Handling the transition: Numb and lost
So I’m back in Dubai after a week in Mumbai. I was there when the terror attacks happened; awful, awful, but I won’t get into a rant about that.
I got into the city last night, and I’ve already been at work a day. It all feels surreal, like I never took 3 years off, like I was in some sort of coma all this time. Did I really live in Spain for 3 years? Why am I back here now?
Over the last week of transition and traveling, although I’m not fighting my decision to end my living abroad experience, I am feeling like I’m nowhere and am not recognising who I am. I feel like I’ve become introverted, and am not being able to talk about all the things I am feeling or thinking, even though I want to. Probably because I’m not being able to put things into any concrete or comprehensible form.
I haven’t yet called friends to say that I’m back. I’m not in the mood to socialise (very unlike me).To those who have called me, I’ve not been able to talk beyond the small talk. I feel that there is a large gap between my life in Spain and my life here in Dubai. A gap I don’t know how to fill.
I’m neutral bordering sad, but not depressed or negative in any way. Maybe I’m confusing neutrality with numbness, the type that comes with leaving behind what you loved. I suppose it’s just a matter of time before I snap out of it and get back to my normal self, but till then I’m okay to be with myself as I resolve all my mental and emotional chaos.
Extended travel and continuous change, as exciting as they are, definitely take their toll. I like to call it personal growth.
Should I be worried that I’m already thinking where I’ll go to live next?
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:14 am
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December 2nd, 2008 at 7:55 am
Welcome back to Dubai … you wrote something interesting to me … “I am feeling like I’m nowhere and am not recognising who I am. I feel like I’ve become introverted” … I have the same feeling every now n then … I am from kuwait and I haven’t been living there for a while … I want to travel and truely see the world but I know that this will come at the price of everything u mentioned above …
December 2nd, 2008 at 1:01 pm
didi!
it seems natural.
it’ll only get better with time, but make sure you let it.
it’s generally called umm, the process of adaptation 🙂
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Wow are you a complainer. You can just waltz back into employment and housing after three years abroad and you’re whingeing? You’d never make it in the U.S.
December 3rd, 2008 at 2:32 am
alfds! Please don’t make outrageously ignorant posts. It wastes our time.
Rolf, remember your interview on frommers.com podcast when you talked about the need to be extroverted while traveling! Ok I know that doesn’t solve your problem, but I was just listening to it today… Anyway, I was deeply affected by this post. I’m rooting for you.
December 3rd, 2008 at 4:26 am
Abha, you poor gal, sounds like a nasty case of reverse culture shock and I never really found a cure. My best advice is to try to switch off your brain a bit – don’t think about it all too much for a while – try to distract yourself with stuff you know you enjoy whether it’s books, DVDs, shopping (budget-dependent of course) or sport or whatever. What I mean is, let a bit of time pass and you’ll (probably) start to feel better. Once you’re more settled you can make a sensible decision about whether you want to move on again or not.
And something that probably won’t help (sorry): a bunch of friends and I who’ve all lived abroad for extended periods calculated an average of 2 years to settle back in to our hometown. Of course, it could be faster for you and I hope it is!
December 3rd, 2008 at 4:43 am
Mohammad, Anish, JA, and Amanda: Thanks for your thoughts, I really appreciate them. It’s easier to write feelings here than to talk about them to people who have no idea what I was up to the last 3 years.
2-years to settle in!? I really hope not. I think I should be OK in a month or two, when all this sinks in.I’m at work full time, so that helps.
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Bonita, te escribo en español para expresarme mejor. Los últimos días, semanas aquí han sido vertiginosas para ti, igual que tu viaje de vuelta…es normal que estés eimpactada con la vuelta a Dubai, entre otras cosas porque ha sido todo muy rápido.
Por mi experiencia después de Chile te digo que viene bien un tiempo para ti, para readaptarte, haciendo cosas que te gustan, estar contigo.
Que no te apetezca hablarlo me parece muy natural. Verás como cuando lo tengas asentado en ti, podrás expresarlo si te apetece.
Cuídate mucho y ten ojo con no zambullirte mucho en el trabajo.
Muchos besos y gracias por compartir estas cosas.
December 5th, 2008 at 5:57 am
Hey you! Don’t worry its natural. Like the others have already said, do the things you feel doing, and you’ll slowly find yourself slipping into the “now.” After 4 and a half years in the US, I went back and lived at home at my parents house in Oman. By then I didn’t have any friends left there. I was seriously depressed. Then after 1 and a half year I went back to Oman again, this time for work, again I had to start from scratch, but I ended up snapping out of it quickly and having a good time. You have friends there and tons of stuff to do, Dubai is so much more exciting than Muscat. You’ll be fine! But for now, do only what you feel like doing…you’ll be your social self in no time 🙂