The Corona pandemic has turned all our lives upside down and confronted us with unexpected challenges. It also hit many expats hard in 2020/21. It affects those who had just started their adventure abroad and are struggling to familiarize themselves with the new environment. It also affects those who have already been abroad for a longer period of time, but who now have to cope with a severely restricted daily routine and are plagued by homesickness because they cannot go on home leave or receive any visitors. Those who are just now returning from abroad are also facing quite a struggle. Because even if it seems like the easiest option at first glance, returnees have to overcome very special hurdles when they arrive home.

Reentry is a transition process

The process of arrival and adjustment that returning from abroad entails (quite independently of Covid) is underestimated by many. While the physical move has long been accomplished, our souls need more time.

We must take a rest from time to time and allow our souls to catch up with us.

And precisely because we have the expectation that everything will be much easier when we go home, feelings of shame, guilt and self-doubt add to the initial disorientation.

I should be adjusting faster, don’t make such a fuss. I should be happier, I wanted it that way. Why did I put my family through all this? Was it worth it?

No real goodbye

Now, if we add the Corona pandemic on top of that, it’s twice as hard as it would be under normal conditions. Healthy farewells require celebrating them consciously, cherishing the friends and places we learned to love abroad. If this is limited due to Covid measures, it becomes more difficult to process the time abroad in a healthy way.

Unexpected and early reentry

For some expats, reentry came suddenly and at short notice, sometimes ordered by the company. There were great concerns for an increased risk of contagion and travel bans. For them, there was very little time to organize the move and virtually no chance to say good-bye as planned.

What makes it so hard is the experienced loss of control and the feeling of being on the run from a lethal threat.

Upon arrival in their home country, repats face a period of quarantine paired with living in temporary housing, making it nearly impossible to settle in and establish a new home. Sudden evacuations also repeatedly affect expatriates in politically unstable countries and can leave deep, traumatic traces that should be psychologically attended to.

Family Separation

As I write this, it seems surreal, but it has happened this way to numerous expats in my network. In the beginning, this whole pandemic was thought to be over in a matter of weeks, a few months at most. This led to some expats deciding to continue their work on site while sending their families on extended home leave. Or there were other constellations that resulted in family separation, the wellbeing of the children being the primary focus. No one could have guessed how long the pandemic would keep everyone grounded and that they would have to lead a long-term long-distance relationship while living out of a suitcase. Lost in limbo.

Those affected had to cope with great hardship.

Also taking pets back home was often only possible under difficult conditions. Due to limited flight options, it was a whole new adventure to transport pets. I’ve heard stories about a dog that could only get a flight months later and a cat that travelled for days via mind-boggling detours through Tokyo and Moscow.

Arriving with obstacles

An important part of arriving and resettling in the home country for all family members are social contacts. And these are so very limited during Corona that you must be grateful if you get a chance to see at least the closest family members. Many other contacts simply cannot yet be reestablished in the way you had anticipated. When you return to a completely new region of your home country, you start from scratch again.

It’s a life between worlds, without being able to find closure for the old and fully engage with the new.

Parents are worried about their children, settling in at the new daycare center or school is constantly interrupted, and carefree play with other children is still not possible. Teenagers have a particularly hard time connecting virtually with their peers and establishing their circle of friends. For the expat partner, the return to work or the search for a new job is difficult, because the job market remained in a state of shock for a long time. Daycare is not always available.

In an interview, I asked my colleague Rebecca Lüppen about what it was like for her to return from abroad with her family of six just two weeks before the first lockdown. You can find our 30-minute Zoom interview on YouTube YouTube and a summary of the most important key messages in my next blog article

What helps?

It is essential to acknowledge that returning home in times of a pandemic represents a major multifaceted psychological challenge. Those who can fall back on strong inner resources will be able to manage better. However, these resources are put to a hard and especially long test as the pandemic painfully drags out the arrival process. Self-care is essential! Saying goodbye always involves grief. It’s important to allow yourself the necessary time to process and recharge.

No one needs to do this alone.

Partners, family, friends, employers – everyone can support, and you should demand it. However, if everyone’s batteries are running low, there is the option of seeking professional help. There is counseling available over Corona hotlines, but they may not be specifically familiar about the challenges of reentry. Qualified therapeutic support for children, adolescents and adults should not be skimped on. Feel free to contact me for recommendations from my network.

Exchanging experiences with other returnees who are going through something very similar is gold.

It allows you to find empathic listeners and the possibility to talk the burden off your chest. You will no longer feel like you’re the only one affected. One difficulty I see though is when people permanently pull each other down and persist in lamenting.

For those who want to proactively do something for their well-being, I strongly recommend reentry coaching. I offer this as individual coaching or as group coaching. Together with my colleague Christina Kapaun, we have developed a three-month online group coaching for repats, in which participants can exchange ideas in a safe environment and are professionally accompanied by us in their arrival process. The topics and all further information about our “Arriving” program can be found here.

The experience with our participants has shown that the group coaching has triggered a powerful dynamic in them to work on their personal development. Despite the pandemic, they were able to make great progress and arrive more and more at home and within themselves.

Emotional Rollercoaster

In the 1960s, Gullahorn & Gullahorn’s empirical research established what many repatriates intuitively felt: Repatriates from a stay abroad suffer similar stress symptoms during the readjustment to their home country as they did when adapting to the host country at the beginning of their foreign assignment. As a result, they developed the W-curve of acculturation, which I have already illustrated in my blog article “Why we experience Culture Shock”. 

