When Evelyn Ma’s two-year-old daughter had a persistently high fever and a bad cough earlier this month, she and her husband began to worry.
The couple decided to take their daughter to a nearby children’s hospital in the city of Jinan.
But as Ma walked through the doors with her daughter in her arms, she found a scene of chaos.
“Doctors and nurses were rushing around everywhere between long lines of patients waiting their turn, and people were even sitting on the floor and against the walls,” Ma, who is 36 and works as a sales representative in China’s northeastern Shandong province, told Al Jazeera.
China experienced a sharp rise in cases of influenza, pneumonia, RSV and common cold viruses, particularly among children, in early October. By the next month, the surge in the number of people seeking medical attention had put a strain on hospitals, especially those catering to children.
“We arrived at the hospital in the early morning, but we didn’t get to see a doctor until the late afternoon, and I think that was only because my daughter’s symptoms were quite bad and my husband and I made a fuss,” Ma said.
The rising infections and reports of undiagnosed pneumonia sparked concern that the world was on the cusp of another novel pandemic outbreak spreading from China, after COVID-19 also first appeared as undiagnosed pneumonia in the central city of Wuhan.
But after requesting data from China, the World Health Organization (WHO) concluded there was no cause for alarm because the evidence suggested there was no new pathogen.
The jump in cases, it appears, was more a reflection of the return of illnesses that had been suppressed by the country’s prolonged pandemic lockdowns.
Ma’s daughter soon recovered, but the experience brought back upsetting memories.
“Last time I was at the hospital was in late December last year, and I was also sitting in a crowded waiting room filled with coughing people,” she said.
“Back then I was holding the hand of my grandmother who was very sick with COVID,” Ma said.
The sudden U-turn on the zero-COVID policy followed a series of rare protests across the country [File: Thomas Peter/Reuters]
Just a few weeks before that, the Chinese authorities had abandoned the strict COVID measures that were a pillar of the country’s so-called zero-COVID policy after protests in several Chinese cities against the continued enforcement of lockdowns.
For three years until then, the zero-COVID policy had defined – and limited – Chinese people’s interactions with each other and the outside world in the name of combatting the pandemic.
“So many people suffered under the zero-COVID policy, and so many people died when it ended,” Ma said.
“Because of that, my family and I are traumatised to this day.”
Mental health struggles
Ma’s grandmother succumbed to COVID-19 in early January.
At about the same time, 29-year-old translator Lily Wang from Shenzhen also lost her grandmother to the virus.
She blames the authorities’ abrupt decision to abandon the zero-COVID policy for her death.
“If they had just given us a warning or given us time to prepare, we might have been able to save her,” Wang told Al Jazeera.
A wave of infections swept across China after the sudden end of the policy posing a particular hazard to elderly Chinese of whom only 40 percent had received a booster shot by December 2022. In the months that followed, upwards of almost two million more people died compared with the same period in previous years, according to a study by Hong Xiao and Joseph Unger of the Public Health Sciences Division at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center that was published in August.
While the death of Wang’s grandmother was traumatic for her whole family, the strict lockdowns of China’s cities, which became a recurring phenomenon throughout 2022, were traumatic for Wang personally.
Her neighbourhood in the southern city of Shenzhen was repeatedly placed under total lockdown for months on end to quell flare-ups of COVID infections.
“We were not allowed to go outside – not even to stretch our legs, do grocery shopping or take out the garbage,” she said.
Regular and relentless testing was a key feature of the zero-COVID strategy [File: Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo]
Wang was living alone in a small apartment at the time, and food supplies, provided by the authorities, were often late to arrive at her building.
“I was hungry, lonely and trapped, and I started to suffer from panic attacks,” she added.
As soon as the COVID policy ended, she moved out of the apartment and back home with her parents.
“After zero-COVID, I just couldn’t stay in the apartment any more,” she said.
“Even today, it is still difficult for me to be alone for more than a few days.”
Ma from Jinan has also struggled to recover mentally.
“I am much more concerned about the future than I was before 2022,” she said.
During the lockdown of her family’s neighbourhood, they also experienced food supplies arriving late.
“Now I get nervous when we don’t have much food left in the apartment, so I make sure that we have lots of meals available in the freezer and the refrigerator in case something happens,” she explained.
Hou Feng, a 31-year-old programmer from Shanghai, has also had trouble sleeping since the strict lockdown of Shanghai that took place from April until June 2022.
“During that time, people in my building contacted the authorities to accuse each other of breaking the COVID rules,” Hou told Al Jazeera.
Residents of Shanghai, China’s biggest city, were required to undergo constant COVID-19 testing, and it was obligatory to report to one of the city’s quarantine centres if the result was positive.
Hou witnessed his screaming neighbour getting dragged out of her home by the authorities when she refused to leave of her own volition after testing positive.
