Hi Friends,
I’ll apologize in advance, but this might be a long post. I hope you stick through it!
I have a cousin of mine that works in the Mental Health wards of hospitals in my city and other cities depending on how far they want him to travel. He’s quite good at his job but happens to suck at following HIPAA/PIPEDA compliances. As a way to let some of his steam off and quenching my curiosity, he sometimes tells me some of the cases he deals with at work. He’s told me about cases from a large spectrum, but I had always wondered how mental health affected Somalis, so I asked him. And an answer is what he surely delivered.
He had started off on a case he a dealt with recently. It was a patient that had been re-admitted 2 weeks after he was discharged before, however his story is one we’ve sadly heard a lot.
Its starts with a family that had recently immigrated to the country. Their eldest son who was in his late 20s had shown bizarre behavior in the past, and had mentioned that he was able to see “things” and hear them too ever since he was younger, and these “things” would tell him to do certain acts. These acts could span from compulsive ordering of belongings to random aggressions to even self-harm and suicidal ideations, however the family never once seeked proper medical care for the son, and opted out for the tradition medicinal treatments instead. These treatments had shown to be effective for some time, however the son’s episodes would always come back and they would do the same. This cycle lasted for years.
Once the family properly immigrated into the country, the son’s symptoms had worsen. There would be days and weeks where he wouldn’t come out of his room, would not respond to anyone talking to him, and this would be followed through an increased influx in his erratic and bizarre behaviors. The episodes had gotten worse. He had now begun to act out physically by attacking his family members, breaking glassware with his bare hands, punching walls and finally had run away from the home without telling anyone where he was going. Worried, his little sister had called the police, and they had done a search and found him at the bus station outside their home a couple of kilometers away. The police officers had brought the son to the hospital, where he was finally admitted into the ward.
Now you would think the parents would be happy that the son had finally got the medical care he needed. My cousin had told me that the parents had demanded that the son be discharged from the hospital as they didn’t believe in the treatment the medical MH professionals were giving the son. They believed that the symptoms he was facing with were the effects of the culture shock and he was just having trouble adjusting to his new life in this country. “All this will pass inshallah, let him go.” This of course was denied, and they had kept the son in the ward involuntarily, following the treatment the doctors had decided the son would go through.
(For those in Canada, read up on the Mental Health Act laws of your province. Should a doctor or psychiatrist believe you are either a harm to yourself or others, or that you have a past case of MH, and they think it could worsen, they can “form” you and detain you in the hospital involuntarily.)
After a month or so in the hospital receiving treatment, the son had shown a lot of progress. He was able to build rapport with the staff and other patients in the ward, and his episodes had longer intervals between each other and were short and non-violent in general. He was given medication, and the family had promised to follow up with the doctors on the son’s behavior. They assured the doctor that the son would take his medication properly and the son was discharged.
Everything was fine and good, my cousin thought, however there was a problem. The family had not contacted the doctor at all. They hadn’t even contacted the staff or the psychiatrist that had initially seen the son. 2 weeks had gone by with no phone calls or emails updating on how the son was. And by the time the 2 weeks flew by, lo and behold in the emergency unit was the son back again. This time handcuffed with police officers who seemed to have struggled arresting the son. The staff at the emergency unit had to restrain him and sedate the son as he was going through an episode much worse than before.
The progress the son had made that past month had totally gone down the drain. He had lost the ability to build rapport with people, the ability to tell whether it were the voices talking to him or people in general (dissociative symptoms) and coping with his episodes. The family was asked what had happened, and they had admitted that the son had not taken any medication for the full 2 weeks. They hadn’t follow through it as promised. The parents had seemed unfazed by all this, however the little sister had returned, obviously disturbed and sad at what had happened. My cousin had gotten a chance to talk to her and she had admitted that the family did not trust system and was going to send the son back home, however everything did not go accordingly as planned, as the son’s episodes got much worse and unmanageable. The parents imagined that he was acting like this because of how this country was much different than back home. The grass on the other side was clearly never greener.
Our conversation began to span out from this point. Why would the parents act like this? Shouldn’t they be happy that their son was on his way to getting the treatment he needed from professionals? What were their intentions behind their demands for the hospital to let him go? Could culture shock really effect a person this badly? Or perhaps is it cause, generally people don’t know what to look for if they suspect their friend or loved one is suffering from a mental health illness? Do we tend to ignore Mental Health overall? What if the parents felt like if their extended families would cast them away knowing they had a “nin waalan” in their household? Is our inability to open up and come to terms to what we’re feeling and suffering from a cause of this? Or is it the stigma behind MH that scares everyone away, and people would rather not deal with MH at all than to deal with the stigma that follows it?
Explaining these reasons would need an entirely different long post itself, but I hope you at least got the gist of where I’m going with this. Mental Health illnesses are a real problem, just like traditional illnesses we all know of. About 20% of the population in my country will likely encounter a mental health illness in their life time, and suicide is one of the main leading cause of death in many countries around the world. The stigma behind Mental Health is disgustingly large however, this stigma doesn’t only affect our community, but it’s prevalent in every other community too.
Just in case you were wondering, yes there are Somali people who have committed suicide. And yes there are Somali people who cope with their pain by self-harming. There are Somali people today who suffer from schizophrenia, paranoia, bipolar disorders, dissociative disorders, chronic depression and anxiety. They exist.
An interesting documentary basically giving another example of the stigma I’m talking about here back home:
If you stuck through this whole depressing piece of text,
I’ll apologize in advance, but this might be a long post. I hope you stick through it!
