How to Cope with Identity Loss from a Michigan Therapist
By Kerry Biskelonis, LPC, RYT
Published 4/10/2026
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Who are you on the imperfect days?
We’re in the whiplash of Spring - days of sunshine and warmth quickly replaced with cold rain and gray skies. In the gray, though, the birdsong is still heard, and I am grateful the rain is nourishing the budding trees and flowers. The dreary days serve a purpose, washing away the salt and harsh winter remnants to birth something new again.
We get ourselves in trouble, though, when we too tightly attach to those beautiful days - when the kids are playing outside through dusk, and the temperature is just cool enough to wear a light layer comfortably, the mosquitoes haven’t hatched, and the air isn’t yet thick with humidity. When we only appreciate those perfect days, long for them, lament their loss, we’re attaching too much of ourselves and our mood to a fleeting, impermanent thing.
This happens more than we know, maybe more than we’re conscious of - the longing for something that was only meant to be a season, a blip in the timeline of our lives. Friendships that grew in different directions, careers that took a turn, homes we outgrew, or homes that outgrew us. Deeper still, these impermancies extend to our evolving health and bodies, to the moods of our children, to the towns we inhabit, to the routines of our mornings.
And again, the trouble is when we attach ourselves to the parts of us, the stories of our long stories, that were only meant to be chapters.
Reflections on Friendships, Loss, and Identity
I recall, while studying abroad in Spain in college, how I became fast and fierce friends with a girl named Leia. She was funny and down to Earth; her parents were Buddhists from Boulder, and her Spanish was laughably terrible, which made me feel better about my own failing conversations. We talked all day, every day, on our international Nokia brick phones, while lonely and desperate to understand each other from our quaint home-stays. We bonded and were best friends for those 4 months.
After we both returned home, our friendship dissolved like a snowflake on warm pavement. While beautiful and special, as soon as it landed Stateside, it just melted away. I remember being heartbroken by this - by the loss of such a deep friendship forged over shared loneliness and circumstances - those are the friendships that build deep roots quickly. To have it gone was a loss I wasn’t prepared for.
And rather than move on, accepting a chapter had closed, I clung and attached. I reached out feverishly, feeling a longing to still have that person in my life who saw me in my most vulnerable state, an intimacy created I didn’t know I needed until it was gone. And in my clinging, I compared my former friendships to this one forged in Spain, having a hard time returning to those now-outdated versions of connection. The loss became compounded.
Losing Your Sense of Self and Identity
We do this too - when we lose something - instead of being in our loss just as it is, we start to wrap up a whole identity around it. It’s not just a job loss; it’s the loss of a future we imagined, with job titles, travel, and possibilities. It’s not just a move to the suburbs; it’s a loss of our edginess, our nonconformity, our adventurous, free-spirited selves. It’s not just the loss of a friend, it’s the loss of being deeply known, accepted, and loved despite our flaws, which took pain and resources we’re not sure we can expose again.
We lose ideas of ourselves all the time. The idea of being an athlete when we suffer a severe injury. The idea of your child having a sibling when infertility is relentless. The idea of being a city person, even as our children’s needs pull us to suburbia. The idea of being a wife when our marriage ends in divorce. The idea of being active when cancer declares itself.
And the question is always this - who am I if this idea of myself is no longer mine?
Finding Liberation in Letting Go
Recently, when we had to change our children’s school, I felt a tremendous sense of identity loss. It felt important to me to seek out alternative education, to align with a way of learning that was against the grain, to have an idea of a different sort of experience for my children. To lose that possibility, the dream I had, was challenging to my sense of self and parenting ideals.
I had to rearrange myself to answer the question - who am I, when this is no longer ours to belong to?
The thing is, the loss is emotional and can be so heartbreaking. And yet it is also freeing. There is liberation in letting an attachment surrender. Too often, the thing we’re attached to and holding onto so tightly isn’t meant for us anymore anyway. It was a part of our story, not our entire story.
You are more than your life’s chapters.
When we give ourselves permission to let it go, we give ourselves an opportunity to expand into what may be next - not another identity, but the knowing that everything is impermanent and we are free to explore, learn, question, indulge, engage, and settle without it having to mean a thing about us.
You can be a yogi and then lift weights. You can be a city person and then move to the suburbs. You can attend a private school and then a public school. You can be a lawyer and then a life coach. You can be married and then single. You can be single, then married. You can have 1 kid or 5 kids. You can be Catholic and then Buddhist. You can be blonde and then grey, able-bodied and then disabled, young and then old, alive and then dead.
Through all of this, the essence of you never changes.
But then a deeper question may remain - who are you in the absence of these attachments - what is the essence of you?
That, my friends, is the longing worth pursuing.
Where can I find a therapist near me?
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Conscious Transparency: This newsletter was edited by AI for grammar, spelling, and sentence structure, but every idea, tone of voice, perspective, and word choice was my own. This newsletter is imperfect because a human wrote it. Thank you for your graciousness.
This week’s Tools, Gratitude, Innovation, Feels
Tools: I adore reading, and on vacation (like this past week) I can indulge my greatest hobby with less interruption. I finished Theo of Golden in about two days, and it was glorious - just the type of reading I find cathartic in hard times. I’ve heard there’s a name for this genre - hopecore - and I’m seeking out more of it. If you have your own favorites in this genre, please share by commenting!
Gratitude: My older son just got an expander, and to him, his life has ended. It’s amazing to me that with all our progress, those devices are still archaic and barbarian. But, I have to say thank you to the owner of Dairy King for selecting the perfect flurry flavor to help him re-learn how to swallow.
Innovation: Sometimes I can remember chapters of my life based on the food I eat. I’ve been vegan, vegetarian, keto, and paleo during different seasons. Perhaps I like re-inventing myself, perhaps it’s boredom, or more honestly, just trying on another fad diet. But the one recipe I come back to over and over again for the last 20 years is the Glowing Green smoothie. I’ve added different proteins to it over the years, but it remains a tried-and-true “life elixir” that makes me, more than anything, feel like myself.
Glowing Green Smoothie (2-4 servings):
1 apple
1 banana
1 navel orange
2 mini cucumbers or 1 large
4 stalks celery
2 handfuls spinach
1 handful kale or romaine
2 chunks ginger root
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Pour the coconut water into the blender for 20 seconds. Add ice if serving right away, omit. Blend on high for 1-2 minutes. Add unflavored protein powder at the end on low - do not let it “froth” with the powder in it. Pour into 2 large or 4, 12-oz mason jars. Refrigerate and when ready to drink, shake to mix pulp and juice back together. Best served cold with a straw.
Feels: I love this image below from Yung Pueblo. I’ll leave you this week with his words.
