Does anyone else feel they have no sense of 'home'?

Question

I'm 22 and have lived in a variety of places since a child (due to my dads job), i have lived in manchester away from my family for 4 years now, but still don't feel its 'home'- and dont know where 'home' is. When people ask me where i'm from i struggle to answer the question! Consequently my accent is all over the shop! I feel this affects my identity a lot...

Answer 1

I am my home...

Answer 2

I feel a bit like this at the moment but for different reasons than you. I have lived in the same place all my life but all the people i knew and loved are disappearing or i have grown apart from them. It no longer feels like home. Also the area has changed so much it is very different from the place i grew up in. Most people are strangers to me although i used to know most people around the local area. As more and more people move in from other areas the locals have become a minority and our local history is being destroyed as the whole place is being constantly modernised to stay seen as an up and coming town which is good for business and jobs which results in more people moving to the town and more housing being built which local people can not afford.
I want to move away but have no idea where i would go to. I think you would get bored anywhere if you stayed there long enough. The most appealing idea is to up sticks and travel the world.

It sounds like you are missing stability. It is difficult to establish yourself when you have moved from pillar to post.
Is there anything or anyone you could hang on to to help you feel more secure?

Answer 3

You are what they call a TCK (third culture kid) who doesn't feel at home anywhere and at home everywhere. This gives you a certain feeling of restlessness and unsettledness.

My husband and I are from different countries and live in a third country. After a few years of marriage I had an identity crisis and asked myself who I am. Because of my personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, I realized that my citizenship is in heaven and as long as I live on this earth I am just a pilgrim.

It has helped me to reach out to others and seek to help them and through it make some deep friendships (over time) which helps me feel more at home because I can share from heart to heart.

So, I would say, it's not the place where you live, but the people you love and are loved by, that makes you feel at home.

Answer 4

My sense of home came through 911. My son had been in a polite sense, a juvenile delinquent and forced me to make a major career decision to avoid having upheavals in my home. I chose to take a sabbatical in Nyc with a collectibles company just before 911 and needless to say my life changed radically. At that time I had no sense of home whatsoever and felt that I just needed to get away. What that event taught me was that you take the values of home that are important to you and you remember what was pleasing to you as a child and attempt to duplicate it to regain comfort from when life was less complicated. Several things I found out were...
Im not a city type as Ohio is very country and very quaint.
The nyc life style meant nothing to me as the rudeness and the fast pace I found maddening, not exciting.
Solitude is extremely important to me and next to impolssible to find there with so many people.
Perhaps this might help you. Forget what you percieve as home and just try to reconnect with yourself. Again, move toward what your comfort is and only you can decide that. Also you need to reinstall faith in yourself, who you are and what you do. If its not working for you than perhaps you need to eliminate the vexations of the spirit and go forward. Good luck to you and, by the way, it never hurts to pray about it too. God helps but sometimes you dont get the answer you expect, often you get a better one.

Answer 5

I've lived in a number of countries, and I feel awkward defining myself with the passport I have from. I haven't lived in the country it issued for the past ten years, and I don't even want to.. I found everything odd there when I lived there as a kid, and after then living in a number of places .... home is where you feel your home is.
In all the countries and cities and homes I've lived in .. most were just buildings. None felt like the home.
Now for the past 2 1/2 years I have lived in a house that I have felt like I could call home. But soon time to change the country again...

The home is where you feel your home is now. Or where your heart is. (And not where one was born or spent their childhood. )

Answer 6

I guess, this is a development which you need to carry out parallelly. Normally people have one choice, in which they have to cope with what they have in front of them and they have to accept that as their destiny.

As far as I understand, you had an option to start with a new home which you have partly the option to choose with. You should value this, I think.

And if you do not feel home in a place, it just might mean you havent met the right people & places yet to make you feel home. I would give a chance and start to explore. If it does not work, I would start my iniative and look for another place to move in! ;)

Answer 7

i feel the same sometimes, although i am not too sure why. i used to live in this house till i was twelve. at twelve my parents sold the house and we moved in with my nana for a month or two before me emigrated to New Zealand. when we moved to New Zealand we only stayed for just over a month before moving home again and buying a new house. although we have been in this house for nearly two years i still don't feel as if it is my home. if someone were to ask me where home was, i would be more inclined to say my nanas house, as i have been going there at least once a week sinse being born.
Heather

Answer 8

I have lived mostly in th Uk after being born here
but have never felt its my home
I have always been a stranger here and felt more at home in the US or Italy
Starnge its where you can walk the street without being stared at laughed at or scorned
thats the place to call home

Answer 9

I empathize.

i have job hopped from place to place,
because no one hires me yet.
So its ruff for me too.
They say 'home is where the love is.'
But i have not a single girlfriend
for me. So i have not any home of love.
I respect god, and i hope god tolerates me,
but, i don't think that has anything to
do with me dating women.
I think that someday i could meet
the right girl, but i guess it requires me
to leave this shitty dusty town behind.
I live in El paso, tx. Its kinda boring
retirement city. Everyone else
is married and i'm the last single
dude here. i guess thats why im unlucky dating
here in el paso. Home is where the love is.
But no dating single woman loves me here.
So yeah, i understand. I have no sense of
feeling 'at home.'

Good luck for both of us,
Ric Rocker.

Answer 10

One day you will create your own family and settle down, then you will have your home, and it will be the place that you can't wait to get home to on a cold winter night, and the place where your comfy bed is after a 2 week holiday.
i have mine now but I used to feel like you do.

Answer 11

I grew up in girl's homes and foster homes, and even now that I have my own kids have a hard time being able to get "comfortable" enough to feel that where I live is truly my home.
Sometimes moving around alot as a child makes us grow up not wanting to get too settled for fear we may have to move again.
It takes time to get rid of that fear, and you will.
Its all up to you, when you're ready to feel "AT HOME" somwhere, you will.......