My heart has died

‘Mayan’* is a 38 year-old Yezidi woman from the North of Sinjar. She fled to Duhok after the Yezidi genocide in August 2014. Since then, she has been living in an IDP camp with her husband and eight children. She has two young girls; the rest are all boys.

Mayan came to see our psychologist suffering with low mood and suicidal thoughts. She told the psychologists that she felt exhausted all the time. She lost her appetite and hardly ate. Her sleep was very poor, and she frequently collapsed. This psychosomatic symptom is very prevalent among Yezidi genocide survivors. Mayan said that she wished she was dead. At the beginning of June 2020, she attempted to kill herself but was stopped just in time by her husband. Yezidi women use lethal means to attempt to commit suicide, like burning, shooting or hanging themselves. Therefore, most suicide attempts end in loss of life. Luckily for Mayan that was not the case.

Mayan is not a stranger to hardship in her life. She was born with a disability that made her limp heavily when she walked. She lost her mother at a very young age. The family was poor, her father was a seasonal farm worker. She was able to go to school only for a year, and then left to look after her younger three siblings. Her father was a bitter, angry man and she was a shy obedient child.

Mayan got married at the age of 14. Because she had a disability and they were very poor, the family decided that they had to accept the offer without even consulting her. She lived with her husband’s family, working hard and doing all the housework for the whole family. Her husband worked as a construction worker.

A year before the genocide, as their family was getting very big with seven children and one on the way, they moved into a separate, one room house. They didn’t have any furniture to start with but were buying them one at a time, one month a refrigerator, then a couple of months later a television. They were poor, life was hard. A single room was used as kitchen, bathroom, living room and bedroom, but they were doing fine. The children were going to school, there was food on the table.

Then ISIS came. They had to leave everything behind and flee, bringing only the clothes they were wearing. They didn’t have a car, so they had to walk all the way up to the mountains in blistering August heat, carrying their children. They spent eight days on top of the mountain with very little to eat and drink, trying to keep their eight children alive, the youngest one 11 months old at the time. Finally, they walked for hours from the mountains to the Syrian border. Mayan and her husband took turns carrying their younger children. They eventually reached Duhok and they were settled in an IDP camp.

My mental health problems started after the genocide. Until then, however difficult life was, I was able to cope with it. But since then, I always feel anxious. I am finding it difficult to deal with people. I have no energy, my body feels very heavy, and I find it difficult to get up and do housework. I criticize myself all the time because I feel bad not being able to look after my children, but I have no energy. It feels like I am already dead, that my heart has died. I wish I was dead because there is no hope for us.

Since the pandemic, it got worse for Mayan’s family. Mayan’s husband used to be able to find daily work, either in construction or farming, and earn some money. Since the lock down there has been no jobs and no money. Mayan feels devastated that they cannot feed their eight children.

Her oldest three boys have left school, so they are all at home, not being able to find any work. Mayan believes there is no future for them, for herself and her husband, her children.

Mayan reached out to us because although her life feels bleak to her at the moment, she has a young son and two young daughters. She wants to gain the strength to continue living for their sakes. Our trauma team keeps a close eye on her and her family. She continues to receive support from the FYF trauma team.

(*The names and other identifiable aspects of ‘Mayan’ and her story have been changed for her privacy)