He still has nightmares about people in white hazmat suits breaking down his door and taking him away to a quarantine facility.
“I just saw some really bad sides of China during the lockdown that I never thought I would see.”
Loud success, quiet failure
While the zero-COVID policy ended in failure and trauma, according to Hou, it was initially quite successful.
“In 2020 and 2021, we luckily didn’t really feel the pandemic in China,” he said.
After a late response to the initial COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, the Chinese authorities subsequently managed to get the pandemic under control, and by mid-2020, normal life had resumed and social order was restored.
That was a contrast to several high-income countries in the Western world where health services struggled when the pandemic first struck, according to assistant professor Yan Long, who has studied the development of Chinese public health policies at the University of California, Berkeley.
That also made the zero-COVID policy a source of national pride in China and an opportunity for the Chinese leadership to showcase, at least domestically, that China had outdone countries such as the United States.
“It was a way to say, ‘Look, democracy has failed, we succeeded’,” Long told Al Jazeera.
The success began to fray, however, with the emergence of more infectious COVID-19 variants such as omicron. Immense resources were poured into constant rounds of mass testing and the implementation of lockdowns, but the measures failed to put an end to new outbreaks.
“The zero-COVID policy became financially unsustainable, and scientifically impossible, while the confidence in the policy also began to drastically decline,” Long said.
“By 2022, COVID was no longer the biggest fear. People were more afraid of the disruption of the lockdowns.”
After asking Beijing for more data on the ‘influenza-like illness’, the WHO concluded it was not a new pathogen [File: Jade Gao/AFP]
Hou from Shanghai agrees that towards the end, the zero-COVID policy felt worse than COVID-19.
“The policy made life a living hell,” he said.
Hou knows of many people who experienced traumatic episodes during the lockdowns as well as in the subsequent rapid reopening of society.
“But unlike me, most people I know don’t want to talk about the COVID times. They just want to forget them,” he said.
Long, the academic, doubts that Chinese people have had a chance to heal after what happened.
“It is now a year later, and there has been no discussion about COVID, no reflection about what was right and what was wrong,” she said.
“When you bury the memory, you don’t learn any lessons, which means there is no guarantee that the same mistakes won’t be made again.”
Buenos Aires, Argentina – Psychologist Jesica Bianchiotti, 35, still remembers the days when most sessions with her patients began with a chat about the weather or the results of the latest football match.
But those days are long gone. With Argentina facing one of the worst economic crises in its recent history, sessions now start with conversations about politics, rising prices and how hard it is to make ends meet.
“Things have changed a lot. The majority of my patients now come with issues related to anxiety, fear, problems with sleeping, all related to the uncertainty we all live with — how impossible it is to make long-term plans,” said Bianchiotti, who works in the greater Buenos Aires area.
Argentina boasts the third-largest economy in Latin America — but it has been beset by financial turmoil for decades, fuelled by political instability and massive international debt.
This year, inflation hit record levels, rocketing higher than 140 percent. The value of Argentina’s currency has plummeted as a result. Even basic food shopping is a challenge for some.
Against that backdrop, professionals like Bianchiotti are reporting an increase in stress-related conditions. Argentina, though, has developed a way to grapple with the problem: It has the highest rate of psychologists per capita in the world.
A 2015 study estimated that, for every 100,000 Argentinians, there are 194 psychologists — a rate more than three times higher than the next closest countries, Finland and Norway.
Psychotherapy is so popular that certain practitioners, like Gabriel Rolon, have achieved celebrity status, appearing on TV and radio shows. In 2022, psychology was also one of the most sought-after career paths at the University of Buenos Aires, second only to medicine.
A healthcare centre offers psychological services in Moreno, a city on the outskirts of Buenos Aires [Patricio A Cabezas/Al Jazeera]
The widespread embrace of psychotherapy, however, corresponds with widespread need, according to Bianchiotti. She has treated patients for nearly a decade and has seen an increase in the number of consultations she conducts.
“The state in which patients come in is pretty shocking. Many are not even able to listen to what I say,” she told Al Jazeera, describing how some patients talk non-stop.
“They are anxious, nervous with fear, consumed by negative thoughts. Panic attacks are becoming more frequent and many people are unable to enjoy any sort of free time as they are consumed with worries.”
Anxiety is a normal response to danger, real or perceived. It exists to help the body face or escape from threats.
But anxiety can develop into a disorder, with symptoms like dizziness, shaking, migraines and fatigue. It can also increase risk factors for other conditions like depression.
“A certain level of anxiety is necessary as a basic survival skill, but too much of it, that’s when problems start. It can become paralysing,” said Bianchiotti.
