 Welcome to our new series, Real Talk with the Muslim Counselor. I'm your host, Rana Hamid, and today we have sister Barak Hussain, who is a psychotherapist from Ottawa, Canada, who will discuss mental health issues. Salamu alaikum, sister. Waalaikum alaikum. How are you? How are you doing? We're good. Alhamdulillah. We're pleased to have you here today. Can you talk a little bit about yourself and how you entered this line of work? Well, it was quite a journey to get to where I am today, and an interesting one as well, because as we know, the study of psychology, or Al-Minnafs, is not something that is welcomed or open in our communities, the Muslim communities. So, I have always been drawn to listening to people's stories, their challenges, and always been there as a teenager listening to my friends and their challenges. So, the natural way of professionally going down this road was for me to be on the path of helping people. So, in our communities, to help people means you have to be a doctor. That's it. There's nothing else in between, either you're an engineer or a doctor, to contribute to society. I don't have the brains for math and science, so I felt that psychology would be a path for me, but to do it through psychiatry, which means that I had to go through medicine. But again, that was a path that I couldn't go on because I knew my limitations with that. So, I studied psychology and science, hopefully, you know, to get into medical school and quickly realize, no, that's not going to work for me. And I came to the realization that, you know what, I want to help people through the soul, not through the cell. Alhamdulillah, I was able to figure that out through my university before even getting to medical school or even applying. And of course, when people would ask me in our community, what are you studying? I would say, well, I'm studying psychology. And especially in the Iraqi community, they right away say, you're going to be as crazy as the people that you're going to treat. But I didn't let that affect me from my path. Alhamdulillah, I continued, you know, to study in that path. And Alhamdulillah, I was able to do my graduate studies in that. And specifically do my master's on and my research on Islamic counseling theories and practice, which was something that didn't really exist back then. And all the research that I did was based on speaking with people like Sherks and studied people and also looking at loosely translated books because we didn't have that many books and articles back then specifically dedicated to mental health from an Islamic perspective or counseling or psychology. And that was what my thesis was about in my research is to find, you know, what kind of practices or theories that we have to put into practical use as a practitioner. So back then I was able to put that together but didn't really put it to use until really getting into my clinical work. So Alhamdulillah, in my clinical work and I work at a local university in Canada where a lot of my clientele do happen to be international students or older mature people as well. And some of them are, of course, of different faiths and different cultural backgrounds where, again, there's this taboo, there's this struggle, there's this misconception about mental health. You have students coming in who are, you know, struggling with depression or stress or anxiety. However, they come in because they're not doing well in their studies, not realizing that there's deeper issues going on that's preventing them from reaching their full potential. So my clinical work is one thing where I do have one-on-one as well as group workshops where we talk about stress and how to handle stress and things like that. And the other side and the flip side to the work that I do is also mental health advocacy in the community. So a lot of public speaking lectures, workshops, where we combine Islamic thoughts, hadith, Quran into or rather together combine it with psychology, so clinical and experimental and trying to bring the connections for people in our communities. Now, how do you organize your time at the university and going out and speaking? It's not easy, that's for sure. Coming from, you know, having a family and it's all about that balance and trying to figure things out. And Hamza, I've been very blessed where there have been lots of communities who have been interested in the topics that we've been talking about and they've invited me to come and do that. And so it is about balance. I have my day job, so to speak, which is in the medical clinic and so we treat patients and work with patients and work in the university environment. And then there's the weekends or sometimes I take a bit of time off work or when there are holidays and take advantage of that where I will do some traveling. And these travels have taken me all over the world, the Hamdela in the UK and Australia, in the states and different cities in Canada. There's just been more of an awareness now and a thirst of knowledge about this hot topic, so to speak. Because it does affect us on all levels in some way or another and I'm happy to oblige and go to these communities and finding the time and balance. Now I want to start and say, what is mental health? That's a very good question and it's a very broad question. And in terms of a definition, I always bring it down to the concept of balance. So balance of the mind, the body, the spirit. So the physical and the spiritual and combining that with everything in our lives. So having the stability of that balance is what mental health is all about. So just like we have our physical health, which means eating well, sleeping well, exercise where you take medications or whatever requires you to have good physical health, there's also the mental health, which means working with your mind, your body and your spirit to have a good balance of everything. Now why is it considered a taboo? I mean we see in North America that a lot of the people who come do actually have disorders. So why is it considered a taboo? Well in the greater