We’ve been talking about the unique mental health challenges immigrants face, which can be rooted in their cultures of origin, the process of assimilation or a variety of physical or hereditary influences– among other variables. Roger Cohen wrote an interesting piece for The New York Times on his mother’s struggle with manic depression after emigrating from South Africa to England, and we thought his story was worth sharing. The Center for Effective Living offers a variety of mental health assessments for immigrants, and if you’re in the greater Cleveland area and recognize elements of your own experience (or the experience of someone you love) in Roger’s article, remember that we are here. The following is an excerpt from the original article.
NEVER before have so many people been on the move. New opportunity, like a bright star, draws immigrants across the world. In every one of the past four generations my family has moved, hopping from Lithuania to what is now South Africa and on to Britain, Israel and the United States. Sometimes they have found success and happiness. But the other side of displacement, its black sun, is loss.
The strain of burying the past, losing one identity and embracing another, can be overwhelming. Home is an indelible place. It is the landscape of unfiltered experience, of things felt rather than thought through, of the world in its beauty absorbed before it is understood, of patterns and sounds that lodge themselves in the psyche and call out across the years. When home is left behind, or shattered, an immense struggle often ensues to fill the void.
I was born in London to South African Jewish parents. We left almost immediately for South Africa, lived there for two years and returned to Britain. Although the word was never uttered, we were immigrants. Our priority was assimilation into Englishness. Pogroms and penury had been left far behind. The past was as silent as a village at the bottom of a dam.