Therapy for Romanian Immigrants | Overcome Loneliness

The specific ache of building alone

You didn't leave Romania on a whim. You made a calculated choice—better opportunity, better future, maybe better safety. But the clarity of that choice doesn't erase what you gave up. Your mother's voice. Sunday family dinners. The ease of being understood without explanation. The casual, constant presence of people who knew you before America.

Loneliness for Romanian immigrants isn't the loneliness of a shy person at a party. It's deeper. It's the loneliness of speaking English all day and coming home to silence. It's calling home and hearing them laugh about inside jokes you're no longer part of. It's doing something good, posting about it, and realizing the people who would've been truly proud aren't seeing it in real time. They're proud in a phone call three days later, on a 6-hour delay.

I built a career here. I have money. But I've never felt more alone than I do in this apartment with everything I wanted.

And here's what makes it harder to talk about: you feel ungrateful saying any of this out loud. You made this choice. You're supposed to be thriving. When you admit to missing home, you sound like you regret it—and you don't, not entirely. So the loneliness stays quiet. It festers. It becomes anxiety. It becomes the reason you decline invitations because small talk with coworkers feels too exhausting when you're already translating everything, code-switching everything, editing yourself everything.

Why this loneliness hits different—and why therapy actually helps

Immigrant loneliness is different because it's not a sign you're doing something wrong. It's evidence that you're doing something hard and real. Your brain is working overtime adjusting to a new culture, new rhythm, new social rules. You're grieving—not just the people, but the version of yourself that existed back home. The person who was fluent, confident, embedded in a web of relationships that made sense. That grief is legitimate. It needs witnessing.

Therapy creates space for that grief without trying to fix it away. A good therapist helps you hold both truths at once: you can be glad you came here and devastated about what you left. You can be proud of your independence and desperately miss depending on family. You can be building something real in America and feel completely unseen while doing it. When you say these things out loud with someone trained to understand cultural displacement, something shifts. You stop feeling broken. You start feeling like someone navigating something actually complex.

What helps

Therapy for immigrant loneliness works because it's not about forcing you to accept your situation or 'making American friends' faster. It's about processing loss while you're still living it, building emotional resilience in a new landscape, and learning how to stay connected to who you are while adapting to who you're becoming. Many Romanian immigrants find that talking through these feelings—in a confidential space where they don't have to perform—actually makes it easier to build real relationships here, on your own terms.

What actually helps — and how to access it

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You're not the only one who felt this way

I moved to Chicago five years ago. The first two years felt like vacation—new job, new apartment, no one knew my family's business. But around year three, the loneliness started. I'd be at work, successful, respected, and then I'd call my sister and realize she'd stopped telling me things. I wasn't there to live it with her. A therapist helped me grieve that shift and then helped me figure out who I actually wanted to be here, not who I thought I should be. I still miss home. But I'm not drowning in it anymore.

Ioana, 34

Started therapy three years after immigrating; now builds community on her own terms

Questions people ask before starting

Won't talking about this stuff just make me sadder?

Initially, naming something hard can feel harder. But sadness that's named and witnessed doesn't sit inside you rotting. It actually moves. Most people find that after a few sessions, the weight feels lighter because they're not carrying it alone anymore—and they're developing real tools to cope with the loneliness, not just enduring it.

I don't really know how to talk about feelings in English. Will that be weird?

Your therapist will meet you exactly where you are. Many therapists who work with immigrant clients understand code-switching and the difficulty of expressing complex emotions in a second language. If clarity matters to you, you can find a Romanian-speaking therapist through BetterHelp, or work with someone who specializes in immigrant experiences.

How much does this cost, and can I actually afford it?

BetterHelp offers weekly therapy starting at around $65-80 per session, and new members get 20% off their first month. You can pause or cancel anytime. Many people find that consistent therapy actually saves money by preventing burnout and the physical stress that loneliness causes.

Will therapy actually change anything, or am I just paying to complain?

Therapy isn't complaining. It's learning why you feel what you feel, identifying patterns that don't serve you, and building concrete skills to reduce isolation—whether that's setting boundaries with family calls, building meaningful community here, or managing the grief of living between two worlds. Change is gradual but real.

What if I get a therapist and we don't click?

You can switch therapists anytime, free of charge. Finding the right fit matters. BetterHelp makes it easy to try someone new without penalty, so you're never stuck with a mismatch.

If you are in crisis or having thoughts of harming yourself, call or text 988 immediately — the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, available 24 hours a day in English and Spanish. BetterHelp is not a crisis service.

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