In Argentina, the problem may be particularly acute. More than half of the participants in a 2022 study about the country’s psychological health, conducted by the University of Buenos Aires, said they were experiencing a “crisis”.
The economy was cited as the most common reason for respondents’ crises. At 49 percent, it surpassed family problems, relationship troubles and work as a leading cause.
The economy was considered the decisive factor in Argentina’s recent presidential elections, which saw libertarian candidate Javier Milei emerge victorious [Gustavo Garello/AP Photo]
The study also found that 75 percent of respondents said they suffered from sleep deprivation. The number of sufferers was even higher among those with fewer resources.
Meanwhile, an estimated 35 percent of those who needed psychological treatment said they could not afford it.
Although psychologists are available for free in public hospitals, budget cuts have made it increasingly difficult for people with lower incomes to access their services. Those with more resources can opt for private therapy, a more expensive option that offers greater flexibility for scheduling and services.
“Data shows that there are many people who go to a psychotherapist in Argentina, but many more don’t have access to any kind of services, even when they would like to access them,” Fabian Maero, a psychologist, author and professor from the University of Buenos Aires, told Al Jazeera.
“If you have to choose between going to therapy and paying the rent, that is not much of a choice.”
Critics including Maero worry the situation could worsen under newly inaugurated President Javier Milei, who took office on December 10. A self-described “anarcho-capitalist”, Milei was elected after promising to slash government spending to mend the economy.
Though he initially proposed scrapping the Ministry of Health, Milei has since announced he would keep the agency, appointing cardiologist Mario Russo as its head.
“We professionals are very worried about this situation, how the lack of psychological attention is going to affect the population and how it will affect future generations,” Maero said.
He added that mental health professionals cannot ignore current events in their practices.
“We are facing great challenges. You want to treat an individual for their issues, but what they might need is to talk about the context they live in, what is happening to the country.”
Psychologist Fabian Maero worries budget cuts could further restrict the accessibility of mental health services [Patricio A Cabezas/Al Jazeera]
Julieta Bieber, a 48-year-old administrative assistant in Buenos Aires, is among those using their therapy sessions to talk about the state of the country.
“This level of inflation means you need to live day by day, and that is very hard,” she told Al Jazeera. “You wake up, and the first thing you do is check how much the dollar exchange rate is, how much things have risen in price. It really affects your quality of life.”
Bieber is hardly alone. Only 68 percent of Argentinians say their state of mind is positive, according to an October survey from the consulting firm Voices and the Worldwide Independent Network of Market Research (WIN).
That put Argentina’s national “mood” among the lowest of the 39 countries surveyed, tied with Peru and only a couple percentage points above Poland, which came in last at 65 percent.
“Everybody is in a bad mood. The situation is truly exhausting, and people are getting sick,” Bieber said. “When you go to the doctor or the therapist, they tell you to calm down. But how are you supposed to calm down with all of this happening?”
Chester, United Kingdom – It is just after 8:30am on a Friday and 40-year-old Waheed Arian is cycling down a path next to a frost-covered football field in the northwestern English city of Chester.
His cheeks are slightly flushed as he hops off his bike, and he seems sprightly despite having caught only a few hours of sleep.
During the week, he often works into the early hours of the morning running his two digital health charities, and he spends most weekends at the A&E (accident and emergency) ward of his local hospital where he works as an emergency doctor.
As Waheed locks up his bike, personal trainer Andy Royle walks up to him.
“Good to see you, Andy,” Waheed says.
The two men stretch, then run laps around the field. Despite the freezing weather, Waheed is enthusiastic. Physical activity has helped him cope with the most trying times in his life.
“In Afghanistan, when I was young, I used to do taekwondo and imitated the moves that Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan did in their movies. I fell down a lot,” he tells Andy laughing as they finish their workout.
Now Waheed, a former refugee, is helping others overcome adversity by drawing on his personal experience of surviving war-related trauma to advocate for and deliver mental health services to refugees.
A young Waheed and his parents after fleeing to Pakistan as refugees [Courtesy of Waheed Arian]
Finding strength
Waheed’s calm demeanour belies a difficult past.
He was born in 1983 in the Afghan capital Kabul during the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989) when the Soviet-controlled government fought the US-backed Mujahideen for control over the country.
Waheed is the eldest son in a Pashtun family of 11 children. His father bought and sold antiques and traded currency at a bazaar, while his mother was a housewife.
As a child, he remembers being unable to sleep at night, terrified by the sounds of government planes and helicopters being fired at near his house. The government soldiers and tanks on the streets frightened him and he remembers wondering if they would shoot him.
“I only have two happy memories from my childhood during the 1980s,” says the softly spoken Waheed. “One was being taken by my mother to a local park to have ice cream.” The second was when his father gave him a kite.
