What ultimately helped me was searching for understanding on my own. I began reading about psychology, trauma, and emotional well‑being, not because I planned a career in it, but because I was looking for a way to survive. Learning gave me language for what I was feeling. It helped me realise that my reactions were not weaknesses, but responses to prolonged stress, loss, and instability.
This moment of recognition, of being able to name my pain, was the beginning of my healing.
From personal healing to community awareness
In recent years, Somaliland has achieved a hard‑won sense of stability and peace, but the past has not simply faded away. Decades of conflict, state collapse, and repeated environmental crises have forced families across the country and elsewhere in East Africa to flee, return, and flee again. Their displacement is not only a matter of movement; it is a story carried in memory.
Today, Somaliland hosts large populations of refugees and internally displaced people. While the humanitarian response understandably focuses on food, shelter, and physical safety, the emotional wounds are often unseen and untreated.
The echoes of war, violence, dangerous journeys, the loss of homes, livelihoods and loved ones, as well as prolonged uncertainty about the future, continue to live within people’s minds and bodies, causing mental health issues that thrive even when a person reaches relative safety. These can be worsened further by post‑displacement stressors, such as poverty, unemployment, social exclusion, and lack of legal security.
Over time, untreated mental distress can affect physical health, family relationships, and community cohesion, reinforcing cycles of trauma and instability.
As I began to understand my own mental health, I started noticing patterns in those living in the refugee settlements and host communities around me, even in people seemingly leading a normal life. I saw they were constantly tense, emotionally withdrawn, or overwhelmed, yet unable to name what they were feeling. I saw mothers silently carrying emotional burdens, young people struggling with hopelessness, and elders reliving untold memories.
I realised that my story was not unique, just rarely spoken about. The psychological impact of displacement is severe. Depression, anxiety, post‑traumatic stress, and chronic stress are widespread. In many communities, emotional suffering is normalised as a part of life, leaving individuals without the language or support to seek help. Women, youth, and elders are particularly vulnerable, often responsible for caring for relatives while suppressing their own distress.
I started to think about ways to reach people and help with their mental distress, even remotely. That was when ‘MentalEase’ was born. I created the platform to offer others what I did not have when I most needed it: a safe, accessible space to understand one’s emotions without judgment or exposure.
Barriers to mental health support
Somaliland and much of East Africa have extremely limited access to mental health services. There are few trained professionals and services are often concentrated in urban areas, far from camps and informal settlements.
