"I left, but my soul stayed here. In my free time, I could think of nothing but home. Even while caring for my baby, my thoughts were always on returning; everyone wondered why I came back. After all, I had it better there than many do here."
Those words belong to Antoanela Andonescu, affectionately known as "Coca." A geriatric nurse by profession, Coca left her small, quiet hometown of Bicaz in eastern Romania to live and work abroad. Her deeply personal journey of displacement, longing, and eventual return was captured in a Deutsche Welle (DW) documentary titled "Homesick," which aired on June 26, 2026.
Coca’s poignant reflection is far from unique. It echoes the quiet, persistent ache experienced by thousands of other Romanians and millions of people across the globe who have been forced to leave their homelands due to circumstances entirely beyond their control. When physical borders are crossed and economic survival demands relocation, many migrants quickly realize that while their physical bodies have been transplanted into foreign soil, a significant part of their inner selves remains tethered to the places they left behind.
This profound psychological phenomenon is mirrored in academic research. In a separate study, a displaced Syrian student articulated the exact same sentiment, stating, "I am still in Syria. My soul is there." For many people on the move, this dual existence forms the core of their daily reality. According to Coca, whenever she had a moment of respite, and whenever she found herself alone, her thoughts inevitably drifted back to the familiar streets and faces of Bicaz.
Such mental preoccupation is not merely casual daydreaming. It can become a powerful, immersive exercise where an individual continuously re-experiences their hometown—reconstructing in their mind the family members they left behind, the community events they missed, and the specific sounds, sights, and lingering smells of their youth. When individuals constantly engage in this internal psychological retreat to find a fleeting sense of solace and to alleviate an overwhelming sense of loss, they run the risk of becoming trapped in a condition known as cognitive immobility. Over time, this deeply entrenched state of mental suspension can manifest as persistent sadness, frequent crying, and a host of other serious psychological and physical health issues.
When They Left Romania, Their Souls Remained
The DW documentary highlights the sweeping socio-economic catalysts that triggered this mass exodus. Following a severe economic crisis characterized by widespread industrial collapse, mass layoffs, and high unemployment, Romania joined the European Union. This major geopolitical shift opened doors, but it also forced countless citizens to seek livelihoods outside their borders. Among those who packed their bags were young people, including Coca and her two sisters. Yet, even as she boarded transport to foreign lands, Coca harbored an unyielding dream of returning. Her departure was never a matter of personal preference; it was driven strictly by external economic necessity.
As migration scholar Dr. Chinelo Olumba observed in recent academic literature regarding the psychology of displacement, "Because of constraints and circumstances beyond people’s control, they may engage in physical migration or departure from a location without engaging in mental migration or departure at the same time, resulting in mental immobility."
For Coca, leaving Bicaz felt entirely beyond her control, and the moment she crossed the threshold of her hometown, her soul refused to follow. Her migration journey first took her to Turkey. During this initial phase, she likely experienced the awareness and separation state—the first distinct stage of cognitive immobility. This is a period marked by intense regret, where the migrant wishes endlessly that they had never left their homeland. They find themselves powerless to stop re-experiencing the people, ambient sounds, and sensory details of home whenever they are left alone. This psychological state is vividly summarized by Coca’s own admission: "In my free time, I could think of nothing but home. Even while caring for my baby, my thoughts were always on returning home."
During her time in Turkey, Coca’s daily routine revolved around relentless work and strict saving. Her primary objective was clear: she labored to accumulate enough resources to return to Bicaz periodically, bringing home gifts, toys, and clothes for her nieces and other family members while keeping only the bare essentials for herself. Her entire waking life in exile was anchored to the anticipation of those temporary homecoming visits.
It was during this turbulent period that Coca likely transitioned into what researchers identify as the retrieval stage. This is a psychologically fragile window of time during which a migrant firmly believes that returning for brief visits will permanently cure the deep longing and acute sense of loss they experience abroad. Often, individuals fail to realize that short-term return visits cannot magically erase the underlying trauma of displacement. In many cases, the retrieval stage proves to be the most severe and emotionally destabilizing phase for someone grappling with cognitive immobility.