North American society we have moved away from the concept of taboo I would say much more so in the last 8 to 10 years. Like when I first started working, mental health in itself was still very much taboo and we don't talk about depression or anxiety or depression, these types of challenges. Unfortunately it did have to take a few, there were a few celebrity deaths and suicides that happened over the last few years where people really started to question and started to talk more about it. That's in the general North American society. And so the taboo I find has become less in the misconceptions and the misunderstandings. However when we bring it down to the Muslim community or the diverse ethno-cultural communities, we're still very much far behind in terms of understanding what mental health is but what mental illnesses are as well. Because we just defined what mental health is, it's about that overall balance of everything. Then there's mental illnesses, right? So when we get into mental illnesses, this is where the taboos are. Because when you describe what mental health is, oh yeah that makes sense, you know, have an overall balance, that makes sense, it's clear. You know we all try to do that but we all, it's very hard to find that balance. But we don't take care of our stress levels and we all have stress. Whether you're a student at university, whether you're a mother or caretaker, whether you're a father, whether you're a husband, whether you're a child, all of us have some kind of stress that affects us. Now when you don't take care of that stress, what happens? It can trigger two potential mental illnesses. So we all have our own stress response. We all have our own ways of dealing with stress. We all react to stress differently. And if we don't take care of it, then it could trigger into something that we innately already have. So this is where genetic nurture and nature could happen. So before we actually answer that question, we need to understand a little bit of the background of mental health, mental illnesses, to understand why we have these misconceptions. So this is what I'm trying to describe right now. So with that, when we have a better understanding of how we individually respond to stress, how these challenges affect us, again, because we respond differently, then we can understand taboos. Because again, if you break a leg, right, if you break a leg, what do you do? You go to the doctor, you get an X-ray done, you get your foot or your leg casted, and then, you know, medications to deal with the pain, and you know, you have to take, let's say, time off work, and your physical function is not going to be the same as when you don't have a broken leg. That we understand, that we agree with, that we have no issues with. Yet let's say your spirit is broken. Let's say something happens that triggers sadness within you that lasts for a longer time than usual. Then you don't take care of your hygiene. Then you're not eating well, you're not sleeping well. You're not able to be at your full potential like you usually do. These are signs and symptoms, a little bit of depression, for example. Yet people will not take care of themselves, or perhaps they won't talk about things where they won't get help. Because why? Because of the community and the taboo. And the taboo of what? There's fear, there's misunderstanding of what mental health and illnesses are. And also, people are ashamed. They're worried about talking about things that are very private. And in our communities, we're very much about hush-hush, keep things to yourself. We don't talk about these problems, right? And people are always afraid of people finding out about themselves, but there's no issue with, let's say, bragging about their diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, or like I said, breaking a leg or an arm. They're like, I'll get cast or get pity. People will come over and take care of them, but as soon as we get into mental illness as the fear comes in, because we don't understand, we have the misconceptions, and again, people are worried about what are people going to say. So this is a little bit part of it. And as I was saying, we have this more in our communities much more so, because there's so much gossip that happens in our communities, and people are just afraid of people finding out, and also the idea potentially, when it comes to marriage, when it comes to potential having children, is this something that is hereditary? Are you going to catch it like a cold? All these misconceptions and whatnot. Thank you so much for this short introduction. Respected viewers, we will discuss more on the topics after this short break. Please stay tuned. Welcome back, respective viewers. Before we explore the different topics in our new series, we'd like to give a trigger warning out to our audience that the topics that we are discussing is a little bit sensitive. If you feel triggered, please reach out and get the help and support you need. Sister Bra, what are the topics that we are going to discuss in these upcoming episodes? Inshallah, we're going to take a look at a variety of topics that we are all experiencing within our communities but are very hesitant to discuss. So we're going to take a look at depression. We're going to take a look at stress, anxiety, suicide, self-esteem, confidence. We're going to take a look at domestic violence, violence against women, abuse, child abuse. We're going to take a look at cross-cultural and generational clashes within the elders and the young. We're going to take a look at identity and what does that mean. We're going to take a look at hijab and identity and self-esteem. So these are all related to our overall mental health. So let's take a look a little bit now at depression. Depression can be described as we said earlier in terms of people losing their motivation, their energy, lack of hygiene, not being able to reach their full potential and interaction and engagement in their lives and an overwhelming feeling of sadness that can last for a period of more than