Sumayya Cherri can’t get the image of dead children out of her head. Since the bloody war between Israel and Hamas began on October 7, she has been watching news on TV or the internet and scrolling social media almost constantly – and it has taken a toll.
Born in the Detroit area two decades after her grandparents migrated from war-torn Lebanon, Cherri, 31, has found herself grappling with anxiety, grief and depression over the past three months as she has watched the Israel-Hamas conflict unfold.
“I don’t know how to deal with my mental illness right now,” Cherri said. Seeing the number of Palestinians killed by Israel reach 20,000 – most of them women and children – while international calls for a ceasefire have been ignored has left her feeling helpless and hopeless.
“We’ve watched babies given death certificates before their birth certificates and fathers dig with their bare hands under rubble, calling out one by one the names of their children, hoping to hear a response,” Cherri said. “We’ve heard the echoes of women and children screaming after being carpet-bombed during their sleep. Yet we are here, safe, going about our lives normally and knowing the tax dollars we work so very hard to pay are paying for the death and suffering of other human beings.”
“Survival guilt,” she added, “is real.”
As a daughter of parents who grew up as Lebanese war survivors and émigrés, she knows what it’s like to grapple with the feeling of not belonging while navigating between two identities – Muslim and American.
She is not alone. Greater Detroit is home to the largest concentration of Arabic-speaking and Muslim people in the country. At least 205,000 Arabic speakers live in the three core Detroit area counties, according to census data compiled by the Arab American Institute. More than 240,000 Muslims are estimated to live in the state.
For many of them, this is a time of unspeakable anguish. Watching and following the displacement and suffering of Palestinians in Gaza is magnifying the pain and distress they already feel – and have felt since the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim backlash that followed the 9/11 attacks of 2001.
For people like Cherri who grew up in the aftermath of 9/11, the present moment feels all too familiar. “Watching the younger kids get doxed, bullied, intimidated by their peers and city councils triggers PTSD from past experiences. How many more generations have to grow up in this environment?” she asks.
For Muslims, the fear and sense of being targeted that festered after 9-11 intensified in 2017 when then-President Donald Trump announced his so-called Muslim ban, said Michigan-based psychiatrist Asra Hamzavi.
Sense of fear and alienation reignited
“The sense of alienation and fear was reignited. The rhetoric at that time shifted quite dramatically and that left Muslims, along with many other people of color, feeling afraid, again,” Hamzavi said.
“For us Muslims, there has been no break, and we haven’t gotten a period of healing,” said Farha Abbasi, a psychiatrist and assistant professor of psychiatry at Michigan State University. “There’s more hatred against Muslims than ever before.”
Fifteen years ago, Abbasi started the annual Muslim Mental Health Conference and a related medical journal and consortium in an effort to create healing structures for the community. Every spring, the conference draws to East Lansing a global audience of mental health providers who want to better serve the Muslim community.
Since 2015, the conference has included a storytelling showcase called the Narratives of Pain, which aims to facilitate healing by providing “a space for safe sharing of personal stories, validation, healing and hope,” equipped with counselors and ground rules.
“The audience is there to witness whatever the storyteller is needing to get off their chest,” said Zain Shamoon, a family therapist who started the narrative project in Michigan and is now a professor at Antioch University in Seattle. These days, he said, the need to share narratives and experiences is greater than ever, given the ongoing stressors faced by Muslims and Arab Americans.
Today, Hamzavi said, one of those stressors Palestinians face is the sense that they’re being deprived of their ability to speak freely.
Since the Israel-Gaza war began October 7, Palestine Legal, an organization that supports the free-speech rights of Palestinians in the U.S., has received more than 1,000 reports of Palestinians and their supporters being targeted for their speech. The reports range from people getting fired for sharing social media posts to college students getting bullied or doxed.
We are all feeling unsure of the times we live in, and how polarized it feels. As humans, we need to step back and really remember our humanity and our compassion for other beings.”
Duane Breijak, Michigan chapter, National Association of Social Workers
Palestine Legal and the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the Florida chapters of the Students for Justice in Palestine against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida education officials for violating the First Amendment by issuing an order removing the student group’s ability to receive university support and use university spaces.
“From the standpoint of the Muslim community and allies, the idea of silencing people’s experiences and pain is, is in and of itself, very challenging,” Hamzavi said.
Hate crimes against Muslims on the rise
Before 9/11, there was little data about the mental health of Muslim and Arabic-speaking communities in the U.S. People suffered in silence.
