To date we have “lost” 16 members of our family – aunts, uncles and cousins – who all left this country for India after the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008. They were more than blood relations for my two daughters, they made up their universe. Their homes were favourite hang-out spots for my girls when they got tired of sitting in their own environment.
It took a while for us to recover from the shock of their departure, but I noticed a change in my own family. Each of us seemed to mourn differently.
On the surface, we all seem fine now, but we really haven’t been the same since they left.
As an expatriate, it can be hard to find friends who understand your language and share your ideas and ideals. My situation sometimes reminds me of the song with the lyric that says: You want to go where everybody knows your name.
My daughters were hardest hit by those losses. They became aggressive and lonely. There was suddenly no one for them to talk to and no one to play with.
I tried to involve them in activities such as art, calligraphy and sewing so that they remained busy. I took them out to meet friends, urged them to voluntarily teach children in the neighbourhood and build new relationships. This helped a lot. They now have some companions to play with. I considered myself fortunate to be able to solve this problem. Not everyone is so lucky.
In 2012 I wrote about my children’s last cousin leaving for India. While rereading this piece recently, I became sad. It reminded me of the loneliness that many of us face as expatriates here.
I wish I was the only person to experience this situation. Unfortunately, there are many people who go through similar experiences.
Such an emotional toll, along with the other strains, can lead many to lose sight of all that's positive in life.
For example, some might focus only on tragedies and start pondering how life might have been if certain events hadn’t happened.
By doing so, they might become depressed, so much so that they may never recover. This is a real problem that many expatriates face. Unfortunately, there are very few affordable places that help people in such situations.
And, without help, people often try to harm themselves.
In the past year there has been a rash of suicides across the GCC, which to my mind points to one thing: something needs to be done to help people cope with the rising stress of life.
As the UAE seeks to improve the healthcare sector, it might be prudent for it to address these psychological problems, especially among the expatriate community.
Although there are many facilities that focus on the upscale, high-income market, it would be nice to see these places extend support to those who need it most. This could be in the form of a multilingual hotline, buddy calls just to check up on people and, perhaps, a few free clinics at malls, schools and labour camps.
These facilities, along with sustained awareness campaigns, will help address much of these problems. They could mean the difference between life and death.
Maryam Ismail is a sociologist and teacher who divides her time between the US and the UAE
