“ Like a basket of waste ”: life as a refugee fleeing home | Interactive news

SSPT, anxiety and higher depression in refugee children

Sameer says to Al Jazeera: “The scenes of these things I have witnessed had a very bad effect on me and when I still remember, it makes me upset.”

Research with refugee children finds that the prevalence of emotional disorders is generally higher than in non-refugee children.

According to a studyThe overall prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (SSPT) was 23% (one in four in refugee children, that of anxious disorders was 16% (one in six) and that of depression was 14% (one in seven).

“One of the things about the trauma is that it keeps you on this very high alert state,” said Trickey. “And I think those without refugee status, they live this constant fear of having returned to the place where they fled.”

But all children do not undergo trauma in the same way, adds Trickey.

“A greater risk factor, an SSPT predictor, is not the size of the event, but that’s what you do with it. Were you afraid? Did you think someone was going to die?

“And different children will find different things frightening. There will be people who really experience the most horrible things and who seem quite unchanged, and they are going well. There will be people who seem to do well, and then they can sometimes call it, latent vulnerability. And later in life, it is at this point that they develop difficulties.”

Ventevogel says to Al Jazeera that often, in young children, there may be more withdrawal problems, because they cannot verbalize what they feel, for example where “a child withdraws, stops playing with other children, or a child shows in play, in the way the child calls into question the problems, that there is something that does not go.

“It is not diagnostic, but it can be an indication that there is something deeper,” explains Ventevogel.

Trickey explains that during a therapy session focused on trauma, a boy with whom he worked described what he was going through by comparing his brain to a tray of waste filled with “pieces of crumpled paper” which represent “all the bad things” that he had experienced.

“And while I walk in school, they fall before my eyes. And when I lie down and I go to sleep, they fall into my dreams,” said the boy. “But when I come to see you, we take them out of the bac, and we decrease them. Then we read them carefully, then we fold them carefully, then we put them back in the tank. But because they are folded carefully, it means that they do not fall in the top, and I have more room in my head to think about other things.”

For Sameer, his ability to cope with his state of mind. “Over time, I got used to the situation and I feel confident and well now. And I hope that, whatever the problems or the difficulties I face in the future, I will overcome and I hope that things will become normal. “