You expected change. Maybe you even craved it. A new job, a better quality of life, a new language, new streets. You knew things wouldn’t be the same once you left your home country. But what you didn’t expect was the quiet, disorienting sense of not recognising yourself anymore.

In the weeks or months after an international move, many expats find themselves asking a question they can’t easily answer: Who am I now?

The Loss of Everyday Anchors

Before the move, your identity was built—quietly but firmly—on habits, roles, and relationships. You were someone’s friend, someone’s daughter, a local at the café, a parent who knew how the school system worked. You didn’t have to think about who you were—it just was.

Then everything changed.

Even small routines—the familiar brand of bread, the street signs you didn’t have to translate, the jokes that made sense—disappear. And with them goes a layer of self you didn’t realise was stitched into the details of daily life.

This isn’t just disorientation. It’s a form of grief.

Not for a person, but for a version of yourself that doesn’t fit here.

Not Quite This, Not Quite That

You may start to feel split. You’re no longer fully from there, but you don’t yet feel at home here. You speak two languages, but neither feels like it fully holds your emotions. You adapt to one culture, while grieving the other. You miss the person you were in your old life, yet part of you is relieved to leave that version behind.

This in-between state can be psychologically taxing. You’re redefining your internal sense of self without the usual social mirrors. For some, this brings confusion. For others, shame—”Why can’t I just adjust?” For many, anxiety or sadness starts to take hold.

But identity confusion in this context isn’t pathology. It’s a process of psychological reorganisation.

This Is What Integration Looks Like

From a psychological perspective, identity isn’t fixed—it’s something we renegotiate again and again, especially through transition. Living abroad can act as a rupture, breaking apart our assumed self-concept. And while that sounds destabilising, it also opens space for self-exploration.

The challenge is that this process is often invisible. Others may see your life abroad as adventurous, enviable, even glamorous. But inside, you might be quietly unravelling—trying to reconstruct a sense of self in a place that doesn’t yet reflect you back.

Therapy during this time can help. Not to “solve” the transition, but to create a space where the loss, uncertainty, and contradictions have permission to exist.

You Are Not Starting From Scratch

It’s easy to feel like you’ve lost everything familiar, including parts of yourself. But nothing essential has been erased. Instead, you are layering new experiences over older ones. You are growing in complexity, even when it feels like falling apart.

Identity confusion is not a failure to adapt—it’s evidence that you are in the middle of becoming.

If you’ve been struggling to feel like “yourself” since the move, you’re not alone. This is a normal, often unspoken part of international transitions. If you’d like to explore it further, I offer resources and support specifically for expats navigating this very process. Find it here.