The process of reintegration back into society after a retreat I'm in a period of my practice where i feel ready for a retreat. I have been looking into different types of retreats and have found the Goenka 10-day retreat the most suitable one for me as a first-timer. I do however not now when i will be able to attend one due to long waiting time in the area close to me and my current job do not allow me to travel.

I was wondering about the reintegration-process back into society after 10 days with silence and minimal contact with people and no contact with the outside world. I have done small "retreats" by myself where i would buy food for 1-2 days and then stay inside and meditate. When i went outside after a couple of days and talked to other people i found that i had some aversion towards people and felt uncomfortable in their presence. I would rather stay for myself. I do not know how a 10-day retreat will affect me or if it will.

Personal experiences and methods for dealing with people when comming out of a retreat is what i'm looking for. A side note - i will be doing the 10-day retreat in another country than where i live. I dont know if that has something to say but now the information is there.

Thank you very much.
I attended a meditation course taught by Venerable Yuttadhammo which was, in total, a 21 day course. Due to inability to take 21 days off from work all at once, I had to split the course into two parts, 7 days &amp; 14 days, giving me two periods of going from the busyness of daily life to the quiet of a monastery and back to busy daily life again in a 6 month period. 

I also wondered about how it would feel, after the course, to resume daily activities and to deal with people. I tried to provide a buffer period of quiet time for myself (for when I returned home) by making arrangements ahead of time to take off an extra day from work, stock up on frozen and non perishable groceries to avoid having to go to the store right away, running errands ahead of time when possible. It was helpful just to not have too much piled up needing to be done when I returned home.

I was surprised actually at how challenging it was to adjust to the quiet at the monastery. Being away from internet, music, and most noise in general proved quite challenging to me and it took me a few days to adjust. For future retreats, I plan to build in a buffer period of being offline and quiet for a bit before I go to the retreat too. After a few days though, the quiet felt normal and continued to feel normal until it was time to go home. 

I didn't find myself with any strong aversion to people after the course. People seemed loud perhaps, laughing too much, crude sometimes, but nothing that I hadn't noticed or felt even before the retreat. On my way home I had a one hour layover at the Port Authority in New York City. Going from a quiet monastery to the New York Port Authority bus station is about as different as you can get. But it was fine. I was standing, smiling, noting things, while everyone else was running around, yelling, getting stressed out because the bus was late. I was so happy to have had the opportunity to practice mediation and feel so calm in the midst of such busyness.

My best suggestion would be to try to build in buffer zones both before the retreat and after where you are not especially busy, social, (or spending lots of time online or listening to music before) to ease the transition both to the retreat and back to society afterwards. Best wishes for your retreat! :)