Returning Kiwis find it hard

NZ just isn't the same...

Over the lat 12 months I have noticed a steady increase in the number of clients I have been seeing who are Kiwi’s returning from their OE and finding settling back into New Zealand very difficult. The longer they have been away the harder it appears to be to settle back in.

One of the difficulties is that there is an expectation that by ‘coming home’ things should be easier and more welcoming. When you head off overseas, you expect it to be hard to start with. You realise that you are going to have to get to grips with a new culture, new ways of doing things, maybe even a new language. You probably only know one or two people in the country you are going to, or maybe no-one at all, so there is an expectation that you are going to have to ‘work it’ on the social front to make new friends and form new relationships. Essentially you prepare yourself for heading overseas and are ready (well as ready as you can be) for what experiences are ahead. I can relate to this for when I arrived on these shores 10 years ago all of the above applied.

So what’s the expectation for when you arrive back after your time away? When you return home, what do you think it’s going to be like? For most people it’s the thought of putting that old comfortable pair of slippers back on – warm, safe, secure. You’re home, back to where you came from, back to friends, family. Back to familiarity of culture, of how things are done and what to do. Back to what you know ….. right?

Actually, the experience is very different and couldn’t be farther from the truth for most returning kiwi’s. Those comfortable slippers have been chewed by the dog and your feet have grown so they no longer feel comfortable. Your friends have moved on in their lives and aren’t around so much, your family (although happy to see you) have their own lives too, the landscape has changed – your favourate restaurant is now a pizza place and it just doesn’t feel like home any more.

This can be a very unsettling feeling for many people and leave them feeling lonely and isolated. A general sense of ‘this should be OK to be back’ and confusion as to why it isn’t can be hard for people to fathom out. There needs to be some re-adjustment and that can be very difficult to do.

My encouragement is to realise that you are not alone and that this is a common story for many. If you are feeling like this then look for help, talk to someone about what’s happening and start to put some strategies in place to make NZ feel like home again.