I have a cousin of mine that works in the Mental Health wards of hospitals in my city and other cities depending on how far they want him to travel. He’s quite good at his job but happens to suck at following HIPAA/PIPEDA compliances. As a way to let some of his steam off and quenching my curiosity, he sometimes tells me some of the cases he deals with at work. He’s told me about cases from a large spectrum, but I had always wondered how mental health affected Somalis, so I asked him. And an answer is what he surely delivered.
He had started off on a case he a dealt with recently. It was a patient that had been re-admitted 2 weeks after he was discharged before, however his story is one we’ve sadly heard a lot.
Its starts with a family that had recently immigrated to the country. Their eldest son who was in his late 20s had shown bizarre behavior in the past, and had mentioned that he was able to see “things” and hear them too ever since he was younger, and these “things” would tell him to do certain acts. These acts could span from compulsive ordering of belongings to random aggressions to even self-harm and suicidal ideations, however the family never once seeked proper medical care for the son, and opted out for the tradition medicinal treatments instead. These treatments had shown to be effective for some time, however the son’s episodes would always come back and they would do the same. This cycle lasted for years.
Once the family properly immigrated into the country, the son’s symptoms had worsen. There would be days and weeks where he wouldn’t come out of his room, would not respond to anyone talking to him, and this would be followed through an increased influx in his erratic and bizarre behaviors. The episodes had gotten worse. He had now begun to act out physically by attacking his family members, breaking glassware with his bare hands, punching walls and finally had run away from the home without telling anyone where he was going. Worried, his little sister had called the police, and they had done a search and found him at the bus station outside their home a couple of kilometers away. The police officers had brought the son to the hospital, where he was finally admitted into the ward.
Now you would think the parents would be happy that the son had finally got the medical care he needed. My cousin had told me that the parents had demanded that the son be discharged from the hospital as they didn’t believe in the treatment the medical MH professionals were giving the son. They believed that the symptoms he was facing with were the effects of the culture shock and he was just having trouble adjusting to his new life in this country. “All this will pass inshallah, let him go.” This of course was denied, and they had kept the son in the ward involuntarily, following the treatment the doctors had decided the son would go through.
(For those in Canada, read up on the Mental Health Act laws of your province. Should a doctor or psychiatrist believe you are either a harm to yourself or others, or that you have a past case of MH, and they think it could worsen, they can “form” you and detain you in the hospital involuntarily.)
After a month or so in the hospital receiving treatment, the son had shown a lot of progress. He was able to build rapport with the staff and other patients in the ward, and his episodes had longer intervals between each other and were short and non-violent in general. He was given medication, and the family had promised to follow up with the doctors on the son’s behavior. They assured the doctor that the son would take his medication properly and the son was discharged.
Everything was fine and good, my cousin thought, however there was a problem. The family had not contacted the doctor at all. They hadn’t even contacted the staff or the psychiatrist that had initially seen the son. 2 weeks had gone by with no phone calls or emails updating on how the son was. And by the time the 2 weeks flew by, lo and behold in the emergency unit was the son back again. This time handcuffed with police officers who seemed to have struggled arresting the son. The staff at the emergency unit had to restrain him and sedate the son as he was going through an episode much worse than before.
The progress the son had made that past month had totally gone down the drain. He had lost the ability to build rapport with people, the ability to tell whether it were the voices talking to him or people in general (dissociative symptoms) and coping with his episodes. The family was asked what had happened, and they had admitted that the son had not taken any medication for the full 2 weeks. They hadn’t follow through it as promised. The parents had seemed unfazed by all this, however the little sister had returned, obviously disturbed and sad at what had happened. My cousin had gotten a chance to talk to her and she had admitted that the family did not trust system and was going to send the son back home, however everything did not go accordingly as planned, as the son’s episodes got much worse and unmanageable. The parents imagined that he was acting like this because of how this country was much different than back home. The grass on the other side was clearly never greener.
Our conversation began to span out from this point. Why would the parents act like this? Shouldn’t they be happy that their son was on his way to getting the treatment he needed from professionals? What were their intentions behind their demands for the hospital to let him go? Could culture shock really effect a person this badly? Or perhaps is it cause, generally people don’t know what to look for if they suspect their friend or loved one is suffering from a mental health illness? Do we tend to ignore Mental Health overall? What if the parents felt like if their extended families would cast them away knowing they had a “nin waalan” in their household? Is our inability to open up and come to terms to what we’re feeling and suffering from a cause of this? Or is it the stigma behind MH that scares everyone away, and people would rather not deal with MH at all than to deal with the stigma that follows it?
Explaining these reasons would need an entirely different long post itself, but I hope you at least got the gist of where I’m going with this. Mental Health illnesses are a real problem, just like traditional illnesses we all know of. About 20% of the population in my country will likely encounter a mental health illness in their life time, and suicide is one of the main leading cause of death in many countries around the world. The stigma behind Mental Health is disgustingly large however, this stigma doesn’t only affect our community, but it’s prevalent in every other community too.
Just in case you were wondering, yes there are Somali people who have committed suicide. And yes there are Somali people who cope with their pain by self-harming. There are Somali people today who suffer from schizophrenia, paranoia, bipolar disorders, dissociative disorders, chronic depression and anxiety. They exist.
An interesting documentary basically giving another example of the stigma I’m talking about here back home:
If you stuck through this whole depressing piece of text,