When he was older, he remembers hours-long shelling in the capital preventing his family from venturing out. At times they went without food or water. When Waheed did go out to buy necessities for the family, he would see dead bodies lying on the streets and if a gun battle erupted, he would have to throw himself into a gutter to avoid being hit. Once, while cycling home, a missile hit a house in his neighbourhood and sent him flying, though he wasn’t badly injured.
Waheed’s childhood and teenage years were marked by anxiety and nightmares, which he would later learn were symptoms of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). But during those years, he also began associating exercise with resilience. When he was 11, his family was internally displaced to the rural province of Logar. “I had a really depressive episode then, and lost all my energy because I couldn’t sleep or eat,” Waheed recalls.
On a particularly difficult day, he decided on a whim to go for a run. Afterwards, he felt a bit better. “So I decided that I would keep doing it,” he says.
Then he started looking at famous sportspeople for inspiration, including the boxer Muhammad Ali and his story of surviving a tough childhood. He began taekwondo and started running regularly. Exercise gave him the strength to dream of a different future, he says.
Arian Wellbeing works with mental health professionals and fitness experts like Andy Royle (R) who exercises with refugees to help them stretch and release tension in their necks and backs [Amandas Ong/Al Jazeera]
Arian Wellbeing
In August this year, Waheed set up Arian Wellbeing to help address refugees’ mental health needs.
Working alongside 20 clinical psychologists and therapists, as well as five fitness professionals like Andy, Waheed and his team are piloting tailored therapy and exercise in group and one-on-one sessions with refugees in Chester, his home for the past nine years.
They aim to provide the service for free to people who don’t have a stable income or accommodation via a scheme that accepts payment from participants who are not experiencing financial difficulty. They provide both in-person and digital sessions.
With 22.1 percent of conflict-affected populations suffering from issues such as depression, anxiety and PTSD – compared to the global average of 12.5 percent – Waheed believes refugees’ mental health remains a widely underserved need.
“These are people who have overcome so many adversities, faced traumas over many years that are not understood,” he says.
Waheed believes that Arian Wellbeing’s culturally sensitive approach makes it unique.
The team comprises people who either have lived experience of conflict or have undergone rigorous training to better understand participants’ countries of origin – whether Afghanistan, Syria or Ukraine, for example.
“Even being aware of the tribal and regional makeup of a refugee [Afghan] community here in Chester can help us work with them more effectively,” he says. “For example, we know that in Afghanistan, women like to sew and bake together, while men bond over tea.” To help build rapport, he has embedded the sharing of food with various forms of therapy in his group sessions in Chester.
Waheed graduated in medicine from Cambridge University in 2006 [Courtesy of Waheed Arian]
The doctor in Peshawar
After that morning’s exercise, Waheed sits in his living room, soft winter light streaming in through the window. Behind him is a large wooden toy kitchen for his children Zane, 7, and Alana, 4. There are family photographs all around. In the garden outside is a mini-playground with a slide. “In a way,” he says quietly, “I see my own lost childhood when I look at my children.”
In the spring of 1988, when Waheed was five, his father risked being conscripted by the government to fight on the front line, so like some 3.5 million other Afghans, they left for neighbouring Pakistan.
“We travelled on a few donkeys and horses, taking seven days and nights to reach Babu refugee camp,” Waheed says, referring to the temporary settlement for Afghans that lay just outside Peshawar in northwest Pakistan. The journey over mountains and rivers was arduous and dangerous. “We came under attack from helicopter gunships three times,” Waheed recalls.
In Babu, sanitary conditions were poor, and within days, almost everyone all his family had contracted malaria.
After three months, Waheed was coughing so much that he brought up blood. “I could hardly walk,” he says. “That’s when my parents realised it wasn’t the typical cold or flu symptoms that children have.”
His worried father carried him to a pulmonologist in Peshawar, selling some of the gold reserves he had brought to afford the medical fee. The doctor examined Waheed and concluded he had advanced tuberculosis (TB), with just a 20 to 30 percent chance of survival even if he underwent treatment. “My father was in tears, but he was committed to saving me,” Waheed says. He went to the local marketplace and sold antiques they’d brought in order to buy meat, fruit, milk and medicine to help Waheed recover.
As Waheed slowly recuperated, he would still see the pulmonologist, a benevolent man who left a deep impression on Waheed. “I caught his attention because I was always very curious about his job every time I interacted with him,” he chuckles. “One day he gave me a stethoscope and a black-and-white medical textbook, and he said, ‘Son, I think you’ll be a doctor one day. So you’ll need these.’”
Waheed says he knew then that he wanted to become a doctor. “I was determined to also change people’s lives with the same patience and empathy that he showed me,” he explains.
Waheed as a child in Afghanistan [Photo courtesy of Waheed Arian]
Ambition, flashbacks
In 1991, after the Soviet Union had withdrawn from Afghanistan and during a lull in the fighting, the family returned to Kabul and Waheed formed his plan to become a doctor.
