Helping refugees cope with depression

Life in a refugee camp is difficult and fraught with uncertainty. Largely robbed of their freedom and disconnected from the outside world, refugees struggle to maintain a sense of purpose. Many must cope with traumatic memories of violence, the loss of loved ones, and the destruction of their homes and property. The situation is exacerbated by the widespread use of homemade alcohol in the camps.

 

“As a result of life here, many fall into depression and experience other mental problems,” says Nipaphun Torsound, who runs a new IRC program that treats mental disorders in the Ban Mai Nai Soi refugee camp on the Thailand-Myanmar border.

 

In 2001, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention undertook a study in the camps that found that almost half of the adult population suffered from depression and anxiety, and nearly 5 percent from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Nga Mu is one of those affected. A woman in her mid-forties, she fled unrest in her native Myanmar in 1990 and has been living in Ban Mai Nai Soi ever since.

 

 

“I started thinking too much about my life,” she says as she sits in the thatched bamboo hut that serves as the IRC mental health support center for the camps. “My mind was racing, I couldn’t focus on anything. I couldn’t cook, wash my clothes or take care of my children. Life was chaos.” 

 

After treatment at a psychiatric hospital outside Ban Mai Nai Soi, Nga Mu was referred to the IRC’s center, the first ever of its kind in a Thai refugee camp. “We have a group of social workers, trained in mental health counseling, that regularly talk to our patients,” Torsound explains. “They have learned to identify problems and motivate refugees to find new meaning in their lives.”

 

When needed, as in Nga Mu’s case, patients are prescribed drugs. “I have been taking antipsychotic medicines for awhile now,” Nga Nu says. “It allows me to focus and I feel much better.”

 

In addition, IRC staff have been treating numerous camp residents who have attempted suicide, triggered by the severe depression and anxiety of camp life or as a result of domestic violence. 

 

“Residents also say that one cause of this depression stems from the separation of family members as more and more refugees are resettled in the United States and other countries,” Torsound notes. 

 

“Returning to Myanmar is not an option for the foreseeable future, and since resettlement in a third country is not available to all camp residents, those who are left behind are experiencing a sense of loss, hopelessness and desperation once their friends and family members leave.”

 

To date, 60,000 refugees have resettled from the border camps with an additional 7,000 scheduled for resettlement in 2012. 

 

“For those who remain,” Torsound says, “we will be here.”