Young people’s mental health can be the silent victim during the migration process!

Young people are often suffering in silence as they endure the impact migration might have on their mental health but they also feel the effects it has on the family and the family dynamics. These young people are often not seen  and their mental health overlooked, because their mental health challenges become part of the expectation that they are suffering from a normal adjustment process and that the young cohort will automatically get over the challenges they are facing. It often happens because adults are consumed by their own existential challenges, blind to the needs of the young because of their own lack of capacity to face any more challenges or unable to accommodate their children’s emotional needs. Migration is exactly that: an existential challenge! It sits on the same level of distress as experiencing the love of a loved one. Subjective units of distress indicate how able we are to emotionally regulate our responses to a perceive threat or demand. These existential challenges need to be psychologically processed and is experienced by all members of the family system in unique but substantial ways.

I will often hear: “Children are resilient. They will adjust! Don’t worry, they will make friends. Even things like “life is tough, don’t be soft. Appreciate the opportunity to live in our new country. Just get on with things.”

All of us face trauma in everyday life. Our experience and how we respond to said experiences differ and result in different realities. Migrants and Refugees, even more prone to have had experienced serious trauma during their journey to make the choice to immigrate. Trauma is not always big trauma like war, death, victim of crime, loss and fear of survival; it is also sometimes little things that is significant enough to imprint core beliefs that we then carry and use to decipher life: like I am alone, no one cares for me anymore, as one of the messages received from being sent to daycare because mum suddenly has to work, or meeting a harsh word or bully on the playground.  However, trauma contributes to a neurological brain rewiring.  The common rhetoric is the words from Bessel van der Kolk: “The Body keeps the score”, suggesting that our body responds as if to trauma every time when a memory is triggered and will react in future as if the trauma has reoccurred; leading us to respond outside our window of tolerance where we deal with experiences in a reasonable and logical way, but suddenly the person is just concerned with their own survival and tend to respond with the typical fight, flight, freeze or fawn response.

Suddenly where migration sounded like a big adventure, the realisation is not as exciting as promised. The initial period of adjustment is especially hard on young people, and they still have to deal with the challenges of every day.

What are these challenges the young people are having to face when newly migrated?

Language barriers

English may be the general spoken language, but English is not spoken in the same way everywhere in the world. In some instances, it might as well have been a totally different language. Even the accent or the way words and expressions are used, may be different and it takes extra effort to translate the messages and respond back in a way that the individual is fully understood. Even for someone proficient in the English language, it can be difficult to navigate. It is important to acknowledge that English will not be everybody’s first language and proficiency varies, but also the acknowledgement that people who speak more that one language have multiple world views and it might differ from the world view of the young people they associate with on a daily basis. These young people will have no reference to the experiences some of our young migrants have lived through.

Economic hardships

Most people who have immigrated are starting over and might have financial challenges.

Depending on their status of residency, they will have varying degrees of access to resources in their community. It sometimes makes migrants much less open to access assistance.

Separation from Family and Connection

The immediate impact of migration on the person in the community is the realisation of the loss and separation from family and connection to context. A person, young or old, are stripped of their context when arriving in a new country. Everything is new: from language and what they hear, to what they eat, the items in the supermarket and the jokes being made on the playground – it is totally overwhelming, and it makes a migrant feel like an alien in a new environment. It takes time to build a new network. It takes time to get familiar with all the new experiences and it takes time to adjust to missing the significant things left behind.

Dealing with Trauma and Triggers

Often these young people are still actively dealing with the trauma they have faced, and their lives may be filled with triggers. It is one of the many reasons why these young people should have access to counselling services where they would have the opportunity to explore and re-write their own stories.

It is important to acknowledge that young people might be dealing with the following emotions whilst trying to adjust:

• Feeling of not belonging:

Feeling of not belonging hits early and creates social isolation. Walking into a room full of people who grew up together makes you feel like a guest in someone else’s story. Jokes do not land, the small talk feels forced, and it is not that anyone is unkind, you just don’t have anything to contribute, and it sits in the quiet space between you and them, it gets hidden, but it is a little ache that never leaves.

• Homesickness that lingers:

Homesickness is something that is part of every migrant’s experience. It is intense initially and may fade after some time, but it is an unpredictable beast. It can be triggered by the most unexpected thing and often results in an emotionally distressing episode.  The missing never disappears, but how you are dealing with it might affect your mental wellbeing and can be a reason to seek counselling.

• Loss of identity:

Fitting in sounds easy until you start changing bit by bit. You speak differently, act differently, dress like everyone else. You do it so people do not stare or ask questions. But after a while, you start losing track of who you were before. You forget what your real laugh sounded like.

You forget parts of your culture, and that hurts more than anyone knows. You end up floating between two worlds — not fully here, not fully there. It can truly be socially isolating. Counselling can really help in this space. You will get an opportunity to talk in a safe space where no one will judge you, where you will be respected and allowed to tell your story in your own way. Counselling can help untangle what you are feeling inside and help you to find your own balance again.

• Culture shock:

Living in a different and unfamiliar context is hard. Nothing makes sense anymore. Everything is an effort in understanding, translating and interpreting. At first, it is just confusing, but then you are confronted with your personal beliefs that might be in conflict with the beliefs those in your adopted country has and you have to figure out what works for you and how you will integrate the two. It gets exhausting. You try to blend in, but deep down, you still feel like you are pretending. Even after years, there are moments when you still do not get it, and you just smile to hide it.

There are no easy ways to adjust to a new life!

However, don’t be blind to the effects that migration might have on yourself or the young people in your social circles!

If you are someone who has recently migrated, moved from one suburb to another, or is struggling to feel at home? You are invited to contact Elmarie Bekker Counselling. Elmarie has lived experience of being a migrant and facing all of those challenges spoken of before, therefore she is offering counselling and psychotherapy to young people and people of all ages that has challenges because of the impact of migration. Being a mental health locksmith, she provides a safe space where expats can explore their own stories, find new meaning and develop strategies to deal with the distress that accompanies migration. Come and look for a happier and satisfying life that honours the sacrifices made but also the hope held in a new life.

Visit elmariebekker.com.au to learn about the counselling services she offers.