Mental Health and the Refugee Crisis
The lights flicker one last time before the power shuts off completely. You hear the loud thuds of the foundation of your neighboring buildings give way. The darkness is suddenly bursting with light as the energy from the exothermic reaction of a detonated explosive scatters through the night. Tonight, you sleep with your family on a cramped mattress centered in the living room, away from the war raging outside. Dreaming of a better place, you close your eyes and try to forget reality.
Six months later, sleeping on a similar mattress, you wish you were pushed up against your parents and siblings like before. Now, it is just you and your younger brother. The lights no longer flicker because there is no electricity, but you no longer hear the terror out your window as you try to shut your eyes for the night. As dreams fade in and out, you are brought back to your home in a small Syrian city. Your parents are there, smiling at you and your siblings as you all play outside in the secure street with the neighboring children. Suddenly, your parents turn to ash and your street is diminished to rubble. You are alone. Startled, you sit up and gasp for air as you try to push out the memories of when your whole life fell apart.
Millions of mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, grandparents, aunts and uncles, husbands, and wives are displaced in this world due to conflict. Life for refugees can be incomprehensible for those on the outside to understand. However, the horrific stories and those who are able to tell them are dispersing across our planet looking for a place to call home. As one could imagine, the sights and situations that these people have experienced are haunting. Many refugees deal with mental health issues, such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and depression. That is why, while looking at our own refugee community in Los Angeles, it is important to understand how these disorders manifest themselves, why, and what we can do as humanitarians to help these people socially, politically, economically, and medically.
As a young adult who studies science, but has a deep fascination with the Middle East and the current refugee crisis, it is important to me to understand the interplay between culture, crisis, and care. When I studied abroad for four months in Morocco, the refugee crisis in Syria was just hitting newsstands. After returning to the States with a new perspective on Islam, the Middle East, and a basic understanding in Arabic and providing medical care to refugees, the need to understand of the current situation of refugees became a priority.
Unfortunately, mental health disorders are much harder to treat than a physical ailment. The Band-Aid must be able to cover societal influences, economic influences, political influence, as well as the mind. I hope to gain a further understanding on the factors influencing mental health of refugees once they have been granted asylum in a non-native country, what mental health disorders affect these people, and the current treatments and how we can improve them.