In the years since, Muslim communities have faced acts of hate as well as heightened government surveillance while traveling and crossing U.S. borders, a result of the Patriot Act and the institution of the so-called terror watchlist shared across law enforcement agencies. This year, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a civil rights advocacy organization, filed a federal lawsuit to dismiss the watchlist, arguing that it disproportionately targets American Muslims.
In the first month after Oct. 7, when Hamas attacked southern Israel, leading to the massive bombing and ground campaign by Israel in Gaza, CAIR received reports of 1,283 incidents of bias or hate perpetrated against Arabs or Muslims.
Some of these incidents have been deadly. On Oct. 14, 6-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume was stabbed 26 times by his landlord in a deadly attack near Chicago that police labeled a hate crime; his mother was also stabbed and wounded. On Oct. 30, Dr. Talat Jehan Khan was fatally stabbed by a stranger while she sat on a picnic table outside her apartment in Texas. A suspect was arrested but, despite a call from the family and CAIR to investigate the killing as a hate crime, that determination has not yet been made.
And on Nov. 25, three Palestinian college students wearing keffiyehs, traditional Arab scarves, were shot by a stranger in Burlington, Vermont. Two are in stable condition and the other was paralyzed from the waist down after a bullet hit his spinal cord.
These incidents are adding to the fear and anxiety among Muslims and Arabic-speaking people in the U.S., said Abbasi, the Michigan State University psychiatrist. “We are seeing that depression, anxiety, trauma, substance use, suicide rates – everything is at a higher level,” she said.
I’m now getting a lot of chest pain when I’m seeing things online, and I never used to deal with that.”
Assma Khatib, palestinian counselor
President Joe Biden condemned the shooting of the students and the killing of Wadea and called on Americans to “without equivocation, denounce antisemitism…and denounce Islamophobia.”
But many Arab Americans and Muslims say Biden’s commitment to “stand with Israel” – while taking no public action to restrain Israel’s killing of civilians – is tone deaf to the needs of Palestinians in Gaza and Arab Americans in the U.S.
Muslim therapists offer solace and “safe spaces” to talk
An estimated 70 Muslim mental health professionals practice in Michigan according to Hamzavi, who’s been compiling a list throughout the state. Many are stepping up to provide one-on-one therapy, create community circles and promote resources on social media.
Sameera Ahmed is a clinical psychologist and the executive director of the Family Youth Institute, a national mental health research and education organization. She said Muslim and Arab American communities are facing the same kind of backlash that people saw after 9/11. Many, she said, have experienced discrimination, rejection and dismissal from people and organizations in the health care system.
“Institutional racism has an impact and serves as a barrier to not have mental health treatment, because there’s institutional distrust,” she said.
Palestinian counselor Assma Khatib said she feels a pressure to get things right as a Palestinian mental health provider.
“Everyone’s looking at you for answers,” she said. “So you’re constantly thinking, how can you support people? It’s exhausting, but it’s so powerful.”
Khatib is also providing mental health care for a teenager in Gaza via telehealth – and learning from her how dire things are.
Reality 100 times worse than social media images
“What we’re seeing on social media we think is bad, but what they’re going through is 100 times worse,” she said. “Daily life in Gaza is marked by constant fear, limited access to clean water, food and frequent power outages. They’re still trying to find loved ones under buildings and the trauma has intensified. My client has been displaced. She is living with 50 other people.”
Like others, Khatib urges people to practice self-care, to know their boundaries and to take social media breaks and check in with yourself.
“I’m now getting a lot of chest pain when I’m seeing things online, and I never used to deal with that,” she said. “Now I’m aware of my own self.”
She urges Muslims to make use of free resources like Ruh, a Muslim spiritually mediation app, and Naseeha Mental Health, a Muslim youth mental health hotline, which has received a 600 percent increase in calls since the Israel-Gaza conflict began. People experiencing a crisis can also call the 988 national suicide and crisis hotline.
Dialog within and among communities is important right now, Khatib said, but the conversations need to center Palestinian voices and speak to people who are directly impacted. “I want people to ask us questions, and not just to make assumptions,” she said.
No one is doing okay right now, said Duane Breijak, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.
“We are all feeling unsure of the times we live in, and how polarized it feels,” he said. “As humans, we need to step back and really remember our humanity and our compassion for other beings.”
The current wave of grief and loss is an extension of what people were feeling during the pandemic, Breijak said, and healing looks different for each person. Providers are ready to step up and help, despite a shortage of professionals.