First, he thought, he had to learn English. This was the language of the pulmonologist’s medical textbook. He threw himself into his third grade studies and visited the United Nations Development Programme office in Kabul. There, he argued with the staff to allow him to enrol in their English classes. “They told me that I wasn’t an employee so the course wasn’t for me,” he laughs. “And I started debating with them about the importance of investing in children’s education.”
The office agreed to accept him as a student, and he became one of the first children in their English classes. But this period of stability was short-lived.
In April 1992, fighting broke out once again. Waheed wanted to continue studying but turned up to his school one day to find it had been destroyed by rockets.
Undeterred, he bought English and science textbooks that were being resold on market stalls after being looted from school cupboards.
By the time he was nine, he found himself playing the role of an unofficial neighbourhood doctor. “The health infrastructure had collapsed from years of fighting. There were no facilities, no drugs, no doctors,” he explains.
In Pakistan, he had spent many afternoons at the local pharmacy watching the pharmacist dress wounds. “I also learnt the names of common drugs like paracetamol, ibuprofen and penicillin,” he says. Using this knowledge, coupled with what he gleaned from his medical textbook, he tended to his neighbours’ less severe artillery wounds at home, using bandages improvised from old clothes and pillowcases.
In 1994, the Taliban came to power and gradually the chaos was replaced with an ironfisted rule.
Then, when Waheed was 15, his parents decided to send him to the UK to try to pursue his ambition of becoming a doctor. Meanwhile, despite his stellar grades, he was also experiencing symptoms of PTSD.
“I wanted to sleep all the time, and felt escalating anxiety whenever I had flashbacks of my childhood years,” he says. To calm himself, he would practise what he called a “do-it-yourself” form of cognitive behavioural therapy – which focuses on changing thought and behavioural patterns to manage one’s problems – by quietly reviewing the positive aspects of his life: that he was alive, and doing well academically. And he practised taekwondo.
Waheed working as a shopkeeper in his early days in London. He worked in a shop, in a cafe and as a cleaner to support himself and earn money for his studies [Courtesy of Waheed Arian]
A red tank
In 1999, Waheed left Afghanistan and applied for asylum in the UK where he was initially detained. As he waited three years for asylum to be granted, he juggled three jobs while studying at college. Though he found London exhilarating, his PTSD was worsening.
“As soon as I saw a red bus, it would turn into a tank… Or I’d have nightmares of a sniper taking my head off,” he says.
Only after excelling in his college A Level exams, then going to the University of Cambridge on a scholarship and graduating in 2006, did the mental strain become too much for him to bear. In 2008, experiencing back and shoulder pains and constant nightmares, he went to see a counsellor, who suggested that he had PTSD and anxiety. Therapy helped him to better cope with his symptoms and allowed him to embark on a medical career as a radiologist and emergency doctor.
After a while, he began wondering how he could give back to society.
“I started a telemedicine charity called Teleheal in 2015, which enables doctors in low-resource countries and conflict zones to access advice from volunteer medical experts in the UK, Canada and the US,” he says. Doctors in Afghanistan, Yemen and Syria, for example, connect with their counterparts through WhatsApp and Skype. Teleheal believes almost 700 lives may have been saved between 2016 and 2018 as a result of emergency care advice received via the charity.
“Teleheal taught me that it’s not technology that helps people communicate effectively, it’s compassion,” Waheed says. This made him think about how to harness compassion to help refugees overcome trauma.
Waheed and Palwasha, who fled from Afghanistan in 2021, walk along the River Dee in Chester [Amandas Ong/Al Jazeera]
‘He gave us hope’
Waheed walks along Chester’s River Dee, which is lined by moss-covered stone walls and red brick homes on both sides.
He is on his way to catch up with Palwasha*, a 33-year-old Afghan woman who is receiving counselling through Arian Wellbeing. The former languages student fled Afghanistan after the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
“I was staying at the Holiday Inn in Chester with around 15 other displaced families when I met Waheed,” says Palwasha, speaking at a cafe.
“In communities like ours where there’s little awareness of mental health, we don’t always realise that physical symptoms can be a sign of depression or anxiety,” Palwasha explains as she cradles a cup of green tea. “I observed that many of the women had headaches, or said they felt fatigued.”
After arriving in Chester, although people were friendly and kind, she missed the liveliness of Kabul. She felt uncertain about her future and found there were days she felt drained of energy.
In April, when Waheed met the families housed at the hotel by the UK government, Palwasha remembers his inviting manner struck a chord with people.
“I thought: He is like us. He came here with nothing. He gave us hope that our lives might be different in the future,” she recalls.
