Expat depression and repatriation

I am not going to write a hugely long post about this because I think so much has already been written on this subject (see links at the end of the post). But I couldn’t close my series on expat depression without at least mentioning this topic.

When I was reading through the survey results from which I initially gathered people’s experience of overseas life and depression, one thing that stood out was the number of people who said the hardest thing for them hadn’t been moving abroad….but moving back home again. But why is this so tough? Surely you are returning to the bosom of your friends and family, to a culture you feel familiar with, to a place where you can understand what people say and find food you like in every shop?

Well, let’s start by having a look at some of the reasons why moving home isn’t always as straightforward as you may at first think it will be:

You’ve changed. They haven’t.

Of course, this isn’t entirely true as everyone changes as they grow and age. Things do happen back home just as they happen “abroad”. People get married, have babies, get sick….but these are “normal” things experienced by all; what you have gone through is very likely something out of the usual bubble of life, something out of the ordinary and something most of your friends will quite possibly never experience. And this will have changed you in ways you perhaps don’t even yet realise yourself. You will see the world differently, things that were important to you before won’t be now and vice versa. You will probably see that there is more than “one way”, that the world is a more complicated place than you possibly realised it was. And you will bring all of this with you into back into your old life – which will probably be just as you left it…

No-one will be very interested in where you have been.

Okay at first they will be. They will want to hear your stories of paddling down the Congo in a dug-out canoe or sleeping under the desert stars. They will start by asking you questions but these questions will soon run dry as they run out of understanding about your life and what you actually did on a day-to-day basis (which probably isn’t that much more exciting than theirs, despite what they may think). Eventually they will stop asking questions, start avoiding you in the street, “forget” to call you back. Not because they don’t like you but because they can’t really relate to this new version of you. And avoiding you is their best way of dealing with this.

You will have to start again.

And yes it could be just as hard as starting again in a foreign location. So you need to find schools, dentists, possibly a home, a job….you may have a group of supportive friends or you may not but many repats find themselves looking for a new support group who has more of an understanding of what life has been like for you over the past few years. So you need to find these people, get to know them, reach the point where you feel comfortable with them…You will also almost certainly find yourself going through the same culture shock cycle as at the start of your posting and as I described in my book The Expat Partner’s Survival Guide: the honeymoon period, negotiation, adjustment, acceptance.

If you have children they may very well be grieving their old life.

Whilst we may feel like we are returning home, this may not be so easy for children who have been out of the country for a long time and don’t really know anything but living in your foreign home or maybe even several foreign homes. For them, the things that are familiar and comforting to you may be very alien to them. They will probably also be missing their friends and wondering how or if they will ever see them again.

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And that is just for starters. You will read it over and over again but you probably won’t believe it until you experience it for yourself – moving home can be just as hard as moving away. In fact, many would say that it can be a lot harder – to the extent that one great piece of advice is to treat this as another foreign posting and adjust your actions and emotions accordingly.

In fact, this is why repatriating can very often lead to depression – because you are not expecting it to be so hard. You think there is something wrong with you. You feel ungrateful or guilty….you should pull yourself together, you can’t blame living in a foreign country for your feelings anymore….

So if this is you stop. Just stop. And give yourself some time. Ask for help. Do all the things people have recommended in my earlier posts on expat depression. See a professional. Don’t blame yourself, don’t think you are being weak. Just like you hopefully did when you first moved abroad, you will eventually settle back in, life will eventually get back to normal. You will be happy again. And if you don’t? Well, there is a whole world waiting out there!

Further info/reading:

Link to a free webinar on 26 May called Eeek I’m Repatriating – all about “finishing well and preparing to go home” – http://events.wattsyourpathway.co.uk/eek-i-m-repatriating-event-registration/

http://blogs.wsj.com/expat/2015/04/15/repatriation-blues-expats-struggle-with-the-dark-side-of-coming-home/

http://www.worldwideerc.org/Resources/MOBILITYarticles/Pages/0212-Dean.aspx

https://iwasanexpatwife.com/2012/01/16/repatriation-5-mistakes-i-wish-i-hadnt-made/