Collective Grief, Collective Healing: Reflections From Sudanese Community Mental Health Spaces

Following the flow of what emerges in our healing circles – we’ll walk through stories, emotion, reflection, and meaning-making that comes with being held. 

My Experience of Being in the Diaspora

The pain of the diaspora is an interesting one.

I’m Sudanese-American, raised in NYC. I recently took a trip to Saudi Arabia to visit family in Riyadh – people I hadn’t seen in over ten years, and some I was meeting for the first time.

I found myself sitting among four women: my mother, who grew up in Sudan and came to America when I was one; my aunt, who spent most of her life in Sudan caring for my grandmother, navigating multiple displacements before having recently relocating to Riyadh; and a family friend with her daughter, who had been in Sudan when the war broke out and managed to escape in the early days.

Each of them carried a different story of leaving.

My aunt had to convince her mother, my grandmother, to leave her home in Khartoum. Displaced for almost a year and a half, moving from place to place before my aunt left for Riyadh to be with her daughter, my cousin, who was pregnant, only a few months before my grandmother’s passing. Allah yerhama.

The family friend described fleeing by bus in those early days, witnessing bodies lining the streets as they exited, holding the reality that they were privileged enough to leave when many could not. 

My mom shared stories of trying to convince family members back home to leave the comfort of their homes in Khartoum, holding fear from afar. Hearing of passings, difficult births, hospital visits, low medicine supply, etc., while scrounging whatever she could to provide the only way she knew how.

There were so many stories.

As I sat there listening, I felt everything in my body.

My heart raced.
My eyes warmed, tears beginning to well.
My body felt hot.
My throat tightened – the way it does when there’s too much to say, but no way to say it without breaking…

Continue reading the full article on IMMH → https://www.muslimmentalhealth.com/collective-grief-collective-healing-reflections-from-sudanese-community-spaces/