Slowly, through gender-segregated group therapy sessions coupled with stretching exercises, the residents began to open up. “Before we received counselling, we weren’t really talking frankly about how we felt, or what we experienced back home,” she says. “It was really comforting to know that we were all in the same boat.”
Palwasha is about to move on to the next phase of her recovery programme where she’ll do more personalised one-on-one sessions.
She says she is feeling positive about the future. She is about to complete a diploma in mental health studies, reads Afghan poetry in her leisure time, wants to study Japanese, and is in discussions with Waheed about working as an interpreter for other Afghans who sign up for Arian Wellbeing.
Palwasha feels strongly about giving back to the initiative that has helped her.
“We’ve had war in Afghanistan for more than 40 years now,” she reflects. “I think it doesn’t really resonate with people the level of intergenerational trauma that Afghans carry with them. Some people, before coming to the UK, had never even left their province. It’s tough for them to assimilate, and they miss their family. I know I do.”
Training refugees to provide mental health support
Back at home in his study, Waheed has a brief Zoom meeting with Cressida Gaffney, a clinical psychologist with the National Health Service (NHS) who is also part of his team.
She later tells Al Jazeera that the UK health system “assumes a particular starting point for physical and mental distress that doesn’t always map to other cultures”. This is why, she says, Arian Wellbeing places great importance on team interpreters being present to pick up on cultural nuances, and wouldn’t carry out a therapy session without one.
Throughout the week, Waheed also speaks to mental health practitioners from around the world to share know-how. One of the people that he meets online that Friday morning in early December is Hivine Ali, a Bangladesh-based mental health and psychosocial support officer with the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR.
She’s Lebanese, and her parents have been displaced across three different countries. “So I really connect with the issues that refugees face, and it gives me a sense of meaning and fulfilment to help them,” she says.
Currently, along with other UNHCR staff, she’s training 200 volunteers from the Rohingya community to provide mental health support to their fellow refugees. She says that, unlike other refugees who may have a sense of belonging to their home countries, the Rohingya face extreme exclusion as they are not accepted in Myanmar, from where they fled, nor in Bangladesh.
The training programme is giving her and her team cause for optimism, however, with some of the young Rohingya providing mental health support over the phone to their parents in Myanmar. This model Hivine is adopting “to help refugees help themselves” is something Waheed is interested in exploring. They end the call and agree to stay in touch.
Waheed at home with his wife Davina and their dog Pushkin [Amandas Ong/Al Jazeera]
‘I can’t stop’
In the late afternoon, Waheed relaxes in his kitchen with his wife, Davina. Zane is at school, while Alana is upstairs sleeping off an earache.
“I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without Davina’s support,” Waheed says as he picks up Bruno, one of the couple’s two cats.
“He cares very much about his work, but he knows that if he’s feeling stressed about something, he can always talk to me,” Davina says.
Waheed travels often to speak about his work and published a memoir in 2021 hoping his story might help others.
Tomorrow, he has a rare day off from his multiple jobs and is excited to spend time with the children and order takeout. “Davina and I really love food,” he says, reminiscing about how the two had their first date in an Indian restaurant. “It’s true what people say, if you don’t love food, you probably have no appetite for life.”
Although Waheed will be back at the A&E ward on Sunday, he knows that the time spent with his family will give him the energy to continue.
Like the pulmonologist in Peshawar who inspired him so many years ago, “My life now really is just dedicated to giving people a message of hope, of resilience, of never giving up,” Waheed says. “I’m so privileged to be where I am, so I can’t stop.”
*Name changed to protect the interviewee’s identity.
This article has been produced with the support of UNHCR.
Jeff Garlin is trying his best in the wake of his bipolar disorder diagnosis, according to his “Curb Your Enthusiasm” co-star Susie Essman.
“He’s working very hard. He’s on his meds, and he’s working in therapy, and he’s working hard to manage it,” the actress told Page Six exclusively on Friday night at a cocktail party celebrating the upcoming Broadway musical “Some Like It Hot.”
“Bipolar is a motherf–ker,” he wrote. “Sometimes it’s just too much to deal with. I’m doing the best I can. This the first time that I’ve opened up about this.”
Garlin shared his diagnosis on Instagram in September.Instagram/jeffgarlin
The diagnosis has not stopped the comedian from filming Season 12 of “Curb,” however.
“I just came home for Thanksgiving, and this is the funniest season,” Essman, 67, teased to us. “I’ve already lost my voice screaming and yelling at Larry [David] and Jeff, so more to come. I mean, I literally got laryngitis from screaming at them, but they deserve it, don’t they?”
The “Broad City” star shared that fans are often disappointed she’s nothing like her acerbic character on “Curb,” Susie Greene, who seemingly can’t say a sentence without cursing and is forever bellowing at David, 75, and Garlin, her on-screen husband.
