A recent study of Ukrainian refugees has established the serious effects on people of the trauma that can go with suddenly having to leave your home and country in conditions where your very survival and that of those closest to you is at risk. Researchers studied 737 Ukrainian refugees last year shortly after the Russian invasion of their country and found that “depression, anxiety disorders and PTSD” could be observed in 73 per cent of respondents, whereas 66 per cent displayed psychological distress.
The study by Piotr Długosz was published in the 2023 Journal of Migration and Health, under the title War Trauma and Strategies for Coping with Stress Among Ukrainian Refugees Staying in Poland. It set out to assess the mental health of the 737 Ukrainian war refugees in Poland and was carried out in April and May 2022, at a time when between 1.5 million and 2 million Ukrainian refugees had fled to Poland.
The results of this study are not surprising to anyone who works in the mental health sector. Nor are they shocking if you put yourself in the shoes of someone fleeing war. Your father, brother, uncle, cousin, or grandfather may be back home, fighting against a psychopathic force with no end in sight. You may have other family members, friends, neighbours, teachers, or colleagues who have decided to stay for other reasons. Maybe one of them is unable to leave for health reasons, so staying in a warzone seems like a better option.
Maybe you know people who have died already, your apartment block was blown up, or your school was shelled. Maybe you have friends or family whom you haven’t heard from in weeks. You have no way of knowing if they’re still alive. In the meantime, you must wait.
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This waiting can cause more depression, more sleepless nights and more stress. If you believe in a God, you might curse them or you might pray to them. You have to settle into a community you may never have even heard of, let alone considered visiting, before. In Ireland you’re grateful for the hospitality of the Irish people but you can’t really focus on starting afresh because you’re worried about your family, friends, colleagues and community back home.
You’ll probably struggle to tear your eyes away from coverage of the war online, even though it just exacerbates your grief, stress, anxiety and depression. While dealing with all of this, you must enrol your children, if you have any, into a new school and hope they make friends in a new community with a language barrier, new cultures, and new traditions to learn as well as the usual school subjects. You worry about their mental health and how they’re coping, and you try to hide how you’re coping because you don’t want to worry them.
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After settling in Ireland, you might hear whispers from the far right with questions like “Ukraine is a big country. Why not move to another part of it?” Do you bother engaging?
Some do move to another part of that besieged country, but not everyone can or wants to. Are those who left wrong to leave? Should they wait until Putin annexes the entire country? Would you stay in a war-torn country, waiting for him to come? You decide not to engage and risk drawing someone on to you, after all, wasn’t there a Ukrainian actor recently assaulted outside the Abbey theatre in Dublin? Was that because he was Ukrainian? As you become increasingly aware of the growing hostilities towards refugees from the far right, you start to wonder whether Ireland is even safe for you.
Given all of this, it was surprising that just 73 per cent of those Ukrainian’s taking part in the Długosz’s survey experienced depression, anxiety disorders and PTSD. I would have expected that figure to be much higher. Of course fleeing war causes depression, anxiety disorders and PTSD. How could it not? It is extremely traumatic; the stuff of nightmares.
The national mental health charity of which I am chief executive, Turn2me, is offering all Ukrainians staying in Ireland up to six free one-to-one counselling sessions, and free online support groups for Ukrainians in this country. The initiative is funded by a grant from the Community Foundation Ireland, as part of the Ireland for Ukraine project.
Those who wish to avail of the service can go to turn2me.ie and create an account. When you are asked for a “refugee code”, use the letters UKR. Fiona O’Malley is chief executive of Turn2Me.