Thank you for your post. I went to South Korea straight after college to teach and to live. (back in 2005) It was a traumatic kind of culture shock that I doubt I will ever forget, but the pain of the complexities, (fear, terror, panic, loneliness, confusion, frustrations, and all the rest that you are fully aware of) as you put it, has mostly faded with time and reframing the memories with new perspectives given more knowledge, etc.

Those new (brain/heart altering) experiences do change you forever, but they don't have to define your future forever. I lasted 6 months out of the year I was supposed to finish there. (I was financially trapped for that long before I could afford to return to the USA.) The initial month was when I was basically crying myself to sleep every night. But I decided to fight as much as I could to hold it together in public and at the school, etc., and I did.

About six months later, I did return to South Korea to teach again and had a much better (full) year because I didn't have the major culture shock the second time around. I went on to teach there for a few more years and one year in Taiwan. At the end of 2010 in Korea again, I decided that teaching was not my preferred career path and returned to the USA and have been here ever since. (for better or worse, this is my "home" country for now)

I just wanted to write to let you know that you are not alone in your feelings and that you can find joy again even after all of the pain. Fully grieving over the loss of your former self-image (pre-Japan) and grieving over the painful times in Japan, and then finally grieving over the reverse culture shock you have now are fascinating things to think about and feel and I don't have any set answers that will work for you personally. (your current changed self that others likely can't understand or relate to very well in regards to the changes that Japan created in your mind/heart is what I mean by reverse culture shock)

One thing I will say though about your time there is that I hope you continue to embrace whatever your feelings are, because, even if they are full of pain, they are YOUR experiences and your feelings and they can only control you in negative ways if you decide to let them. Choices define who we become and even if we make a few that hurt us to the core, those choices are what make us the individuals who we actually want to be in the long run.

Take care of yourself and be gentle with yourself, most of life is worth the (hopefully only brief and manageable) pain. :)