Garlin and Essman play a married couple on “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”FilmMagic
“I don’t love yelling and screaming,” she explained. “I love the character Susie Green. In my real life, I don’t behave that way. People stop me on the street and I’m gracious to them, and I can see in their faces they’re visibly disappointed and upset that I’m being nice.”
Essman has worked in the comedy world for more than three decades and forged close friendships with several of her peers over the years, including the late Gilbert Gottfried, whose funeral she spoke at in April.
Essman is currently filming the 12th season of “Curb.”
Local cops say Bullock’s ex-boyfriend Kevin Richards, whom we hear…
“I don’t know anyone in my entire life who was cheaper than Gilbert,” she quipped to Page Six. “It was a pathology, but everything about Gilbert was so endearing — like a child that you wanted to take care of, which I also think was manipulative. He did that to get you to take care of him, but he was the cheapest person alive.”
Other stars at the cocktail party included designers Zac Posen, David Lauren and Lauren Bush Lauren, actors Tony Danza and Gina Gershon, “Beverly Hills, 90210” creator Darren Star and journalist Rob Shuter. They were entertained by Marc Shaiman, who wrote the music and co-wrote the lyrics for “Some Like It Hot” and sat down at a grand piano to sing the title song.
A new study suggests that people who talk to strangers as well as family and friends are happier.
It’s well known that there is a link between happiness and social connection, but researchers from Harvard University wanted to know which type of relationships and how many interactions with each type is best for one’s well-being.
“Indeed, the amount of social interaction in an individual’s daily life is one of the most consistent predictors of psychological well-being,” the researchers wrote in the journal PNAS.
They studied the “social portfolio” of more than 50,000 people from eight different countries to find if people with a diverse set of relationships are happier than those who don’t expand their social circles.
The study found that the people who branched out had a greater wellbeing, life satisfaction and quality of life. Talking to a wider range of people turned out to be more important to one’s happiness than total number of interactions or time spent interacting.
It’s well known that there is a link between happiness and social connection.Getty Images
“Recent work suggests that individuals discuss important topics with their weak ties more often than traditional network theory would predict — especially in one-on-one conversation when relational stakes are lower,” the researchers wrote.
Researchers even found that participants who interacted with a random stranger were just as happy as those who were paired to interact with their significant other.
“Different types of social support — for example emotional, instrumental, financial and informational — tend to be provided by different social relations, for example your partner, immediate kin, friends or colleagues,” the authors wrote.
They found that “weak ties,” or people you’re not close to, play a critical role at the network level, providing information and resources that might not be available in your inner circle.
“Diversity in social portfolios may be associated with greater access to different types of social support, resulting in enhanced well-being,” researchers wrote.
However, they acknowledged that, for some, having these kinds of interactions might be difficult. “People’s time is scarce, such that increasing the number or frequency of social interactions can prove challenging.”
They explained that future research could be done to examine what people intuitively think of the correlation between an expansive social portfolio and well-being. For example, people might believe the results to be true, but don’t have the ability to expand their circles for varying reasons, or people simply might not believe they need to branch out in order to be happier.
The 60-year-old actor shared his diagnosis for the first time in a candid yet brief Instagram post Tuesday.
“Bipolar is a motherf–ker,” he wrote. “Sometimes it’s just too much to deal with. I’m doing the best I can. This the first time that I’ve opened up about this. #bipolar.”
The post came one day before the Season 10 premiere of “The Goldbergs,” in which it was revealed that Garlin’s character, patriarch Murray Goldberg, had been killed off.
Last year, the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star shared that although he had not been fired from the sitcom, he was the subject of several human resources investigations spanning three years over his on-set behavior.
“I was saying some really stupid silly things that I can’t believe that anyone would find offensive, but to each his own,” he told The Post at the time.
Garlin left “The Goldbergs” last year amid allegations of abuse on set.jeffgarlin/Instagram
The stand-up comedian abruptly left the series last December, while it was still filming, over the allegationsof misconduct and “abusive” behavior on set.
“He is extremely verbally and emotionally abusive,” an anonymous “Goldbergs” employee claimed to Deadline at the time.
Members of the cast and crew of the long-running ABC series were reportedly upset over demeaning language that Garlin had allegedly used as well as his unwanted hugs.
Garlin plays Larry David’s manager on “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
Garlin plays Larry David’s manager on “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
Although the NBA player and the model arrived to the…
And it sounds like at least one person on staff won’t miss Garlin’s absence: his on-screen wife, Wendi McLendon-Covey.
Earlier this year, the “Bridesmaids” star, 52, clapped back at a fan who criticized the show’s heavy-handed editing and use of a body double around Garlin’s glaring absence.
