You Cannot Fail at Your Identity or Re-entry

I see a lot of TCKS, including myself, who struggle with finding our identities. It’s one of the primary side effects to our lifestyle, and therefore something we tend to struggle with for a long time.

Especially now when our society is so based on what we do, our identity gets mixed up in our purpose and it makes it even harder.

When it seems that everyone around us is managing this whole “moving on” thing and you aren’t… here’s a story for you.

After finishing my high school education in Senegal, my older brother and I moved to Switzerland (one of my passport countries.) I found it so hard to move to Switzerland, especially without the rest of my family. It was a difficult time, especially because I was struggling with depression and on medication for the first time. I didn’t deal with this well, and I had a lot of side effects that made adapting even worse. I felt like such a failure, and I felt that I was the only one of the 23-or-so classmates I had who was struggling. I saw photos on Facebook, I saw “proof” that everyone else was finding their identity, getting into relationships and figuring out their lives.

Looking back I feel like there were some essential things that would have helped me. So here’s a little list:

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1. You cannot fail at your identity

Regardless of how lost you feel, how long it takes for you to figure out who you are, you’re not a failure. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but there’s no textbook to finding your identity. There are books and TED talks that help, but there’s no step-by-step guide. You cannot fail at finding your identity.

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2. Social media only shows the best of everyone’s lives.

Behind the photos you see online hides everything that’s ugly and difficult. People only post what makes them happy. That’s how social media works and how influencers capture an audience. It’s normal that we want to share our good moments, and all the times we enjoy. But when you see those photos that make you boil with jealousy and makes you feel so alone and like you’re the only one struggling in the world, remember that there’s a lot of hardship that’s been hidden. Don’t let someone else’s social media dictate what your life should be like

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3. Do we EVER actually figure out who we are?

Think of the person you’ve known the longest. Aren’t there still moments where you find out new things? Don’t you think that’s what it’s like with us too? We’re constantly changing, maturing, growing and learning, so how can we expect to have figured out who we are when our identity is such a complex mixture of who we were and who we are becoming. Do we ever really “Get there”?

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4. Jesus understands.

Have you ever stopped to think about how Jesus was a TCK? How much bigger of a transition can someone have? I struggle with being European by birth but African by childhood. But him? He was freaking Human and God!? But Jesus always bases who he is on who God is, and who God says he is. Just because he is perfect doesn’t mean he didn’t struggle.

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5. Give yourself time.

After a year in Switzerland I decided to move back to Senegal and find work in the area so that I could live at home and work on stabilizing my mental health before going through the major transition of moving to Europe. I felt like a failure as I headed back, like I was regressing.

I spent a week at a Christian camp in between going back to Senegal. I arrived feeling embarrassed and like I was the ONLY ONE who was failing at re-entry... A woman came to me and told me she had received an image for me.

(I can’t lie, I was skeptical, because we had never met before and had no connection.)

She told me that it was a butterfly coming out of its cocoon.

(I’ve heard this image so often I kind of thought “whatever, everyone has struggles, it’s an easy message to give someone.”)

But she went on.

“Once the butterfly has emerged, it has to rest and dry its wings. If a butterfly flies away too fast, it won’t be strong enough to fly far because its wings are still wet from the cocoon. So it sits on a branch and dries before flying away further and better.” She went on,

“You are coming into a period of life where you are drying your wings. Hardships have come and gone, and now you need rest. To grow in God, to rest your heart and your spirit so that you will be able to fly away.”

That’s when I knew this message was for me, that this was God speaking to me, and I believe that it’s a message that applies to a lot of us.

I’m sharing it today so that you know that its okay to need to dry your wings a bit. There’s no failing at re-entry. Even if, like me, it turns out different than you imagined, or than everyone around you, you’re still succeeding at adaptation.

Maybe you’ll take a little longer, maybe you’ll take a gap year, maybe you’ll need more support, from a professional, maybe you’ll need to call your parents daily, maybe you won’t make close friends for the first year, maybe you’ll have a breakdown and end up in a hospital for a bit, whatever the rate and the help you might need, you are never failing.