The documentary also cast a wider lens, capturing the lived experiences of other Romanian migrants who settled in the Ostia region near Rome. During a communal scene, captured as several individuals gathered around a long table for a shared meal, a young visiting woman was asked whether she would ever consider permanently relocating to Italy to join her family members. Her reaction was immediate and visceral. Shaking her head, tears streaming down her face, she insisted that she could never make Italy her home.
"I cannot go to a country that took the person I love most away from me," she said, her voice breaking. "I do not like it here; I cannot fit in here. I would rather stay in Romania and struggle; it is better to stay in Romania than come here and not feel like myself."
As she spoke, she reached up to wipe away her tears, a raw display of grief that resonates deeply with anyone who has ever felt compelled to abandon their roots for a strange, unwelcoming environment. The young woman’s profound fear was palpable: she worried that even if she managed to establish a life abroad, a vital piece of her identity would remain permanently locked away in her native land, leaving her feeling like a permanent stranger in her own skin.
Another Romanian woman featured in the documentary offered a stark, candid recollection of the sheer chaos and hardship that greeted them upon their initial arrival in Italy. Strikingly, she laughed as she recalled how she and her compatriots were forced to live temporarily at a local train station while desperately searching for employment and a roof over their heads. Perhaps her laughter was a defense mechanism, or perhaps it reflected a strange, complicated nostalgia for even the most brutal chapters of their survival. Yet, underneath that fleeting humor remained an unbroken tether to her past. Speaking about the enduring pain of her desire to return, she described the agonizing cycle of temporary visits:
"Every time we go back to our country, it is painful for us. Because for years we have been saying over and over again that [it’s] ‘just one more year’. We say we will stay one more year and then come back. But then we cannot bring ourselves to take that step; we stay. It is very painful, especially saying goodbye, when you just cannot stop crying."
For individuals trapped in this emotional limbo, the cycle is mentally exhausting. The woman yearned to return home permanently, but practical hurdles continually disrupted her plans. Each time she traveled back to Romania to visit her hometown, the subsequent departure back to Italy reopened old wounds, triggering heavy bouts of weeping. This emotional vulnerability is a hallmark of cognitive immobility. Migrants cry not only because they miss the familiar sights, ambient sounds, community bonds, traditional foods, and distinct smells of their culture, but because they are continually forced to return to a foreign life that demands endless, exhausting adaptation.
Finding Stability After the Long Journey
Today, the narrative has shifted for Coca. Having successfully navigated the turbulent waters of displacement and return, she now manages a care home in her native Bicaz. Among the residents under her professional care is her elderly father, a former factory worker whose livelihood vanished when local industrial plants collapsed decades ago. Her sister has also returned to Romania to join her in this enterprise.
Academics would argue that Coca has successfully reached the stabilization stage of cognitive immobility. She is no longer consumed by the desperate, frantic effort to recover what was lost in the past; instead, she is actively constructing new value, purpose, and community stability in the exact place she has always called home.
By providing compassionate care to local residents—and most notably to her own father—in their later years, Coca is simultaneously healing her own psychological wounds. In doing so, she serves as an inspiring figure for other migrants who quietly harbor thoughts of returning to their roots. Anyone who has ever been forced to leave their hometown understands the heavy, quiet burden of living with the wish that they had never packed their bags in the first place.
While Coca and her sister managed to complete the difficult circle of return, the harsh reality is that such an outcome is not available to everyone. For countless other displaced individuals across the world, home has simply become too far away, too dangerous, altered beyond all recognition by conflict or time, or entirely erased from physical existence. For those who cannot physically retrace their steps, the ongoing challenge remains learning how to stay connected to what was lost without letting that profound grief completely eclipse the reality of the present.