Why Coming Home Can Be Harder Than Moving Abroad: ADHD and Reverse Culture Shock

When my family and I moved from the United States to Germany, I thought I knew what I was coming back to. After all, I was (and still am) German. Germany was still home. I had spent around 25 years living in the United States, but I knew the language, understood the culture, had family here, and had returned countless times over the years. This wasn't like moving to Japan or arriving in the US for the first time. I was going home. Or so I thought.

What I hadn't anticipated was how strange it would feel to return to a country that was simultaneously deeply familiar and surprisingly foreign. Some things about coming back have been exactly as wonderful as I'd hoped. Others have been frustrating, disappointing, or simply bizarre. And I've gradually realized that coming home can sometimes be more complicated than leaving in the first place.

Why returning home can catch us off guard

When we move abroad, we expect things to be difficult. We know we'll have to learn how things work. We expect cultural misunderstandings. We anticipate getting lost, saying the wrong thing, filling out forms incorrectly, and occasionally wondering what on earth we've done. There's a certain freedom in being new.

Coming home is different. We expect to understand.And that expectation can make every moment of confusion feel much more unsettling. When I returned to Germany, I quickly discovered that although I had grown up here, I had never actually lived here as an adult. I had never researched and applied for German health insurance for a family. I hadn't dealt with the German retirement system. I didn't know how daycare and schools worked from a parent's perspective. And I'd certainly never built a self-employed business here.

Suddenly, I was trying to navigate systems that everyone seemed to assume I should understand. Sometimes I found myself thinking: How can I possibly not know this? I'm German. But knowing a culture isn't the same thing as knowing how to build an adult life inside it.

You aren't returning to the country you left

There's another problem with going home. Home has changed – and so have you! If you've lived abroad for decades, the country you remember is partly a country preserved in your memory. My ideas about Germany had been shaped by the place I left many years earlier, by visits home, and inevitably by looking across the Atlantic and noticing the things I missed. Some aspects of German life looked particularly appealing from the US. And some of them still are. But others turned out to be very different from what I'd imagined.

Things that may have been true 30 years ago aren't necessarily true today. Systems change. Communities change. Schools change. People change. And sometimes the rosy picture you've carried around from thousands of miles away doesn't survive everyday contact with reality. That's part of reverse culture shock that I think deserves more attention: You're not only adjusting to what is there. You're also letting go of what you thought would be there.

ADHD can add another layer to the transition

Major moves require an extraordinary amount of executive functioning. There are forms, deadlines, appointments, decisions, new routines, unfamiliar systems, and dozens of small tasks that depend on one another. For someone with ADHD, that's a lot to manage. But moving abroad initially offers something else, too: novelty. In a genuinely unfamiliar country, even mundane experiences can be interesting. You're exploring. Learning. Comparing. Discovering. Coming home creates an odd mixture.

Some things are new enough to require enormous mental effort but not necessarily new enough to feel exciting. Figuring out health insurance can be complicated without being particularly stimulating. Learning the rules around self-employment certainly keeps your brain busy, but not always in the enjoyable I'm discovering a new culture! kind of way. That combination can be surprisingly draining: All the adjustment, with less of the honeymoon.

You aren't the person who left, either

Perhaps this has been the most interesting part for me. Germany changed while I was gone. But so did I. Twenty-five years abroad inevitably shape the way we think, communicate, work, raise children, build friendships, and understand ourselves. We absorb parts of other cultures without necessarily noticing it happening. Then we return and discover that other people's idea of what it means to be German doesn't always quite match ours anymore. We still belong but in a different way.

This can be especially noticeable when talking with people who never left. We may share the same language and cultural background while having very different reference points and life experiences. That's difficult to explain because, from the outside, we've simply "come home." Internally, we may be trying to figure out where home actually is now.

The things we came back for may be complicated, too

One of the things I particularly missed about Germany was a greater sense of community. And I still value that enormously. But I also discovered that returning didn't automatically solve the problems I'd hoped might become easier. For example, building friendships and community as a family with neurodivergent children hasn't necessarily been easier than it was in the United States. In some ways, it has been just as difficult - and occasionally more so.

