The summer I turned twenty was spent exploring the little boot of Europe, Italy. Although it may sound mundane and a hyperbole of what really happened, the experience altered my realities and views of the world. I absorbed the culture, the art, music, cuisine, history- everything. Everything I could fill my senses with, smells, tastes, sights, sounds, everything I could touch, it all felt more exciting, more substantial than my college life back home in Texas.
Experiences such as studying abroad have a dangerous side effect.
During my final week in Italy, things began to change. I stopped emailing my mother and friends back home, poor mom didn’t event have my flight number. I avoided packing; opting to take day trips to cities I had seen times before. While my floor mates blasted Michael Bublé’s “Home,” breaking into group-wide sing-alongs, I went outside with a copy of the library’s anthology of Italian Folklore. I never finished a single story; instead, I’d stare at the Tuscan countryside in numb melancholic thought.
When the time finally came to leave, I tried everything in my power to stay. Once on an adventure into town a car turned a quick corner and speed in my direction, I stopped dead in my tracts, staring at it, daring it, begging it to keep coming. The screeching sounds of the brakes ended my hopes; I walked away with a bruised hip and frantic frustration.
The plane ride home was my low point. It was the most depressing point in my life.
It sounds overdramatic. Anyone who knows my personality would laugh at the absurdity of these actions.
Coming home made things worse. I cried my first night in bed. I hated the United States and everything about home. The food I found disgusting, I tried in vain to replicate the Italian masterpieces, but could never get the taste right. My mother praised my new chef phase, I felt like a failure each time. I hated the street, the city life, the difficulty of traveling.
People would excitedly ask about Europe, all I did and saw, I would brush it off, never wanting to talk about it. Talking about it twisted my stomach. They didn’t deserve to know. These were my memories, my adventures; strangers could never understand my Italy.
As time passed I fell deeper into this depression and resentment of my once joyful home, I was suffering from Reverse Culture Shock I would later learn.
It’s something many students experience upon re-entry after studying abroad. The difficulties of readjusting to the life you left, after experiencing a life altering adventure, are quite common. The severity differs.
I found only a fraction of my study abroad peers shared the disdain and depression that covered me for a good six-months after re-entry. But I wasn’t alone. There were numerous resources online that helped me cope with my situation. Advice, recommendations, and support.
It eventually subsided. Like most episodes of mild depression do.