Such a curve cannot, of course, accurately reflect the experience of each individual, but it does illustrate that the expatriation cycle includes reentry and that there are typical ups and downs. The highs are called Honeymoon stage, the lows Culture Shock and Reverse Culture Shock. In between there are the stages of Recovery and Adaptation which may fluctuate. Basically, I find it reassuring to know that after every low, things will get better again. In this article I would like to explore the different stages of reentry.

The 4 Stages

The better prepared you are for your return, the milder your reverse culture shock will be and the sooner you can adjust. Let us therefore take a closer look at the 4 Stages of Reentry described by Craig Storti in his book “The Art of Coming Home” and let me add some of my own examples and experiences.

Stage 1: Leave-Taking & Departure – Good planning or abrupt ending?

The inner farewell begins months before the actual departure. Thoughts wander more and more often into the future: What will we do professionally? Where will we live? What school will the children go to? You write endless to-do lists for organizing everything from farewell parties to what to pack when, bureaucracy, etc.

At the same time, you unconsciously distance yourself a little, looking at your host country in a more critical way (“I’m certainly not going to miss the smog!”) and maybe even spending less time with your friends. This is an act of self-protection, so that the farewell doesn’t hurt as much. This stage is therefore characterized by a great ambiguity – rather typical for any major transition in life.

In 2020, many repatriates will have missed out on this stage due to the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, which will further complicate the process of coping with the return. If, for example, it was not possible to say goodbye to dear friends and places that have grown to your heart, if reentry is accompanied by a longer period of family separation, or if the children have not seen their classmates again before leaving the country, then this is a traumatic experience that should not be underestimated. It is advisable to seek support and give oneself time to process what happened in a healthy way.

Stage 2: The Honeymoon – Wearing Pink Glasses on Cloud 9

This stage actually feels much like a honeymoon or a home leave. You are full of joy to see family and good old friends again. You eat and do everything that you missed abroad. Everyone gives you a grace period and helps you settle in, not burdening you with any problems so far.

The Honeymoon stage, in which you see everything through pink glasses, lasts for about two to four weeks. Again, it is not the same process and intensity for everyone. Even within a family there can be big differences. It’s important to give everyone their space and be especially understanding. It is also important to keep in mind that in some cases not all family members return home (e.g. bi-cultural couples or children who were very young when they left the country).

Stage 3: Reverse Culture Shock – Subconscious Turmoil

The reverse culture shock is not a single moment or a sudden breakdown, but rather a complex, largely unconscious emotional state that can last for weeks or months. The transitions from and to the other stages are gradual. It is important to understand that reentry is a big change and takes time. Time to process everything. Space for the mourning over leaving a country, loved ones and a very special phase of life, in which you have grown a lot.

I have summarized the different causes for reverse culture shock in the following diagram based on what I found in literature, field reports, articles, and my own experiences. The areas affected by reverse culture shock are complex and often beyond our awareness. We often lack the vocabulary to describe the emotional chaos and name the pain points. This overview should serve as a basis for reflection.

Typical for this stage is the glorification of the time abroad. With a transfigured gaze, you rave about all the beautiful experiences and ignore the negative ones. Disillusionment sets in and now it’s the unpleasant aspects of home that stand out. Instead of wearing pink glasses, you now look through your “abroad glasses”, harshly judging the ones around you and criticizing everything.

Ironically, your environment expects that you have settled in and are doing well by now. On the inside, however, you suffer more than ever. You may not have a supportive friend by your side or even be ashamed that you aren’t happy. It’s completely understandable that you’re struggling with yourself, because little by little you realize the extent of your own transformation. You have changed and so have the others.

In addition, being a “cultural hybrid” comes with insecurities and emotional chaos. You start questioning if the assignment was worth it after all. A queasy feeling sets in as you fear you have to start all over again. In their jobs, repatriates often struggle with loss of status and autonomy. Everyday routines still have to be established, which costs a lot of energy. The transformation process is exhausting, and you have a tendency to be irritable, unfocused, unenjoyable, withdrawing and taking refuge in social media.

For children, the process can be just as complex and lengthy as for adults, even if they don’t show it so clearly. Here, parents should observe whether behavioral problems or longer depressive phases occur and seek professional guidance (see my consulting services and the reference to my network of experts). The responsibility for the children’s well-being often places an additional burden on the parents during this time. All family members need extra attention and loving understanding for each other.

Stage 4: Readjustment – Can we have it all?

And now finally the good news: It will pass! Sooner or later you will settle in and fully arrive. Now home feels familiar again, you meet friends at the supermarket, you are fully integrated in your job again, the children have settled in at school, the social network is in place. Routines and everyday life provide security, you regain control, develop more self-confidence and a vision for the future.

In this stage, both your countries can be viewed and reflected from a more balanced perspective. It becomes clear that you can combine the best of both worlds. It doesn’t have to be an “either-or” – you can create your own “as well as”!

Work with me

As a trainer and coach, I accompany repatriates through all stages, from assignment preparation and culture shock to reentry. I offer workshops as well as individual and group coaching. Together with my colleague Christina Kapaun I have developed a group coaching program for repatriates called “Arriving”. Here you can find all the details about “Arriving” and the next starting dates.