The 62-year-old Vietnamese immigrant says she had no idea what “schizophrenia” was when her psychiatrist in Toronto handed her the diagnosis in 1983, two years after she moved here with her husband.
She never spoke about her mental illness with her friends and family, not even to her husband when he passed away a decade ago.
“It’s not in the Vietnamese language,” said Nguyen, who was hospitalized for the first time in 1978 while studying in university in Japan. “I was too afraid to tell anyone I had mental health illness.”
But all changed in early 2000s when her psychiatrist referred her to a new Vietnamese self-help group run by Toronto’s Hong Fook Mental Health Association.
“I was lonely and isolated, but I am now confident to talk about my mental illness, because of the support we have for each other,” says the mother of three, who now works as a peer support worker on Mount Sinai Hospital’s assertive community treatment team.
For many immigrants, finding linguistically and culturally sensitive mental health services is hard, and trying to overcome the social stigma from their own community is even harder, says Bonnie Wong, Hong Fook’s executive director.
“Back home, they don’t talk about emotional and mental health. People with mental illness hide it from others and suffer in silence,” says Wong, whose 31-year-old association received $335,000 from United Way Toronto last year for its multilingual mental health prevention and promotion programs.
“Newcomers have to adapt to a new country. Many experience cultural and language barriers, as well as other migration stress. We know immigrant health declines over the years. It is a fact.”
Statistics have shown one in five Canadians will experience a mental health illness in their life time, but most government funding in mental health services goes to institutional care, says Wong,
Hong Fook offers support services in Cantonese, Mandarin, Korea, Vietnamese and Cambodian. It recently opened its own full-time clinic, run by an interdisciplinary professional team to serve the East and Southeast Asian communities.
Five years ago, Hong Fook launched a two-day training program to raise the awareness of frontline immigrant settlement and community workers across the province about their clients’ diverse mental health needs. Over 1,000 people have participated in the training to date.
“Mental health is a very sensitive subject. Most people don’t feel comfortable talking about it. Some share the same social stigma and they need to de-stigmatize themselves,” says trainer Maria Lo of Hong Fook.
“The community’s attitude has slowly changed. They understand more about what mental health is. They feel they can talk about their mental health problems.”
Wong said mental health needs have continued to evolve with Canada’s changing immigration patterns.
In recent years, she has seen a service gap for the growing number of international students from Mainland China, who, on top of the cultural and language barriers, are here without parental supervision for the first time and lack basic life skills.
“As they are not permanent residents or immigrants, they cannot access any of the services,” Wong explains. “We have elderly population who come here on visitor visas and live in loneliness and isolation, because they are not immigrants and are ineligible for help.
“Because of our immigration policies, we are creating other issues.”
Changing needs also call for new strategies. Hong Fook has ventured into social media to reach out to the technology-savvy younger generation about mental health awareness.
However, nothing is more empowering than having mental illness survivors such as Nguyen share their success stories. Says Wong: “It builds hope, so other people know they, too, can have a future.”
Original Article
Source: thestar.com
Author: Nicholas Keung
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