A Refugee’s Mental Health
When fear single-handedly strikes you during the hours of your sleep, the relief of it ensuing in a nightmare and not reality is what allows you to keep moving forward. Despite regulations, when the nightmare is right in front of you there is no way to escape it, as you are both living in it and constantly reminded of it. Refugees undergo it each day, what many consider a “nightmare” as they’re sucked into the depth of society where war, violence, and poverty are all observed right beneath their eyes, setting their mental well-being in jeopardy.
The Concern Throughout the Journey
What affects their mental health? Why is it that 50.4% of refugees suffer from mental illnesses? Is it the loss of a home? The journey their lives revolve around? Or the unfamiliarity with what life has become? It is believed that it is the accumulation of each, in other words, the pre-flight, flight, and resettlement stages of their journey.
Preflight: the creation of the problem, causing the beginning of grief.
Flight: the uncertain journey from the host country to the resettlement site, during the fight for a future.
Resettlement: the process of restarting their lives.
These cause the encounter of many tragedies, ranging from sights they would have rather not observed to the loss of everything that once felt so close to their hearts.
The Side Effects
A refugee’s life completely transitions, no longer being what it used to be. Many encounter financial issues, a pause in their children’s education, the death of a loved one, war observed unwantedly, etc. These may lead to mental issues, a fear of authority, trust issues, and mental disorders such as anxiety, depression, or PTSD. A study conducted by Goldin, using 57 refugee families, showed that 48% of those refugees have poor mental health, with 15% having anxiety, 31% developing depression, and 23% developing PTSD — the never-ending escape of the journey, as it is constantly reminded by nightmares, flashbacks, and hyper-vigilance.
The Feelings Of Hopelessness
Hopelessness. The emotion triggers many refugees after the never-ending process of their journey. After all life has put them through, they find it difficult to believe life is by their side. Refugees live with consistent reminders of the past that impact their vision of the present. It is a dangerous emotion for refugees to face, considering it is a detrimental factor to their mental well-being. This is stated because hopelessness can lead to feelings of helplessness and powerlessness, thoughts that indicate numbness in emotion leading to suicidal ideations.
Children in Danger To Their Mental State
As citizens, we become so oblivious to the fact that children may go through everything stated previously, and more. As much as children’s experiences differ, many are expected to act like adults and take initiative in scenarios that taunt children at such a young age. Those experiences are not just forgotten, both their childhood and their adulthood are consumed by them. in fact, a study states that 50–90% of child refugees are being diagnosed with PTSD as a result of these experiences.
U.N. Special Rapporteur, Felipe González Morales stated that “Detention is detrimental to the well-being of a child, produces long-term severe adverse impacts on children, and cannot be considered in their best interests. It also exacerbates the trauma that many migrant children suffer along their journeys.” If immigrants suffer that extravagantly, take into perspective what a refugee suffers. A child that had to flee a country due to not just ‘inconveniences’ but potentially a war, human rights violations, etc. A cause that took away a child’s voice, perhaps allowing them to live life believing they aren’t heard.
Supporting Refugee’s
Were you aware refugees tend to struggle more when not given the Support required as it increases the risk of depressive symptoms, post-traumatic stress, and anxiety symptoms? The support of a refugee's family is crucial to their mental well-being. In fact, a review suggests 94% of unaccompanied refugee minors are likely to experience traumatic or stressful events during their flight or resettlement stages.
“Another problem is that many of those needing treatment has failed to come forward. Even if you have suffered abuse, even if you are suffering from PTSD, even if you’re traumatized, that momentum to keep moving [was] still there.” — Boris Cheshirkov, a UNHRC spokesman. Refugees may struggle to come forward, thus a simple way to impact a refugee is by support. Perhaps it is hard to empathize with a refugee that has suffered as they lost everything they once called home. Despite this, you can still make an impact by simply allowing refugees to take into perspective that emotion is a natural human reaction, making it clear that it is okay to seek medical attention.
We must treat refugees with dignity because they are as much human as you. In conclusion, refugees never happily flee a country, in most scenarios, they are left with no choice, no voice. It deprives their mental health, causing mental disorders that can last a lifetime. These emotions are conventional to a refugee, it is a reaction to trauma. However, some refugees tend to avoid those feelings, when they are in every right to suffer mentally, furthermore, they have every right to recover from those feelings.
Sources:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0706743717746665
