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Reply To: Grief around loss of culture and language due to CPTSD/Immigration

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Home Forums Helping Hand Grief around loss of culture and language due to CPTSD/Immigration Reply To: Grief around loss of culture and language due to CPTSD/Immigration

#24206
vmsteph
Participant

Dear @Rosco, Thank you for reaching out and creating this thread to discuss this complex situation. People who have been forcibly displaced are more susceptible to experiencing mental health problems due to all the issues you have listed above, plus many more. They are more likely to have experienced traumatic events and felt an ongoing lack of safety and security, may experience discrimination, racism, social loneliness and isolation, alongside complex feelings of disconnection from their birth culture and language. All of these factors can take an enormous toll, and contribute to CPTSD and a persuasive sense of dissonance in their daily lives. Moreover, as you pointed out, finding a way to safely engage with one’s original culture can be emotionally taxing when engagement may trigger painful memories.

Seeing a psychologist who is culturally-informed and culturally-sensitive, may help refugees to find a way to reconnect positively with the things they miss from their birth culture, such as language, music, food, and other significant cultural events. Although engaging with others from one’s birth country may be challenging, there may also be benefit in sharing these feelings of disconnect and isolation with other migrants, including those from different countries, as these experiences are common to many refugees. Organisations such as the ASRC or Friends of Refugees, may be able to direct you to support groups for refugees.

By starting this thread you have already taken such a huge step in recognising the challenges you have undergone and continue to encounter. I recognise your resilience and strength in your words, but hope you may also find a gentle, safe and supportive space in which you can discuss these issues in more depth with people who have experiential understanding, and through that find some solace and calm. We are thinking of you and hope you will continue this discussion as I am sure that your experiences and insight will be of help to many others.

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