The Grief Nobody Talks About: Therapy for Immigrant Loss and Longing in New York
There's a kind of grief that immigrants carry that rarely gets named. It's not the grief of death—though sometimes it includes that. It's the grief of leaving, of displacement, of never quite belonging anywhere, of losing a version of yourself that could only exist in the place you left behind.
You grieve the grandmother you see once every few years instead of every Sunday. You grieve the language that's slipping away from you, the one that held your childhood. You grieve the version of yourself who would have existed if you'd stayed—what you would have been, who you would have known, how you would have loved.
You grieve holidays that feel hollow here, traditions that don't translate, foods that don't taste the same no matter how carefully you follow the recipe. You grieve being understood without explanation, being seen without having to perform or translate yourself.
And nobody talks about this grief. Nobody validates it. Because you're supposed to be grateful. Because you chose this, or your parents chose this, or circumstances chose this for you. Because "you have it better here." Because grief is supposed to be for deaths, not for complicated losses that don't have graves.
As a first-generation Greek-American therapist working with immigrant communities in Brooklyn and throughout New York State, I understand this grief intimately. I know what it means to carry loss in your body while everyone around you sees only opportunity. I know what it costs to live far from the place that formed you and your ancestors.
This grief is real. It deserves to be witnessed, held, and healed.
What Is Immigrant Grief?
Immigrant grief is what therapists call "ambiguous loss"—loss without closure, loss that's ongoing, loss that coexists with gain. You've lost something real, but there's no funeral, no ritual, no socially sanctioned way to mourn.
Immigrant grief includes:
Geographic and cultural displacement
You live far from the place that holds your roots, your language, your way of being. Every visit "back home" reminds you that you no longer fully belong there either. You exist in permanent displacement.
Loss of family proximity
You can't drop by your parents' house on a Tuesday. You miss births, deaths, weddings, ordinary Sundays. You watch your nieces and nephews grow up through screens. Your children don't know their grandparents the way you knew yours.
Language loss
Maybe your native language is fading. Maybe your children don't speak it. Maybe you think in English now and have to translate your feelings into your first language. Each generation loses a little more linguistic connection to the homeland.
Identity and belonging
You're not quite American (or wherever you've immigrated to). You're not quite your home country anymore either. You're between, betwixt, belonging nowhere completely. This is its own kind of homelessness.
Lost futures and alternate selves
You grieve the version of your life that would have existed if you'd stayed. The career you would have had. The relationships. The person you would have become in that context. That version of you died when you left, and nobody acknowledges that death.
Intergenerational disconnection
Your children grow up American while you grew up elsewhere. They don't understand your references, your values, your way of being. They can't inherit what was lost in translation. The culture feels as though it dies a little more with each generation.
The homeland that no longer exists
When you go back, it's changed. Or you've changed. The place you remember exists only in memory. You're grieving something that exists now only as nostalgia, as ghost, as longing.
Why Immigrant Grief Stays Unprocessed
There are specific reasons this grief often goes unacknowledged and unhealed:
The pressure to be grateful
"You should be grateful for the opportunities here." "Think of how much worse it could be." "Your parents sacrificed everything for you." All true—and also, you're still allowed to grieve what was lost.
Cultural stigma around mental health
In many immigrant cultures, you don't talk about feelings. You don't go to therapy. You're strong. You endure. You don't complain. This means your grief has no outlet, no witness, no space to be processed.
The complexity of the loss
How do you grieve something that's not entirely gone? Your homeland still exists. You could visit (though it's expensive, time-consuming, complicated). Your family is alive (just thousands of miles away). Because the loss is ambiguous, people don't understand why you're grieving.
Survival mode takes precedence
When you're busy surviving—learning a new language, navigating a new system, building a life from scratch—you don't have time or space to grieve. The grief gets pushed down, ignored, "dealt with later." But later never comes.
Shame about longing
You feel ashamed for missing home when you chose to leave (or your parents chose). You feel guilty for wanting to go back when people would do anything to be where you are. So you silence the longing, which silences the grief.
No ritual, no closure
When someone dies, there's a funeral. When a relationship ends, there's a breakup. But when you leave your homeland, when you lose your language, when you watch your culture fade—there's no ritual. No one marks the loss. No one says, "It's okay to grieve this."
How Unprocessed Immigrant Grief Shows Up
When grief doesn't get processed, it doesn't disappear. It shows up in your body, your emotions, your relationships, your mental health.
Depression that feels like homesickness
A heaviness that won't lift. A feeling that something is missing but you can't name what. A longing that aches in your chest. This might not be clinical depression—it might be unprocessed grief.
Anxiety about visits home
Terror before trips back to your homeland. Anxiety about how much you've changed, whether you'll still fit, how to explain your life here. Panic when it's time to leave again. This is grief activating your nervous system.
Guilt in both directions
Guilt when you're here (for leaving, for not being there). Guilt when you're there (for having opportunities they don't, for being American now). Guilt that follows you everywhere because grief doesn't know where home is either.
