What’s The Matter With Muslims?
Article 2: What barriers do Muslims face with their mental health?
“I may be being highly reductive, but there is this idea that bad mental health comes from a place of being ungrateful or unhappy about the circumstances in your life,” says Dr Noha Abu El Magd, who has a a PhD in functional nanomaterials. The academic and writer wrote a moving piece for HuffPost, detailing her experiences as a Muslim woman dealing with mental health.
She continues: “Having mental illness is [interpreted as] a of lack of faith or that there’s something ‘wrong’ with you. So people are less open to talk about it, because they want to be perceived in the Muslim community as being strong with faith.
“The lack of openness makes it much more difficult for people to come forward. It’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Less people know that other people are suffering from it, therefore, it becomes more of a taboo. So, it becomes harder for people to get help and recognise that they’re not alone.”
Recently, Better Community Business Network (BCBN) found that 34% of young Muslims who experienced mental health difficulties have not received any form of counselling or therapy. (Source: BCBN).
Meanwhile, mental health charity Mind estimates that one in 10 people have been waiting over a year to receive treatment, whilst around 13% of people are still waiting for their first assessment for psychological therapy. (Source: Mind).
So, what solutions does Dr El Magd want to see which could improve accessibility of therapy for Muslims?
She explains: “From the healthcare industry point of view, there needs to be a lot more training for psychotherapists on cultural competency understanding. I also think there’s a responsibility on religious leaders to make mental health less of a taboo. A lot of work needs to be done for mental illness to be recognised and validated as a real disability.”
Mental illness carries a huge stigma amongst Muslim Americans, suggests Kanwal Haq, a medical anthropologist. Having previously worked at Yale University, she currently works as lead programme manager for Global Women’s Health for Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.
She explains: “I grew up seeing mental illness being swept under the rug in my community. I was enraged by that. I remember thinking, we should be doing something about it. Then I worked in translational neuroscience, thinking that if we address mental health strictly through science, that there would be less stigma. But I learned it’s a lot more complicated than that.”
Through interviewing people, Kanwal discovered how common misconceptions around mental health are amongst Americans.
She says: “When I asked people about mental health, they said people who are ‘crazy’, ‘psycho’ or ‘dangerous’. These types of images were very negative.”
As Kanwal was conducting research, the events of Donald Trump’s election to the Presidency and his subsequent ‘Muslim ban’ was unfolding in the United States.
She continues: “There was a lot of talk about how stigmatised the Muslim American community had become. But it was interesting because the Trump era actually [meant that] people were willing to talk about mental health more. I think everyone felt a bit more connected, so it became a bit more socially acceptable to talk about it.
“Being a Muslim American after 9/11, it was very stigmatised to be a Muslim, like during the Trump era. So, part of what I focused on in my thesis was this compounding stigma. There’s already stigma associated with mental health in the U.S. population and there’s stigma associated with being a Muslim.”
Having support services readily available for Muslims could decrease the stigma surrounding mental illness, suggests Kanwal.
She concludes: “In Muslim communities, people still struggle with drug addiction, opioid addiction, alcoholism. In Boston’s Muslim community, at the mosque, it was very progressive in the way that we had Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and we implemented mental health services.
“Mental health is no different than physical health. Mental illness can happen to you. You need the tools to address it and take care of it.”
So, how can barriers for Muslim mental health and wellbeing be removed? Could technology be the answer?
Software developer and blogger Shuayb Abdillahi, 24, believes so. A recent Radiography graduate, Shuayb is a Muslim of Somali origin. The Stoke-based technology enthusiast feels that that young Muslims often suffer in silence due to the cultural taboo of mental illness.
He explains: “Mental health is still a stigma within Muslim families, especially with men. We bottle things up because our parents have always done that. We hear the phrase ‘toxic masculinity’. In a way, it sort of leads to domestic abuse. Let’s say your dad has financial problems and he wants to keep it to himself, he takes his frustration out on his wife or kids. That leads to other issues with the children. So it all adds up.”
Another barrier, Shuayb describes, is that Muslims may have a fear of asking for help with their mental health.
He outlines: “People experiencing difficulties would rather, unfortunately, vent to their friends or vent to social media, because they’re afraid. Their parents might say “you should pray more” or “it’s because you’re sinning too much”. So, they feel even more guilty or trapped. Asking for help is such a big barrier and they feel very demotivated. They tend to use distractions instead, like gaming or something worse, like drugs.”
Now living alone for the first time, during a pandemic, social media is primarily how Shuayb stays connected with people. Having witnessed this positive side to social media, he is eager to build an app or online platform which would allow mental health services to be available at budget rates for those seeking help.
He explains: “If we made a platform that allowed graduates or undergraduates, for a side hustle, to host [mental health support] services on an app, maybe through Zoom, a phone call, or maybe in-person, it could eventually turn into a global thing, for everyone, not just Muslims. It could be segregated, if girls would rather talk to another girl about their problems and the same for guys. It would help the graduates get experience and the services would be a budget thing, so everyone would benefit. We could use it as we use social media.”