Self-employment brought another set of surprises. Some obstacles I'd barely encountered in the US suddenly required substantial amounts of time and energy. That's one of the less romantic truths about international moves: You leave some problems behind. You don't leave the concept of problems behind. A new country simply provides a different assortment. That doesn't mean moving was the wrong decision. It means that no place gets to remain the idealized version we created from afar.

When the novelty wears off

For someone with ADHD, there's another transition that can be particularly noticeable. At first, returning can still be exciting. You're rediscovering places, seeing family, noticing differences, furnishing a home, exploring what's changed. Eventually, however, the new country becomes everyday life. The novelty fades but some of the frustrations remain.

That can be the point when reverse culture shock becomes particularly confusing. You may have expected to feel settled by now. Instead, you're still irritated by things you don't understand, missing parts of your previous life, or wondering why you don't feel entirely at home. That doesn't necessarily mean you've made a mistake because adjustment isn't a straight line.

What can help?

I've come to think that returning home requires many of the same things as moving somewhere completely new, perhaps even more consciously, because we don't expect to need them.

First, allow yourself to be new. You don't have to know how everything works simply because you grew up there. Ask questions. Let people explain things. Treat yourself as someone learning a system rather than someone failing to remember it.

Second, be careful with comparisons. It's incredibly easy to respond to every frustration with “In the US, this was so much easier.” Sometimes that might be true. But every country has systems that work beautifully and others that make you want to scream into a pillow.

Third, make room for grief as well as gratitude. You can be delighted to be back home and still miss your previous life. You can love being closer to family and miss friends thousands of miles away. Those feelings don't cancel each other out.

Fourth, actively build a new life rather than trying to recover your old one. The person who returned isn't the person who left. Your friendships, work, routines, and sense of belonging may therefore need to look different, too.

And finally, especially with ADHD, rebuild structure deliberately. A move dismantles routines almost overnight. Don't expect all of them to magically reappear. Start with a few anchors, e.g. where you work, when you exercise, how you manage paperwork, whom you see regularly, and let the rest develop gradually.

Home can be more than one place

I still consider Germany home. But after so many years abroad, I've realized that home has become more complicated than a country on a map. Parts of me were shaped here. Other parts were shaped elsewhere. Returning hasn't meant stepping back into the life I left behind. That life doesn't exist anymore, and neither does the person who lived it.

Instead, I've had to build something new from both. Maybe that's one of the most useful ways to think about reverse culture shock, particularly after many years abroad. Coming home isn't really about going backwards. It's another international move.

You bring more familiarity with you, certainly. But you also bring expectations, memories, relationships, habits, and a version of yourself that didn't exist when you left. Perhaps the goal isn't to feel exactly as though you never went away but to create a new version of home that has room for the person you became while you were gone.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is reverse culture shock?

Reverse culture shock is the adjustment process that can happen when you return to your home country after living abroad. Things that once felt familiar may suddenly seem strange or frustrating, particularly if you've been away for a long time. Both your home country and you may have changed while you were gone.

Can ADHD make reverse culture shock more difficult?

It can add another layer to the adjustment process. Moving involves major changes in routines, systems, relationships, and responsibilities—all areas that can place significant demands on executive functioning. The loss of novelty after returning home may also make the transition feel different from moving somewhere completely unfamiliar.

Why don't I feel at home after moving back to my home country?

After years abroad, your identity, values, habits, and expectations may have changed. At the same time, the country you remember has changed too. Returning home therefore isn't always a return to your previous life. It can involve creating a new sense of belonging that incorporates both who you were before you left and who you've become.

How can I cope with reverse culture shock after moving home?

Give yourself permission to approach your home country as someone who is learning it again. Rebuild routines gradually, seek out people with similar international experiences, and allow yourself to miss aspects of your previous life without interpreting those feelings as evidence that returning was a mistake. Adjustment often takes longer than expected.

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