Difficulty forming deep connections
If everyone you've ever loved is far away, if every goodbye might be the last time you see them, attachment feels dangerous. You might struggle to let people in because loss is too familiar.
Physical symptoms without medical cause
Chest tightness, stomach issues, chronic pain, exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix. Grief lives in the body. Unexpressed emotion becomes physical sensation.
Overworking and perfectionism
If the sacrifice was made for you to succeed, you can't afford to fail. You can't afford to rest. You can't afford to just be—you have to constantly be proving the immigration was worth it.
Nostalgia that borders on obsession
Romanticizing the homeland. Cooking the same foods over and over. Surrounding yourself with cultural objects. Trying to recreate what's lost or what feels not quite attainable.
Difficulty being present
Always split between here and there, past and present, who you were and who you are. Never fully in the moment because part of you is always somewhere else.
The Unique Grief of First-Generation Americans
If you're first-generation American—born here to immigrant parents—you carry a different but equally complex grief:
Grief for a homeland you've never seen
You feel connected to a place you barely know. Your parents' nostalgia becomes your inheritance. You grieve for something you never had but somehow still lost.
Grief for your parents' losses
You carry their displacement, their longing, their sacrifice. You absorb their unprocessed grief. You try to make it all worthwhile by succeeding, by being enough, by justifying the sacrifice.
Grief for the grandparents you barely know
They're far away. You don't speak the same language fluently. You see them on screens or every few years. You grieve the closeness that geography makes impossible.
Grief for cultural fluency you never gained
You're not quite American. You're not quite [heritage culture]. You don't fully belong in either world. You grieve a cultural wholeness you were never given the chance to develop.
Grief for your parents' inability to understand your life
They grew up in a different country, a different time, a different reality. They can't understand your struggles, your choices, your world. You grieve the understanding that never existed.
Grief for the pressure of representing
You carry your family's hopes, your community's expectations, your culture's honor. You have to succeed not just for you, but for everyone who came before. The weight of this is its own kind of loss—the loss of lightness, of freedom, of just being yourself.
Art Therapy for Immigrant Grief: A Healing Practice
This practice helps you give form to the grief you carry, witness it, and begin to integrate it.
You'll need:
Paper in a color that feels right for grief (maybe dark, maybe not)
Art materials in colors that represent loss to you
Photos of your homeland, family, or cultural objects (optional)
Your journal
Part 1: Naming Your Losses
Sit quietly and ask yourself: What have I lost? What am I grieving?
Make a list. Be specific. Include:
Geographic losses (places, landscapes, neighborhoods)
Relationship losses (proximity to family, daily connection)
Cultural losses (language, traditions, ways of being)
Identity losses (who you would have been if you'd stayed)
Sensory losses (smells, sounds, tastes of home)
Future losses (possibilities that died when you left)
Don't censor. Don't minimize. Just name what's true.
Part 2: Giving Grief a Form
Choose one loss from your list—the one that feels most present, most heavy right now.
Create a visual representation of this grief. It might be:
An abstract image of the feeling
A map of the distance between here and there
A portrait of what you've lost
A landscape of absence
A collage of fragments
As you create, let yourself feel. Cry if tears come. Your grief deserves to be witnessed, including by you.
Part 3: The Ritual of Witnessing
Look at what you've created. Place your hand on it. Say out loud:
"I see this loss. I acknowledge this grief. I honor what was lost when I left [or when my family left]. This loss is real, even if others don't understand it. My grief is valid, even while I'm grateful."
Sit with your image. Let it be seen. This might be the first time this particular loss has been given form, been made visible, been witnessed.
Part 4: Writing a Letter to What Was Lost
Write a letter to your homeland, to your language, to the version of yourself who stayed, to what was left behind.
Say everything you need to say:
What you miss
What you wish had been different
What you're grateful for
What you're angry about
What you want them to know
What you need to release
You don't have to send this letter. The writing itself is the healing.
Part 5: Creating What Remains
On a new piece of paper, create an image of what remains, what you carry with you, what couldn't be lost even across oceans and years.
This might include:
Your resilience and strength
The love that survives distance
The cultural practices you've maintained
The language that still lives in your body
The memories no one can take
The ways you honor your heritage
Place this next to your grief image. They both exist. Loss and preservation. Grief and gratitude. Both/and.
Part 6: The Commitment
Place one hand on your grief image and one hand on your preservation image. Speak this commitment:
"I will hold both my grief and my gratitude. I will honor what was lost without diminishing what remains. I will grieve what I need to grieve. I will let my losses be witnessed. I will find ways to stay connected to what matters."
Keep these images as a reminder that your grief is real and your connection to your heritage is unbreakable, even across distance.
Therapy for Immigrant Grief: What Actually Helps
If you're carrying unprocessed immigrant grief, therapy can provide the witness, the space, and the support that you haven't had.
What helps in therapy:
A therapist who understands immigrant experience
Working with someone who gets it—either because they've lived it or because they've done deep cultural competency work—means you don't have to explain everything. You can get right to the healing.
