“My family were the masters of black humour; they always found a way of twisting pain into a joke.” We arrived in the UK when I was about nine, travelling through so many countries, a dizzying mix of blue, white, and red flags. We outwitted guards and slipped through border defences. We found a new home. I don’t really remember much before arriving in the UK. Much of those first few years is still cloaked in darkness. That night, talking with my aunt and me, F frantically told me how she found my father again, and soon after gave birth to me, pushing me into a barren, uncertain world. She explained how, for those first minutes of my life, I was peaceful, almost as if silently surveying my new surroundings. The world was a bright yellow. She held me close to her. *** I wanted to ask my mum for the right words to describe the hollow pain in her chest. I wanted to ask her, “what’s the right word to describe the painful wail you let out when you think the rest of us aren’t listening?” *** There is no easy translation for depression or post-traumatic stress disorder in the Somali language. These Western diagnoses remain culturally alien to my mum and our community.
“There is no easy translation for depression or posttraumatic stress disorder in the Somali language.” When she was eventually diagnosed, my mum, like so many other refugees, refused to accept the diagnosis given to her. She refused to go to therapy and take the pills that she had been prescribed. I was furious at the time – why wouldn’t she take the help that was being offered? I would later realise she was never given the help she needed. How could she begin to heal when the doctor couldn’t get past her headscarf, didn’t understand the words she used to describe her distress, or why she turned to the Quran for support? Communities can express trauma in different ways. To truly see the pain that displaced people carry, health professionals need to work to form new, common ground. Only then can displaced people begin to offload their pain. Refugees need the option of accessing mental health services in their own 158 158