Culture Shock Is Real — Here's What to Expect

Moving to Medellin means rebuilding almost everything at once — your routines, your social circle, your sense of how the world works. That process has a name: culture shock. It affects the vast majority of people who move abroad, and for veterans navigating civilian life at the same time, the adjustment runs deeper.

What culture shock actually looks like

You may have heard about the four stages — honeymoon, frustration, adjustment, mastery. It is a useful framework, but research tells a more complicated story. A study of 2,500 expatriates across 50 countries, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found at least five distinct adjustment patterns — and no universal “honeymoon phase.” Some people feel excitement early on. Others hit anxiety from day one.

What the research does agree on: the hardest stretch typically comes between months one and four. A longitudinal study found strain peaked at roughly three months. Daily frustrations pile up — bureaucracy you don’t understand, conversations you can’t follow, systems that work differently from what you know. Irritability, homesickness, and withdrawal into familiar routines are all common.

The good news: sociocultural adaptation — navigating daily life, understanding local norms — improves significantly within six to twelve months. Psychological adjustment takes longer and varies widely. Only about 10% of expatriates follow the textbook four-stage path. Your trajectory is your own, and that is normal.

Why veterans face a double adjustment

Here is what makes this different for you. Leaving the military is itself a cultural transition. Researchers in Military Psychology call it “reculturation” — the military has its own language, values, chain of command, and social norms. Leaving that world means learning a new culture, even before you board a plane.

A Pew Research Center survey found that 48% of post-9/11 veterans described their transition to civilian life as difficult. Among those who experienced traumatic events during service, that number climbed to 53%.

Now add an international move. You lose military structure and the familiar systems of daily American life. You lose your built-in social network and the ability to easily communicate with the people around you. Identity questions, social isolation, and disorientation can hit from both directions at once.

Naming this helps. It is not weakness. It is the predictable result of navigating two major cultural shifts simultaneously.

What helps most

The strongest evidence points to a strategy researchers call integration — maintaining your American identity and veteran connections while actively engaging Colombian culture. Multiple meta-analyses confirm this produces better mental health outcomes than either retreating into an expat bubble or trying to fully assimilate.

Three specific things matter most:

Build connections on both sides. A 2025 mega-analysis published in Nature Communications — covering over 571,000 people across 1,114 studies — found social connectedness was the single strongest predictor of successful adaptation. That means both fellow veterans in Medellin and Colombian friends and neighbors.

Learn Spanish. Host-country language ability is the strongest predictor of day-to-day social functioning. Even basic conversational Spanish reduces the helplessness that fuels culture shock. You do not need fluency — you need enough to order food, ask for directions, and have a simple conversation with your neighbor.

Rebuild structure. Veterans are accustomed to routine. Without it, days blur together and motivation drops. Regular commitments — PT appointments, exercise, language classes, social plans — provide the predictability your brain is looking for.

When it’s more than culture shock

Culture shock is not a mental health diagnosis. It is a normal response to a major transition. But sometimes the difficulty crosses a line.

Normal culture shock fluctuates — you have bad days, but good experiences still lift your mood. Clinical depression is persistent. The frustration does not ease with positive events. Interest in things you used to enjoy disappears. Hopelessness settles in and stays.

Watch for these signs:

• Symptoms do not improve at all after two to three months of active effort
• You stop leaving your home for days at a time
• Substance use increases
• Pre-existing PTSD symptoms get significantly worse
• You have thoughts of self-harm or suicide

If any of these apply, reach out. The VA Foreign Medical Program covers mental health treatment for service-connected conditions abroad — no referral needed.

Veterans Crisis Line: Dial 988, press 1 (from a U.S. number). From Colombia, the most reliable option is the online chat at VeteransCrisisLine.net/Chat, available 24/7 worldwide.

Sources

• Demes & Geeraert, “The Highs and Lows of a Cultural Transition,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2015 — five distinct adjustment trajectories among 2,500 expatriates across 50+ countries
• Bierwiaczonek et al., “Social and Contextual Correlates of Migrant Adaptation,” Nature Communications, 2025 — mega-meta-analysis of 571,000+ people identifying social connectedness as the strongest predictor of adaptation
• Joseph et al., “Reculturation: A New Perspective on Military-Civilian Transition Stress,” Military Psychology, 2022 — framework for understanding military-to-civilian transition as cross-cultural adaptation
• Pew Research Center, “The American Veteran Experience and the Post-9/11 Generation,” 2019 — nationally representative survey on veteran transition difficulty
• Berry, “Acculturation: Living Successfully in Two Cultures,” International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 2005 — foundational evidence for the integration strategy