 Homesickness. One of the most talked about topics when it comes to study abroad. Almost every single time I bring up the fact that I'm doing a year in Scotland, people ask me if I'm homesick. It is probably the number one comment that I get on my videos about study abroad. The truth is that it is much more complicated than a yes or no answer, which maybe isn't the correct response or the response that people are hoping for. This is one of the most complicated topics that I've ever covered on my channel because homesickness seems so simple. You are sick for home. You miss the people from there, and you know, the only way through is to just like buck up. But how are you supposed to combat this feeling of missing home while also trying to build a new one, even if it is temporary? So this video is gonna be in three parts. Number one, the stages of homesickness. Number two, how to overcome it. And number three, what happens when you follow my awesome amazing advice. Stage one, fear. So you are leaving home, and it's all excitement and to live up a month before you leave. I moved to Scotland in six, 16 days, which is a thought that kind of makes me want to throw up because then it starts to get real. Watch part one because there's a whole video about that. Stage two, excitement. Okay, so you have arrived. Everything is fun. You're just doing things like going to museums and cultural experiences, little, you know, trips and excursions. And everything at this point is really cute. You know, you're like, oh my god, everything looks like Harry Potter. And like, oh, I'm at the pub. Ooh, I'm gonna drink tea. Like, any of it week three to four. Stage three, comparison. Small things start to pile up because yes, it was fun for the first couple of weeks when you had less school work and you were being a tourist, but now you actually live here. Like, I am supposed to be living the Highlight Reel right now, and like, I have watched like people above me like Study Broad and like, I have watched their Highlight Reel. I'm like, it is cool, but man, Instagram is a lie. And you have to work to build a life while also combating this like very stupid and annoying thought of you are temporary. None of this matters, which refer to episode two for advice on that. Stage four, frustration. Okay, now something bad has happened and you have cracked or something good has happened. And basically you're gonna have this moment where something has happened and you really just want to call somebody at home, a friend or a family, or just a person you love, you know, and tell them what happened, but everyone is busy or asleep, and at this moment you may have a good cry and that is allowed. Stage five, acceptance. You have let go of most of the comparing and now it just seems like life is this way. You've let yourself live in the culture. You found new parts of yourself to express and you're leaving and suddenly you just don't want to leave. So now we're gonna talk about how to overcome it. I personally don't think that homesickness is something that goes away. I don't think it's a thing that you can master or like get rid of. I mean, it's gonna definitely vary depending on the person, but you know, if you are going for a short time, these things do help. Number one, stop calling home. Okay, don't panic, don't panic. I can see you panicking. Do not panic. I don't mean to stop calling home altogether, but especially at the beginning, spend a few days without it. It is such a natural feeling to want to call home and talk to the people who love you and understand you. Like, if we're gonna leave anything on this planet, Yeah, it's gonna be spreading awareness of Jesse McCartney's film career. Technology nowadays is amazing and you can literally talk to anybody across the world on a tiny screen and you can see them. You can see their face. You can talk to them for hours if you want to. However, I think a lot of times we don't talk about the downsides of how interconnected our world is because, you know, on a biological level, we need in-person human connection. If you have plans to call home, or you just feel like you really need to talk to somebody from back home, but you get, you know, invited to go do something or, you know, there's like an event happening in the first month that you could go to and meet new people, it's going to be really important for you to prioritize the people that are here in person. If you spend too much time trying to uphold your life back home, you can really miss out on everything that's in front of you, and I think it's a really slippery slope and I have seen this. You get here and you're feeling a lot of anxiety and you kind of feel like you can't do it, so you start calling home a lot to, you know, to get that connection and believe me when I tell you this, it is only going to make it so much worse because you are going to be constantly reminded of everything that you left behind. Like this is just like some tough love right now because it's like those things aren't, aren't going to help you in the present moment. Everybody you love and everything that matters is going to be waiting for you when you get home. And also this advice really just applies to like the first month, like obviously, you know, if you have the first month, like the first couple of weeks, like you should really prioritize settling in, but, you know, obviously I've had days where, you know, I talk to friends for like an hour or so, you know, from home, like this is not something that has to last forever, but I think it is important to like establish your life here first. And number two is going to be stop the comparison. So for this one, I don't mean the fun ones, you know, like we say aluminum and they say aluminium. So silly there's so many letters, but I mean when you're frustrated, okay, so like military time and the date, they switch the date here, and I have like actively missed real important events in my life because of that. It is super easy to like throw your hands up and be like, yeah, like I just wish it was like home. But at the end of the day that comparison, it will not help you. Like what are they gonna do? Change the whole culture? No. So you just, you gotta, you just gotta vibe man. Part three. What happens when you take my excellent advice? Study abroad is one giant test of how you define yourself. For example, we define ourselves by where we're from, what we like to do, the people we love and who love us, the products we own, the subject we study, the school we go to, our political affiliations. But how do you define yourself in a place that can't really understand the full context of who you are? When you suddenly don't have these easy signifiers to point to your character. Suddenly the state you're from becomes the United States. The school you go to becomes a long-winded geographical explanation that's linked to an obscure television show. I tell people that I go to school where they filmed the Outer Banks and the notebook. This is a, this is a common thing I do. And they're like, oh, it's of that. Or they haven't seen the show, they're like, and this is both the beauty and the curse of going abroad. I have spent a lot of years of my life feeling like I was weird, which I am a little weird. I think the best people are who wants to be normal. Like, you know, I was quiet. I, I am quiet. You know, I did, I did theater. I was like in the arts. And, you know, sometimes those things can put people off. The wrong people. However, people nonetheless. And I had this moment in October here where I was at dinner and I don't know what was happening. Maybe someone was asking me what I was doing that day and I, I brought up the play that I was reading for class and how I thought it was, I thought it was a really good play. And we had never talked about this before, like to contextualize this. Without, without a breath, the person across from me responded like, oh, yeah, I've, I've actually, I haven't read that play, but I've read this other play by that, that same playwright and it was like totally excellent. And I was like, am I being punked? Am I, here am I? Okay. I'm, I don't want to be dragged. So I'm not saying that Americans do not care about art or like that kind of thing. Cause like we do, like we really do. But like you have to be in like a very specific environment to garner that sort of response. And I was just like at dinner. So like now I'm here and I'm like this quiet nerd who likes art and like that's cool. You know, there are these instant labels that people put on us at home. And I started to realize, you know, after a while, they do it here to each other, the class system. Oh my God. Of course they do. That's how the world works. We all try to understand people that we don't know and categorize them and put them into boxes. It's a universal problem that I am guilty of as well. We are all guilty of this. But this year I got an escape from it. You know, I have had seven months of not being, you know, instantaneously understood. And I put it best in this journal entry. There is something so nice about being a part of a culture someplace, not having to explain yourself. Except when you want to be someone new, because you have to explain yourself. So who am I explaining myself as? Who do you want to explain yourself as? Because that right there is the magic of study abroad if you let it happen. If you push yourself to talk to people who are different than you, it's hard. It's lonely sometimes. But I have never had a better grip on who I am than ever before. I know who I want to explain myself as because I've literally had to do it. And when people try to put me in boxes when I go back, which they will and I will, I will be better equipped to be proud of the parts of myself that like fit in here and that are more like socially acceptable. Because if I have learned anything this year, it is that there is always somewhere to start over. There's always a new place to call home. There's always a new place to be homesick for. But each time you start over, you bring yourself with you. So who do you want to be?