve gone through, even my friends. I hold nothing against them. They have their own lives to run without having to listen to stories which don’t relate to them in any way.

The only part that bugs me about that is that they are then content to rely on the Old Rachael formula to predict my decisions and reactions. What they fail to realize is how much Germany has shaped me in the past year. Sometimes I feel like the majority of me was changed during the past year. Germany is I. So by refusing to give interest, they are refusing me as a person.

I realize that I am a quiet person. A friend of mine told me recently that I lead such a “mysterious life.” I have to say that I was more open until I realized how little interest most people had in life beyond the border. That would turn anyone off. That could be one reason I have regressed back into my shell.

I’ve been trying to convey emotions and opinions to certain people, though, and most times instead of getting the emotional support I got from my host mom, I get tuned out. Some people don’t seem to have an interest in what or even how I think. Or even if they listen, they discredit it. You’re only imagining things. You’re just a teenager. What you feel makes no sense in the real world, so you can get that out of your head right now.

I miss the understanding. And even when I couldn’t be understood, because of language, or the concept was beyond comprehensibility, I still got advice and help as far as could be understood. People would actively help to seek solutions if you were feeling down or insecure, instead of shirking the responsibility and letting you take care of your own self.

I realize American culture isn’t like this. That’s why this is called reverse culture shock. There would be no shock if the case was the same everywhere.