The first Inaugural Maryland Summit on Muslim Mental Health took place on Saturday September 29, 2018 in the aftermath of at least four suicides in the DMV Muslim community which have occurred over the last two years.
Held at the Diyanet Center of America in Lanham, MD, UMMAH (United for Muslim Mental Advocacy and Health) hosted the summit in response to a crisis in the Muslim community regarding the stigma around mental health. The hope of UMMAH is to reduce the stigma through advocacy, education and empowerment.
UMMAH, established only a number of months ago, is a grass roots initiative that was founded by Zainab Chaudry (an activist and Director of Maryland Outreach for CAIR), Dr. Madiha Tahseen (PhD, Research Fellow and a Community Educator at The Family and Youth Institute), Najwa Awad (a mental health practitioner), and Zainab Jackson (a state -licensed mental health therapist).
When asked about the crowd that she expected to see at the summit, Chaudry commented “the summit was meant to bring together community stakeholders, mental health professionals, community leaders, activist, parents and anybody that has a role to play in the conversation about mental health in our communities.” By bringing together all these different people, she believes we can see things from different perspectives and learn from each other.
The program began at 9 a.m. with a Quran recitation from Imam Tarif Sharim and then an introduction to UMMAH and their mission. What followed was a dialogue about the stigma surrounding mental health, an analysis of mental health with Q&A, and then discussions about helping individuals who are considering suicide. Muslim mental health professionals and community leaders were invited to speak at the summit in an effort to connect community members to health professionals and resources they can utilize. Some of the resources shared also included websites, hotlines and free services that community members could use as tools for prevention and recovery.
The need for this summit developed in the wake of an increase of murder suicides in the Maryland Muslim community, stressing the need for mental health services. In 2016, 19-year-old Farhad Siddique and his mother were shot to death by the father, who also killed himself. A similar alleged murder-suicide occurred in Herndon, VA in September of this year, this one involving a mother who shot and killed her children and then killed herself. Two other separate cases involved youth from Maryland.
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) website, “a mental illness is a condition that affects a person's thinking, feeling or mood.”
There are numerous mental health conditions, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and OCD. The NAMI website states that one in five adults in America experience a mental illness, with the largest in terms of diagnosis being anxiety –affecting 42 million American Adults. According to the NAMI website, 90% of those who die by suicide have an underlying mental illness.
Members of UMMAH’s steering committee have talked to people in our community who either suffer from a mental health condition, or have a family member suffering from one. These people often feel like they have nowhere to go and can’t talk to anyone about it without being excluded from social circles. As a result, many suffer in silence. UMMAH hopes that summits like this will give members in the Muslim community a safe space to talk about issues without being ostracized by other members of society. The hope is that eventually the stigma will be reduced and conversations about mental health will become the norm.
Many of the speakers at the event agreed that education is key. One message that was conveyed by many at the summit was that Muslims are not immune to mental illness and we should not be afraid to talk about it. Walida Mukhtar, one of the guest speakers at the summit and a licensed master social worker in Maryland, said she participated in the event to educate people on the topic of mental health. According to her, even learning the difference between a mental health condition that is situational (brought about because of a situation) and clinical (transcends the situation and needs to be treated with professional help or medication) can help people deal with mental health issues.
Changing how we talk about mental health as a community is imperative. Guest speakers emphasized the need to watch our language and reduce the stigma by avoiding phrases like “You’re so bi-polar,” or “you’re so ocd.” They also warned against labeling people, being judgmental, or substituting empathy for religion. While some speakers cautioned against simply telling those suffering from mental health conditions to read more Qur’an or make make duaa or to start praying, some audience members pointed out that the Qur’an and Sunnah are filled with ways and means of ensuring emotional and mental health, but these religiously based cures are too often dismissed or not applied consistently. However, attendees and speakers agreed that some mental health conditions are caused by chemical or hormonal imbalances that require a treatment plan and cannot be solved by spirituality alone. The mental health experts at the summit agreed that the combination of the spiritual and professional help leads to the best outcomes.
Mukhtar has many hopes for summits like this, including encouraging people to take preventative measures. According to her, just like kids have checkup with their doctor every six months, they should also have checkups for their mental health too. She sees a strong connection between mental and physical health, and recommends, “everyone live a wholesome, holistic life within their household and family.”
Rafee Al-Mansur, a resident in marriage and family therapy in Mclean, also spoke at the summit. He was happy to see Muslims being pro-active about an issue that is affecting so many of us. Mansur sees this summit “as an introductory or general approach to mental health and looks forward to having future summits that are more specialized around specific issues that the Muslim community is experiencing.”
Overall UMMAH was happy with the turnout at their first summit (about 100 people) and inspired with the positive feedback they got from community members. They plan to hold more summits in the future and have emailed surveys asking this year’s participants how they can improve future events.
Comments powered by CComment