Student free-speech rights being suppressed, advocates say
Students on college campuses may have access to free counseling and psychological services, but representatives of the University of Michigan Dearborn and Wayne State University, which have large Arab American and Muslim student populations, told MindSite News they haven’t seen an increase in people coming in for therapy since the conflict began.
For students, protesting and attending school board meetings can be a therapeutic way to integrate activism with student life, Breijak said. But campuses have also emerged as centers of conflict. Palestinian students and their allies say university administrators have tried to stifle demonstrations against the bombing of Gaza. Some Jewish students have reported feeling unsafe and targeted by anti-Semitic speech and acts.
At the University of Michigan, 40 students were arrested on campus for occupying the U-M administration building and leading a sit-in at the president’s office to protest the bombardment of Gaza. The university also cancelled a student election on resolutions related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
On December 19, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan sent a letter to the University of Michigan to express concern over the censorship of free speech on campus. The letter urged the school to take nine steps to improve conditions on campus and to publicly disclose the process the university has used in making decisions about its policies.
The conflicts have also extended to local high schools. Administrators at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills removed Palestinian flags placed by students in school windows, while school officials at two other high schools responded to a pro-Palestinian walkout by hundreds of student by affirming students’ constitutional right to protest.
At Bloomfield Hills High School, students who participated in a pro-Palestinian walkout were “improperly questioned” by school officials and two students were not allowed to go back to class, according to the local Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Hamzavi said arrests and suppression of protests have made students feel their voices were being ignored and undermines their mental health.
“It creates distance from the administration; they don’t trust the people who are educating them,” she said. “Anytime a free and democratic society tries to silence people who are speaking out of humanitarian concern, a tremendous amount of pain can get internalized.”
Faith-based mental health
Abbasi said she takes a faith-based mental health approach as she teaches and practices mindfulness and prayer, gratitude and perseverance along with stories of spiritual resilience based in the Quran.
In November, she held a community healing circle for MSU undergrad students with Students Unite for Palestinian Rights, Spartan Egyptians, the Muslim Students Association and Spartan Shifa. Abbasi said people shared their frustrations, talked about self-care, compassion fatigue and even how to report hate crimes. It was one of at least a dozen healing circles that have been held across Michigan, many of them at mosques.
As Michigan Muslims and Arabic speakers try to cope with their rising stress, there’s a huge need for culturally competent mental health providers as well as translation services, said Breijak. In Metro Detroit, he said, there’s an opportunity for Middle Eastern and North African community organizations to meet those needs and create a national model.
“There are some good organizations doing educational work,” Breijak said, and they are “holding space for people to be present and talk, and have their feelings validated.”
That doesn’t mean the burden should fall solely upon Arab American mental health providers, Breijak said. “How do we as allied professionals also step forward and take leadership in these spaces where we know our colleagues are hurting?” he asks.
Darren Jones is a clinical psychologist who works as a senior community health officer for the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS), a nonprofit social service agency that started in 1971 and now has several locations in Michigan.
Using Arabic and French-speaking therapists, ACCESS provides family and communal support,with therapy for children, adults and refugees who survived torture as well as training in Mental Health First Aid.
“We’re going to be expanding that, but we’re also bringing in some training on vicarious trauma as well,” he said.
From 2018 to 2022, the number of clients receivingbehavioral health services at ACCESS tripled and clinical encounters increased nine-fold, as staffing increased to meet growing demand.
“The key right now is for us to be increasingly innovative,” Jones said.
On Nov. 16, hundreds of people gathered at Detroit’s Hart Plaza, overlooking the Detroit River, to mourn the lives lost in the ongoing conflict. The “Rooted in Humanity: Mourn Innocent People Killed” event was organized by nearly 30 groups including the Michigan Muslim Coalition and Jewish Voice for Peace of Detroit as one way to address people’s feelings and boost mental health among Palestinian, Arab American, Jewish and Muslim communities.
It was one of the first large-scale interfaith gatherings held in Detroit, with people from the Muslim, Jewish, Christian and Native American communities carrying candles, stuffed animals, and personal notes for a memorial at the center of the stage.
People huddled together to listen to prayers, stories from Palestinians who lost their family members and a Yiddish mourning song.
Tariq Luthun, a local Palestinian community organizer and Emmy-award winning poet, told the crowd that there’s no right way to grieve and urged people to process their feelings through claps or snaps. “Do whatever feels right for you in this moment,” he said. “There is no blueprint for this.”
