I’ve spent years living overseas. When I returned to the US, my reverse culture shock was so bad I left after 2 months.

A few years ago, I left Thailand and headed to the US for a bit, but it didn’t work out.

I left the United States in September 2015 because I wanted to experience living abroad as an adult.

Although I still live overseas nine years later, there was a moment in January 2018 when I moved back to the US and thought I’d stay there long-term.

My mom and sister had been visiting me in Chiang Mai, Thailand, when I ended a long-term relationship with the partner I’d been living with.

I was heartbroken and unsure about what I wanted next in my life. Plus, I hadn’t seen my father in two years. So, I chose to return to the US with my family.

I booked a last-minute flight to Florida with the intention of staying with my folks while I figured out my next move.

Being in the US was stressful and more overwhelming than I expected

I wasn’t used to overhearing so many conversations I could understand. 

We landed in the middle of the night at John F. Kennedy International Airport for a layover en route to Fort Lauderdale and I was so overwhelmed by being able to understand conversations happening around me.

English wasn’t the primary language in many countries I’d lived in, so I was used to only hearing it when it was spoken to me.

Now, it felt like every conversation was on a megaphone and being directed toward me as my brain tried to understand and compute every word it was hearing. I went to the airport bathroom, huddled in a stall, covered my ears, and cried.

It was my first taste of reverse culture shock, which can happen to people who return home after spending a lot of time away from it.

I also experienced a lot of it when it came to food, from America’s massive portion sizes to its abundance of fast-food chains.

At restaurants, I was also perplexed by the constant attention from the servers who checked in on us every few minutes.

Although it’s standard practice in the US, it was the polar opposite of what I became used to while living in places like Spain and Italy. There, I often had to flag someone down for my check or get up and go to the bar just to order a second glass of wine.

I left the US after 2 months of struggling to adjust and don’t see myself moving back

I also found my attention shifting to issues I didn’t worry about while abroad — one of the big ones being gun violence.

Around the time I returned to the US, my community in Florida was devastated after the deadly mass Parkland high-school shooting.

I got involved in gun-reform activism, organized a blood drive with my sister, and went to Tallahassee with survivors to speak to state representatives, but it felt fruitless to me.

I never worried anywhere else in the world about being shot in school, at a concert, a club, or a grocery store. In the US, which has hundreds of mass shootings a year, I was on edge.

All of this combined meant I only lasted in the United States for about two months before I returned to Chiang Mai.

Although I’ve continued to visit the US many times over the years, I can’t see myself living there again for a long period of time — especially not as we approach a second Trump presidency.

As a queer daughter of an immigrant, I feel many of his previous actions as president and his policy proposals are a direct threat to my existence and my community.