How to Take Care of Your Mental Health After Moving Abroad – Beyond Paperwork and Practicalities

When we think about moving to another country, we usually imagine the external transition: new city, new job, new routines, new system to navigate. What is rarely spoken about is the internal migration — the invisible emotional journey that unfolds long after the suitcases are unpacked. When I moved abroad myself, I was surprised by how deeply the change touched my sense of identity, belonging and emotional safety. On the surface everything looked stable, but inside there was a quiet process of grief, disorientation and rebuilding that nobody prepares you for. Many of the expats and migrants I work with in online counselling describe a similar experience: the moment when the excitement of relocation fades and a different layer of reality begins to surface. That reality is not dramatic, but it is profound — a gentle un-rooting that asks for time, softness and inner reorganisation.

What most people don’t expect is that relocation often triggers a subtle form of grief. It is not the loud grief of losing a person, but the silent grief of losing a world — a version of yourself that belonged somewhere effortlessly. Even if life abroad is objectively “better”, emotionally it comes with loss: loss of language ease, of cultural shorthand, of emotional proximity, of the feeling that things are naturally familiar. This is what many therapists refer to as migratory grief or ambiguous loss — a loss without a clear ending, without goodbye rituals, without public acknowledgement. You still have a home country, but it is far away and no longer fully yours in the way it once was. You have a new country, but it does not yet feel like home. You live between worlds — half attached, half detached, emotionally “in transit”. This is what I call the corridor phase of emigration: not here, not there, hovering somewhere in-between.

Culture shock is usually misunderstood as something that happens only in the first weeks or months. But its psychological phase often arrives later, when life looks normal on the outside. It is not just about unfamiliar customs or systems; it is about a micro-identity rupture — the moment you realise that the person you used to be is no longer fully accessible, and the person you are becoming is not yet formed. For many expats this stage feels like emotional weightlessness. Old reference points fall away, new ones have not yet anchored in. This can create fatigue, irritability, numbness, a feeling of isolation even when surrounded by people, or a strange detachment from yourself, as if you are watching your life from a slight distance. Nothing is “wrong”, but something is unfamiliar — inside.

Living abroad also raises deeper questions: Who am I when I am not surrounded by the language, roles and expectations that shaped me? What part of my identity travels with me and what part got left behind without warning? For people from Eastern European or Polish backgrounds, this question often carries an additional emotional layer: belonging was not just cultural but relational — created through history, shared references, unspoken codes. Abroad, those codes vanish. You can still function, but you may no longer feel recognised — at least not in the same existential way. This lack of mirroring can feel like losing a silent current of connection that you never knew kept you afloat until it disappeared.

If you are going through this, nothing is “wrong” with you. What you are feeling is not weakness — it is adjustment at a deep emotional level. The nervous system needs safety before identity can re-root itself. This is why emotional care after relocation matters just as much as paperwork, housing or employment. Without inner stability, everything else feels temporary, fragile or effortful. And yet most expats try to cope by pushing through: “I should be grateful”, “I chose this”, “Other people have it harder”. But gratitude and grief can coexist. We can be thankful and unsettled at the same time. Moving abroad is not only a beginning — it is also a goodbye, even if no one said it out loud.

One of the most healing steps is creating new micro-anchors — small stabilising rituals that gently tell the nervous system: I belong here now, little by little. These rituals do not have to be big or symbolic. Sometimes it is a walk in the same park every morning, a weekly café that becomes “yours”, a grounding routine in your native language, or a practice that reconnects you with your body when your emotions feel far away. Stability is not a decision — it is something you grow into through repetition, softness and self-contact. When I began building my own emotional home abroad, nothing changed suddenly on the outside — but inside, there was a sense of landing that I had not felt for a long time. It wasn’t about replacing my old life. It was about allowing the new one to have depth.

Another part of emotional wellbeing abroad is allowing connection again, but from a place of authenticity rather than adaptation. Many migrants unconsciously shrink parts of themselves to “fit in”, hoping that belonging will follow. But belonging is not built through erasing difference — it is built through rootedness in who you are, even in a new environment. What helps is not pretending to be fully okay, but letting yourself be seen in your process — first by yourself, and then gradually by others. Counselling or therapy can be a space where you don’t have to hold everything together, where the inner impact of migration can breathe and find language.

When identity feels scattered, talking about it is not just “sharing” — it is reweaving narrative coherence. This is why online support for expats is often less about “fixing a problem” and more about helping the psyche reorganise after a significant transition. In my work with clients, I see how powerful it is when someone finally names what until now was living underneath: the quiet grief, the confusion of belonging, the loneliness hidden inside competence, the longing for emotional recognition. Once it is named, the nervous system exhales. You are no longer carrying the experience alone.

Taking care of your mental health after moving abroad is not an extra — it is part of the migration process itself. The papers, accommodation and job create the external structure. But the emotional structure is what allows you to feel present in your own life again. And that takes time, gentleness and support — not because you are fragile, but because you are human.

If you find yourself in this in-between emotional state — half here, half elsewhere — know that it is not a personal failure. It is a normal response to dislocation, and there are ways to re-root yourself slowly and compassionately. You are allowed to grieve what was, while still growing into what is becoming. You do not need to rush. You only need to allow space for the inner migration to unfold at its own pace. And you don’t have to do it alone.

Moving abroad is not just a geographical shift — it is an emotional migration, and it deserves care, space and accompaniment. If any part of this text resonates with your own experience and you feel you would like support in navigating the transition more gently, I offer online counselling for expats and people living away from their home country. You are welcome to reach out for a short initial conversation to see whether this form of guidance feels right for you. This space can be a place where your story is heard, where your emotional pace is respected, and where you can slowly feel at home again — not only in a new country, but also in yourself.

Woman in a city, looking around