Character missing

Hello,
Played for a few hours yesterday. Today after installing a patch on PS5 and logging in after maintenance my character is gone. When I try to create one with the same name game says it already exists.
Also, in case this makes a difference, I'm logging into pathofexile.com using PSN login. Wanted to add my email address and apparently I had an old account already. Got an option to link them which I did. Don't know if it's got anything to do with it.
Thanks!

Sorted. It was due to account linking.
Had to create a character, go back to character selection screen and then in top left corner I found an account selection option.
Not ideal, I was under the impression the accounts would be merged and not shown separately but at least it works.