There’s this particular kind of disorientation that shows up when you realize you don’t really know who you are anymore.
It’s usually not dramatic. Not some sudden breakdown. More like waking up one day and noticing that the person you’ve been living as doesn’t quite feel like you. The job you worked so hard to get doesn’t make you feel anything. The relationship you built your whole life around ended, and now you can’t even remember what you used to enjoy before it existed. The goals you were chasing seem like they belonged to somebody else entirely. You catch your reflection and think: who is this? What do I actually want? What even matters to me now?
I remember this feeling so clearly. After a stretch of burnout so total I could barely get through a day, I found myself sitting in my apartment with nothing I needed to do and absolutely no idea what I wanted to do. Not just in that moment. In general. With my life. I’d spent so long pushing, performing, being whoever I thought I was supposed to be, that when the whole thing finally collapsed, I realized I had no idea who I was underneath any of it.
It was terrifying. And also, though I couldn’t see it then, it was the start of something.
Before we get into finding yourself, it helps to understand how we end up lost in the first place. Because it doesn’t usually happen all at once. It’s gradual. Quiet. A bunch of small adjustments and compromises that make sense in the moment but add up to something you didn’t plan for.
Sometimes it’s burnout. You pour everything you have into work or caretaking or just getting by, and somewhere in there the parts of you that weren’t “useful” get shoved aside. Hobbies fade out. Friendships thin. You turn into a function instead of a person.
Sometimes it’s a relationship. You reshape yourself to fit with someone else. Your preferences shift, your habits change, your dreams start blending with theirs. And when it ends, whether you chose it or not, you’re left holding a shape that was designed for two people and doesn’t work for one.
Sometimes it’s a big life change. Moving somewhere new. Losing someone. Switching careers. Becoming a parent. Getting sick. The ground moves under you and the identity you’d built on that ground stops making sense.
And sometimes it’s just time passing. You grew. You changed. The person you were at twenty-two isn’t the person you are at thirty-five, but you never really stopped to notice. You’ve been operating on outdated software, and it finally gave out.
None of this means you’re weak or damaged. It means you’re human. We all build identities around our circumstances, our relationships, our roles. When those shift, it makes sense to feel unmoored. The real question is: what happens next?
There’s a name for this place you’re in. Psychologists call it liminality sometimes. The threshold between what was and what’s coming. It’s uncomfortable. It’s meant to be.
But here’s what I need you to know about this in-between space: it’s not a problem you need to solve as fast as possible. It’s not a failure. It’s actually where the most important stuff happens, if you can keep yourself from rushing through it.
When I was living in my own version of this, all I wanted was to figure it out. Land on a new identity, a new direction, some clear answer to the question of who I was. I approached it like a puzzle that needed solving, a crisis that needed fixing. And that desperation just made everything harder.
What actually helped was learning how to sit with the not-knowing. Letting myself be undefined for a while. Stopping the demand for answers and starting to just get curious instead.
This is harder than it sounds. We live in a world that wants you to have a bio, a personal brand, a clean story. “What do you do?” people ask, and you’re supposed to have something ready. But what if you don’t? What if you’re still in the middle of working that out?
That’s fine. That’s allowed. The in-between is a real place to be.
I used to think finding yourself after losing yourself meant building a whole new identity from nothing. Like you had to sit down, decide who you wanted to become, and then force yourself into that shape through willpower alone.
But that’s not how it went for me. And I don’t think that’s how it goes for most people.
It was less like constructing and more like digging. Less like inventing something new and more like uncovering something that got buried. The self I was searching for wasn’t gone. It was just hidden under layers of expectations and exhaustion and other people’s ideas about who I should be.
So instead of asking “who do I want to become?” I started asking different things.
What did I love before I learned to be practical about it? What would I do if nobody was watching and there was nothing to optimize for? What makes me feel like myself, even when I can’t explain why?
For me it was stuff I’d written off as unimportant. Long walks with no destination. Reading novels instead of productivity books. Making things with my hands, badly, with no plan to show anyone. Spending time with people who knew me before I became whoever I’d been pretending to be.
None of it was groundbreaking. Just quiet remembering. And slowly, through those small reconnections, I started feeling less like a stranger living my own life.
If you’re in this place of not knowing who you are, I want to offer you some permissions. Not because you need mine. But sometimes it helps to have someone say it out loud.
You’re allowed to change. Even if it confuses the people around you. Even if it means admitting that the path you were on wasn’t the right one. Changing direction isn’t failing. It’s learning.
You’re allowed to not know. You don’t need to have the next chapter planned out before you close this one. Uncertainty feels bad but it’s not actually dangerous. You can handle not having the answers for a while.
You’re allowed to grieve who you were. Even if that version was struggling. Even if you’re relieved things are different now. You can miss the old you while still moving forward. Those things can both be true.
You’re allowed to experiment. Try things that might not pan out. Explore interests that feel random or pointless. Let yourself be a beginner at something again. Anything.
You’re allowed to take your time. There’s no deadline on figuring out your identity. No prize for getting there faster. The slow wandering path counts just as much as the direct one.
If you’re wondering where to even start, here are some things that helped me and other people I’ve talked to who’ve gone through this.
Pay attention to what sparks something in you. Not what you think should interest you. What actually does. Notice when you feel even a tiny flicker of curiosity or life. Even if it seems small. Those flickers are data.
Go back to your past selves. Dig up old photos, old journals, old playlists. What did you care about before everything got so complicated? What did you dream about before you learned to be “realistic”? There might be threads worth picking up.
Try things without any commitment. Take a class. Join a group. Start a project with absolutely no expectation that it has to turn into something. Let yourself explore without it needing to mean anything.
Spend time around people who actually see you. Not the role you’ve been playing. You. The old friends who knew you before, or new people who seem to understand something about you that you’re still sorting out. Let yourself be witnessed.
Be patient with how messy it is. Some days you’ll feel like you’re getting somewhere. Other days you’ll feel completely lost again. Both are part of this. The way forward isn’t straight, and that’s okay.
Here’s something I wish someone had said to me when I was deep in it: you are not starting from nothing.
Everything you’ve lived through, all the different versions of yourself you’ve tried on, all the ways you’ve adapted and survived. That’s not wasted. It’s raw material. The person you’re becoming will be built from all of it.
You don’t have to throw out who you were to find who you are. You get to keep the pieces that still fit. Let go of the ones that don’t. Discover things about yourself you never had room to explore before.
This takes time. It’s uncomfortable and confusing and sometimes really lonely. But it’s also, in its own weird way, kind of a gift. Not everyone gets the chance to rebuild like this. Not everyone gets invited to sit with the question “who am I, actually?” and take it seriously.
You’re in the middle of something. Maybe it doesn’t feel that way. Maybe it just feels like loss, like emptiness, like drifting without anything to hold onto. But underneath the confusion, something’s happening. You’re happening.
The person you’re looking for isn’t somewhere out there waiting for you to track them down. They’re in here. In you. In the small choices you make, the things you gravitate toward, the moments when you feel most yourself even if you can’t put words to it.
You haven’t lost yourself. You’ve just temporarily misplaced the connection. And connections can be rebuilt. Slowly. Gently. One quiet remembering at a time.
You’re going to be okay. Not the old kind of okay. A new one. One that actually fits you.
