Not fully from here, not fully from there...
Moving abroad can shape who we are in deeply complex ways. No two experiences are exactly the same, and much depends on what initiated the transition in the first place.
For some people, moving countries happens gradually, almost playfully, through curiosity, travel, relationships or opportunity. For others, it can feel far more abrupt or emotionally demanding, driven by survival, work, instability, loss or the search for a different future.
The experience can also feel very different depending on whether the transition happens alone or within a family system. Some people arrive with support and familiarity around them. Others rebuild themselves almost entirely from scratch.
Over time, living abroad can expand us internally. It can widen perspective, expose us to different ways of living, challenge inherited beliefs and open emotional and cultural worlds we may never otherwise have encountered.
But there can also be a quieter and less visible side to it.
At times, people can begin to experience a subtle sense of not fully belonging anywhere. Not entirely here, but no longer fully there either. A feeling of existing between languages, cultures, memories, identities or different versions of oneself.
This experience is not always dramatic. Sometimes it appears softly, through loneliness, emotional disconnection, restlessness or a persistent feeling that something inside no longer fits in quite the same way it once did.
For some people, these experiences can feel difficult to fully explain or carry alone.
Therapy can offer a space to explore these feelings with curiosity and care, rather than trying to silence them through distraction, busyness or constant adaptation.
Over time, it can become possible to integrate these different versions of ourselves, rather than constantly struggling to become exactly the same person in every place, language or culture we inhabit.