Readjustment

I've been on Tumblr for several months now, and most of the other tumblrs I follow are related to Afghanistan, as that is where my interest lies. Most are aid workers, journalists, Afghan-Americans, etc., but I did stumble upon the tumblrs of a couple of soldiers who are serving in Afghanistan that were interesting and unusual enough to add to my follow list. One of them I basically started following purely because of the relationship he has with his fiancee, as shown through their respective tumblrs. They're completely adorable and I pretty much love them just for that.

Anyway, the guy, Justin, just got back from Afghanistan a couple weeks ago, and judging by his recent entries is having a tough time readjusting. Reading these posts makes my heart go out to him, and his fiancee, because that must be an incredibly difficult experience. He's mentioned having nightmares several times, and I know from personal experience how horrific nightmares can be.

I can't possibly understand exactly what he's going through now, because his realm of experience of being in Afghanistan as part of the military is completely different from anything I've ever known, but I do recognize some of the symptoms he's mentioned.

Everyone's heard of culture shock, and it definitely does happen. I've experienced it myself. However, what everyone fails to tell you is that reverse culture shock is much more traumatic and difficult to deal with. Readjusting to the familiar can be much harder than adjusting to the different.

I've experienced this twice; first when I returned from my semester studying abroad in Denmark, and then again last year when I returned from my short trip to Afghanistan. It was much worse the second time.

Upon returning from Denmark, the biggest problem I had was that being able to understand everything being said around me was a shock. My system couldn't handle it. I'd just spent four months in a foreign country, where a foreign language is spoken and hearing an American speaking English was significant enough that you would turn around and look if you did hear one. Other than that, and a few other small differences, there wasn't much of a problem. Denmark wasn't really all that different from the U.S., comparatively.

However, returning from Afghanistan was much, much harder. It's odd, really. The visit was relatively uneventful, no traumatic events, major catastrophes, or even terribly emotional aspects. Completely unlike what I imagine Justin's experience in Afghanistan was and a fraction of the length. Yet I had a hell of a time readjusting to my life here.

I kept getting angry -- completely, irrationally, over-the-top angry -- over the smallest little things. Things that I barely even would have noticed before, yet now I would completely blow my stack over. This happened constantly, pretty much every day for the next five months or so. I was argumentative, bitchy, rage-filled, moody, impatient, rude -- all sorts of things that usually don't apply to me (well, to be honest I can be bitchy and/or moody sometimes, but not usually to this extent).

I started having trouble at work and then getting in trouble at work. My boss spoke to me several times, but I just couldn't seem to control it. I was working as a caterer and kitchen worker at the time, which was not good because a large part of my job was dealing with customers. Bad job to have when you can't keep a lid on your temper.

Once I realized what was going on -- it's surprising how difficult to even realize at the time that this sort of behavior is abnormal, usually I don't recognize culture shock or depression or whatever until after it's over -- I started analyzing what was going on and why.

I realized that after my trip to Kabul, seeing how people's lives have been torn apart by war, how starvation is a daily threat, how those people have nothing yet manage to live their lives, it was difficult to come back and care about whether the lemonade pitcher was full for the guests at an anniversary party or if they had ran out of appetizers or had enough napkins. I had seem people live in shipping containers, tents made out of leftover tarps scavenged from the garbage with no heat, no electricity, barely enough food to survive, nothing. Where heaps of garbage line the streets, where kids beg for food to feed their families, where refugees from Kandahar and Helmand try to eke out a miserable existence in IDP camps outside the city. Sorrow and misery seemed to be everywhere. Then after all that I came back to this land of excess and overindulgence and it infuriated me.

It all just seemed so unimportant, and I couldn't make myself care. I was desperate to get back to Afghanistan, where things seemed to make sense, where I could make a difference and do something to help.

Eventually, however, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to return to Afghanistan. I was leaving for grad school at the end of the summer, so moving abroad clearly wasn't an option.

Gradually the fits of rage faded and then stopped completely. I went back to my usual laid-back self and life returned mostly to normal.

For me, the readjustment period was short yet brutally difficult. I'm afraid that for Justin it will last much longer, maybe even the rest of his life, and is undoubtedly much worse than it was for me.