Permission to grieve while being grateful
You don't have to choose. Both are true. Therapy helps you hold this complexity without shame.
EMDR for complicated grief
When grief is stuck, EMDR can help process it. We work with the memories, the losses, the longing, and help your nervous system integrate what it's been carrying.
Somatic work for embodied grief
Grief lives in your body—the tightness in your throat, the heaviness in your chest, the ache in your belly. Somatic therapy helps you feel, express, and release what's stored there.
Art therapy for losses without language
When grief is too big for words, when it exists in your first language but you're being asked to express in your second, art becomes the universal language that can hold it all.
Narrative therapy for story revision
Examining the stories you've told yourself about immigration—about sacrifice, gratitude, success, belonging—and deciding which stories honor your truth and which minimize your grief.
Rituals for ambiguous loss
Creating ceremonies to mark what was lost. Building altars. Writing letters. Making art. Finding ways to honor grief that doesn't have a grave.
For First-Generation Americans: Honoring Inherited Grief
If you're first-generation American, you carry not just your own grief but your parents' unprocessed losses.
In therapy, we work with:
Separating your grief from theirs (what's yours to carry vs. what you've absorbed)
Processing the vicarious trauma of their displacement
Understanding how their losses shaped your childhood
Finding your own relationship to a heritage culture you never fully lived
Creating connection to your roots that feels authentic, not performative
Releasing the pressure to make their sacrifice "worth it"
When Grief Becomes Depression: Getting Additional Support
Sometimes immigrant grief tips into clinical depression that needs more intensive support:
Warning signs:
Persistent hopelessness lasting weeks or months
Loss of interest in things you used to enjoy
Significant changes in sleep, appetite, energy
Difficulty functioning in daily life
Thoughts of self-harm or suicide
Feeling like the grief will never end
If you're experiencing these, please reach out. Depression that comes from grief is still depression and deserves treatment—therapy, possibly medication, definitely support.
Building Community: You Don't Have to Grieve Alone
Part of healing immigrant grief is finding your people—others who understand this specific kind of loss.
Ways to find community:
Immigrant support groups
Cultural organizations and community centers
Online communities of people from your heritage
First-generation networks
Interfaith or multicultural groups
Therapy groups for immigrants
You're not meant to carry this alone. Your grief needs witnesses. Your story needs to be heard.
Staying Connected While Living Far Away
Part of managing immigrant grief is finding sustainable ways to stay connected:
What helps:
Regular video calls with family (scheduled, predictable)
Learning or maintaining your heritage language
Cooking traditional foods
Participating in cultural events and celebrations
Teaching your children about their heritage
Planning visits when possible
Creating rituals that honor your roots
Finding community from your culture where you live now
Connection doesn't erase the grief, but it helps you live with it.
A Note on Complicated Grief
Sometimes, your relationship with your homeland or your family is complicated. Maybe you left to escape. Maybe there's trauma there. Maybe going back isn't safe.
Your grief can be real even when your relationship to what you lost is complicated. You can grieve for what could have been, should have been, or never was. All of this deserves space in therapy.
You're Allowed to Grieve What Others Don't Understand
Here's what I want you to know: Your grief doesn't need to make sense to anyone else. You don't need to justify it, explain it, or prove it's "bad enough" to deserve healing.
You're allowed to grieve:
Even though you chose to leave (or your parents chose)
Even though you have opportunities here
Even though "you should be grateful"
Even though the homeland still exists
Even though your family is alive
Even though it was the right choice
Even though you're successful
Even though you've built a good life
Grief and gratitude can coexist. Loss and gain can coexist. You contain multitudes.
Support for Your Immigrant Grief Journey
If you're carrying the grief of displacement, distance, and loss of belonging, you don't have to carry it alone anymore.
As a first-generation Greek-American therapist, I understand this grief from the inside. I know what it means to live far from the place that formed you, to love people you can only see through screens, to grieve in a language that has no words for this specific kind of loss.
I work with immigrants and first-generation Americans in Brooklyn (in-person) and throughout New York State (virtual) using:
Art therapy for grief that transcends language
EMDR for processing complicated loss
Somatic work for grief held in the body
Culturally-attuned depth work that honors your complexity
Together, we can:
Name and witness your losses
Process the grief you've been carrying
Separate your grief from inherited trauma
Find sustainable ways to stay connected
Honor both your heritage and your evolution
Hold grief and gratitude simultaneously
Create rituals for ambiguous loss
Build a life that feels like home, even far from home
Ready to give your grief the space it deserves? Schedule your free consultation to begin healing with a therapist who understands immigrant loss in Brooklyn or anywhere in New York State.
Your grief is real. Your losses matter. You're allowed to mourn what was left behind while building what's ahead.
Irene Maropakis, LCAT, is a first-generation Greek-American Creative Arts Therapist specializing in immigrant grief, cultural identity, and ambiguous loss. She practices in Brooklyn, NY and virtually throughout New York State from a trauma-informed, culturally-attuned, intersectional lens that honors the complexity of displacement and belonging.