“This season threw us for a loop because a.) it’s hard to incorporate someone who doesn’t want to be there and wants to leave mid-scene, and b.) we werent [sic] about to re-write the 2nd half of the season,” she wrote. “We’re doing our best.”
Researchers have developed a small, touch-based sensor that can detect the level of lithium in a person’s body using their sweat. The device can give out results in less than 30 seconds and does not require a visit to a clinic. The right level of lithium in the body can help in controlling the symptoms of mental health issues including bipolar disorder and depression. Updates on the lithium level in the body allow health care providers to keep a track of whether a patient has been taking the medication as prescribed or not.
The presently available methods of keeping a track of medication are invasive and have their own drawbacks. While blood tests offer a picture of the progress of medication, the process is invasive and time-consuming. Pill counters, on the other hand, can’t assure the measure of actual medication intake. However, with this new device, researchers attempt to address this limitation using sweat.
The results of the device’s performance were presented at the fall meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) on August 21
The electrochemical sensing device uses a water-based gel containing glycerol to detect charged particles of lithium in the sweat which usually is present in minute amounts.
“Although it may not be visible, the human body constantly produces sweat, often only in very small amounts,” said Shuyu Lin, PhD, a postgraduate student researcher who co-presented the work with graduate student Jialun Zhu.
The gel created a controlled environment for the electronic portion of the sensor. To trap the lithium ions after they passed through the gel, the researchers used an ion-selective electrode. The accumulating ions generate a difference in electrical potential compared with a reference electrode.
This difference was then used to ascertain the concentration of lithium present in sweat.
The device has already been tested on people, including one person on a lithium treatment regimen. The researchers recorded this person’s lithium levels before and after taking the medication. The results showed that the measurement fell were close to those derived from saliva, which prior research has shown to accurately measure lithium levels.
Though the sensor is still in the preliminary testing phase, the researchers aim to incorporate it into a larger, yet-to-be-designed system that provides visual feedback to the provider or the patient.
Landon Barker admits it’s been a rough few days for his mental health.
“My derealization has been really bad and I just wanna come on here and tell everyone your [sic] not alone and we are all imperfect in our own ways,” Travis Barker’s 18-year-old son wrote via his Instagram Stories early Wednesday.
“I love you guys. #mentalhealthawareness.”
The teenager, who wore a black turtleneck and silver jewelry in a picture that accompanied the text, went on to share multiple graphics.
The first described derealization as a “relatively common” symptom of anxiety, listing a few telltale signs.
“Your limbs feel strange,” the Instagram post read in part.
”Things don’t feel real. Your face looks weird in the mirror. Feeling detached from reality. Feeling disconnected from your body. Things feel like they’re moving in slow motion.”
The rest of the re-shared graphics described OCD, clarifying that the mental illness is not an “enjoyable … personality quirk” but an “intrusive and distressing” disorder.
Landon assured his followers that they are “not alone.”landonasherbarker/Instagram
“I think for a long time it was really difficult,” the “D’Amelio Show” star said of dating in the public eye. “But now I kind of live life first and think about what people are going to say after.”
Accused Dave Chappelle attacker Isaiah Lee is trying to get out of jail and into a mental health facility, his attorney said in Los Angeles court this week.
Lee, 23, stayed mostly quiet during his appearance in Los Angeles Superior Court Monday morning, wearing a yellow prison top and blue plants.
His right arm, which had previously been in a sling after being broken during the May 3 incident at at Chapelle’s “Netflix is a Joke” show in Los Angeles, appeared healed and he sat next to his lawyer with his hands cuffed behind his back.
His attorney, Deputy Public Defender Chelsea Padilla, requested that her client be placed in a mental health diversion program.
Prosecutors are going to file a motion opposing the motion, Los Angeles City Deputy Attorney Giselle M. Fernandez said, and a hearing in the matter was set for Aug. 23.
Lee allegedly tackled Chapelle on stage and was initially arrested for felony assault with a deadly weapon. He later had his charges downgraded to misdemeanor battery.
He also has an unrelated attempted murder case involving a former roommate.
Lee had previously insisted on that he didn’t have mental health issues but later admitted to suffering from bipolar depression disorder and being medicated for it.
Lee has pled not guilty to the May 3 attack.New York Post/David Buchan David
He told The Post in an exclusive jailhouse interview that he was “triggered” by the Chapelle’s jokes about the LGBTQ community and homelessness while he insisted he never wanted to harm the funnyman.
“I identify as bisexual…and I wanted him to know what he said was triggering,” Lee said from the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles. “I wanted him to know that next time, he should consider first running his material by people it could affect.”
He later said he was inspired by Will Smith’s slap of Chris Rock at the Oscars.
Lee pleaded not guilty to the attack, and remains locked up at the LA County Twin Towers Jail on $1 million bail total for both cases.
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