r/AutisticAdults•
Mara355

Has anyone else left their home country because they didn't feel at home anywhere?

seeking advice

I'm having quite the existential crisis here. I left my home town when I was 18 and never came back.

Since then, I spent the past 10 years going from city to city, from country to country, from house to house, from community to community, desperately looking for a sense of home or belonging. I always felt like I am in the wrong place, and my place is elsewhere. Like there's a place I have to be, and that's not it. This was an overpowering and all-consuming feeling.

I felt so rejected and out of place in my community of origin that staying was just not a possibility. I felt exiled and didn't know why - like there was just no space for me. I felt like everyone is from somewhere, and I am from nowhere. I did not feel like I was from the place, the culture, the community, the family I was in. I was from elsewhere. An unknown place.

Needless to say, I had an immensely hard time abroad, and spent the past 10 years with horrendous mental health. Then I found out I'm autistic. That explained everything.

I am now thinking of moving back where I'm from but I don't know how to make a place home. I don't know how to belong. It's like I don't have the ability to belong, and I feel like I exist in a void instead.

In a sense, it's an endless freedom of feeling like I am just a being in the cosmos. But that doesn't help on earth. I feel like my life never started, I am just endlessly starting over and I don't know how to remedy this.

Has anyone gone through the same?

Posted Mar 8, 2025, 12:51 PM UTC

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