If you’ve been abroad, or have had friends who have studied abroad in the past, I’m sure you have seen a graph like this one.

If you haven’t, this is a graph explaining the stages of culture shock that someone experiences when they study abroad. I was presented with this image during my study abroad orientation back in November. Upon reading through it and applying it to how stressful my life was last semester, I immediately began to worry. I worried about falling into the pattern of this image, and not thoroughly enjoying my time here in Manchester.

Today, I’ve been in Manchester for exactly four weeks, and those weeks have been full of excitement, fear, learning and self-acknowledgement. I left home absolutely ready to leave. I had a hell of a semester juggling two shows with my theater department, 18 hours of classwork (later dropped to 12 because I felt overwhelmed), working with my lifesaver of a co-site leader to plan a service trip to Nicaragua, pleasing anyone except myself, being as unhappy as I’ve ever been for the longest period of time and, ultimately, seeking the help of someone professional to try to dissect my thoughts and feelings.

I came here hoping to find a “fix” to everything, and have since realized that moving halfway across the world, though it seems like it will do that, absolutely won’t. That change comes from within, and I hope to use the rest of my time here to utilize resources around me to get back to the person I was before last semester.

So, to the people I’ve hurt in the past few months, I sincerely apologize. I hope that when I’m back, you’ll see that I’ve thought about everything so much, and it’s fueling me to be better not only for me, but for my relationships. To everyone reading this, thank you for allowing me to get my thoughts out in a way that I haven’t before. The reason I bring this up with this graph is to mention that, even though the feeling presented here are real, and come and go while living abroad, they shouldn’t dictate how I’m supposed to feel at a certain time. If I were to use this graph to dictate my time here, I would be doing myself a disservice. I’ve learned the past few weeks to throw out any preconceived ideas of what my life is supposed to be like while I’m here and just live.

I’m going to have good days, and bad days. This isn’t a fantasy land, and I can’t be bothered to treat it that way. I’m letting a lot of my negative past go and embracing the positivity of being able to utilize this opportunity and let this experience take me and run. I feel vulnerable, but hopeful that releasing my feelings will in turn set free some of the guilt and negative feelings.

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Response from International Programs: The W-curve is a model used in international education to describe culture shock as you experience life in your host country. Not all students will follow this model exactly as it is written, but it is a guide to help map some of the general reactions to engagement with a different culture over time. Should you find that you are experiencing extreme reactions to cultural differences, such as depression, anxiety or other symptoms of duress, please contact International Programs for resources and information on psychological care while abroad.