u/YakCrazy202

This is an embarrassing and vulnerable post… I’m a Canadian who’s recently moved to Fukuoka for the year. I’ve never experienced an earthquake before until moving here, and I thought I wouldn’t be bothered much by experiencing them.

When the quake hit in Kumamoto I was home alone at the time and hid under my table, I didn’t have my phone with me and had no idea how long earthquakes even last, but my house was shaking and making loud noises so much that my life flashed before my eyes and I thought I was going to die. I know this is insensitive considering it was such a small quake for us and people had actually lost their lives but I was terrified.

Since then I’ve tried to rationalize the fear by researching quakes and understanding that Japanese buildings are built to withstand, but I wasn’t able to leave my home in nearly two weeks. Today I had karaoke booked so I pushed myself to just go (we had another earthquake today around 6am that was weaker but enough to startle me, however I wasn’t alone this time so I felt ok)

Anyways cut to me going to karaoke alone, I ended up having a panic attack and having to leave very early, I just kept imagining the building collapsing and every other worst case scenario, at this point I’ve broken down and I just want to go back to Canada. But I know this is insane, and irrational, and I want to get over it but everytime I hear a noise i immediately have anxiety spikes and have almost been in a dissociative state.

I guess I’m just sharing this incase anyone is going through anything similar or has any advice. My boyfriend is from here and has been really enjoying getting to be near his family this year so I haven’t spoken to him about all of my thoughts about wanting to leave, and I know it’s not what I truly want anyways

So today I was purchasing an item from a shop, our whole conversation was in Japanese until the end after I’d paid she wrapped my item in a sheet of paper (my item wasn’t breakable it was a piece of clothing so not necessary) and as she did it she said the word “service” I immediately was thrown off with how to respond and without smiling I just repeated the word back to her… I initially though she was trying to speak English with me as I’m western but I truly just didn’t know how to respond at all otherwise I would have came up with something better

After googling it, it seems she was doing an extra gesture for me and “service” is the word to use while doing so. I feel so bad about the situation and wish I had known to give a smile and a thank you in that moment for treating me special, I just didn’t understand I was being treated special:( I did of course say thank you at the end as I always do but I feel like every day I experience an “oh no” moment being in Japan and learning the language