How Therapy Can Support Second-Generation Immigrants Navigate Family and Identity
Being a second-generation immigrant — someone born in Canada to immigrant parents — comes with a unique emotional experience that isn’t always easy to explain. You grow up with two different worlds living inside of you: one that exists outside your home, and one that lives within your walls.
You’re Always Living Between Two Worlds
You grow up learning how to move through Canadian society, school systems, and friend groups, but at home, the expectations and ways of thinking can be very different. You might find yourself switching languages, tones, or even values depending on who you’re with. You’re not fully “Canadian” to your parents. And you’re not always understood by the outside world, either.
It can leave you asking: Where do I actually belong?
This split can bring up deep identity questions. You might feel like you’re constantly performing, constantly trying to make the right version of yourself show up in the right space — until you don’t really know what your version even looks like anymore.
You Carry a Lot of Responsibility (Whether You Chose To or Not)
One thing I hear over and over again is the weight of responsibility that second-generation kids carry — especially towards their parents.
Sometimes it’s very direct. You grew up doing things like translating documents, filling out forms, making doctor’s appointments — basically, taking on adult roles before you were emotionally ready. Sometimes it’s more subtle — the pressure you felt watching your parents struggle. The guilt of knowing how much they sacrificed for you. The unspoken feeling that you have to “make it all worth it.”
This often shows up in therapy as codependency — when your sense of worth gets tied to how well you’re caring for or pleasing others, especially your parents. You end up feeling like it’s your job to manage their stress, make them proud, and never disappoint them.
And that’s a heavy weight to carry.
You’re Tired of the Constant Disapproval
Another theme I often hear: no matter what you do, it doesn’t feel like it’s enough.
You’re out too late. You don’t have enough Muslim friends. You’re not religious enough. You don’t help out enough. You should be doing more.
It can feel like everything about you is up for critique — how you live, who you love, how you dress, how you raise your kids, how you speak. Even your small acts of joy or independence are often met with silence, skepticism, or criticism. It starts to chip away at your confidence.
And you start to internalize that voice — the one that always says you’re not doing enough, or you’re doing it wrong.
So, Where Does Therapy Come In?
If any of this sounds familiar, therapy can be a place where you finally get to breathe and be honest about how hard it’s all been.
In therapy, you can:
Unpack past trauma that you've had to ignore or minimize for years
Look at repressed emotions like anger, sadness, or grief that never felt “acceptable” to talk about
Explore how your relationship with your parents might be showing up in other parts of your life — your work, your friendships, your romantic relationships
Talk about guilt — especially the kind that creeps in when you make a choice that doesn’t align with what your family wants
Start developing your own values, slowly, gently — ones that feel true to who you are becoming
You don’t have to erase your culture or cut ties to your family to feel free. Therapy helps you build space for both — to honour where you come from while giving yourself permission to live in the direction of your own truth.
If this resonates with you, I hope you give yourself the chance to explore it. You deserve that space.