two to three weeks. So this is a very common illness that we all deal with. I mean we all get times where we feel sad or feel a little bit low and so people automatically say I feel depressed when in reality it could be a little bit more severe than just feeling depression. It could be that they are in fact dealing with the illness. And so I find this is very common again within our communities. And so when we have that in the older generation because they don't talk about this topic it's normal for them. They don't realize that they are dealing with depression. People who've dealt with wars who've experienced a lot of trauma may not realize that in fact they are dealing with depression and so you have the youngsters who see their grandparents who live with them because in our culture we have family that live with us. We don't send them off into homes. And so I find that younger people will see symptoms in their elders and not recognize that it is in fact depression or that elders themselves don't realize they're dealing with depression. You find that women or men who are in unhappy marriages and relationships will experience this as well and that's life. I'm just going to deal with it and move on and toughen up but they are dealing with depression. Now you said that we have family members or older family members who live with us. Now can this be kind of a support system for the person who's depressed they're always saying no you're not depressed you're just feeling low, you're okay. It can be supportive in the sense when you do have family who are telling you you've got this you can handle it, you can deal with it but the reality is they don't go and ask their parents or reach out to them or get to them and this is where sometimes the problems occur when you don't ask for help. Why are these youngsters or anybody really who's dealing let's say with depression why are they not getting help why are they not reaching out and asking for it again it's because of the misconceptions and the taboos but can be support like you said let's say they do go and ask for or say you know I'm not doing well or the parents or the family notice that their child their partner they're not at their full potential like they usually are so perhaps they'll come and check them out or take them to the doctor and so in that case this is where support does come in and we hope that's what we hope that people can do now how how do I know that I'm a depressor that I should go out and reach and get help well Shala when we have the full episode on it we'll get into the details of it what I'm going to do is generalize for all mental illnesses here let's say you are struggling with symptoms of depression or anxiety I'll answer that question in a second but let's say anxiety is the other flip side of depression where you're not as low energy anxiety is the opposite where your heart is racing where your heart is pumping and you know you get sweats and chills and thoughts just overwhelming thoughts constant thoughts that are not stopping and you're worried all the time so it was swast as we say in Arabic so with anxiety as well these symptoms occur or the symptoms of depression that we describe you're saying how do I recognize that this is happening with me I always as a clinician and see this in my patients or my clients is if you are unable to reach your full potential and it disrupts your everyday function then you know you're dealing with an illness again I compare it to breaking your leg compare it to when you are dealing with vascular diseases or diabetes if you notice this illness is preventing you from reaching your full potential then yes you need to do something about it to get the right help so how do you know you're depressed well you know if you've been sad for a long period of time you're not eating well you're not sleeping well you're over eating, under eating you're oversleeping, under sleeping you're not going to school, you're missing work you're not engaging your society you're not as active as you used to be you don't go to the gym or work out like you used to be and you're just sad all the time this can lead to also thoughts of wanting to take your life that you feel that you're hopeless there's no point in living you don't want to engage in life anymore so these are the common symptoms that we encounter when we're dealing with depression so when you know that you are not living at your full potential and engaged when it comes to mental illnesses well you know what can you do it's going to stop you right or what you can do is get the actual help that you need how do you start go see a doctor talk about your symptoms sometimes what the doctors will do they'll give you pills right away and say there you go and this is one of the pills and you'll be okay but that's as we know is one of the most feared things that we have in our community people are worried about taking medication and also when you look at it from the cultural Islamic point of view say well you don't need pills you just need God you just need Allah you just need the Quran you just need so there's that fear and worry as well right but not all doctors are going to give you here take medication a good doctor what they will do is analyze and diagnose you refer you unless they can do the therapy they'll refer you to a counselor a psychiatrist or a psychologist let's take a look at who the practitioners are because I think a lot of our audience members could be confused as to who's who and what's what so we start off with the medical point of view a psychiatrist is somebody who studies medicine and has gone all the way and has specialized in psychiatry psychiatry is a study of severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia sorry schizophrenia severe depression bipolar disorders mood disorders so this requires medical support and help diagnosis and medication as well a lot of psychiatrists may not do actual treatment in terms of talk therapy so they will give you the medication here's take the pill I'll see you in a month and see how you're doing but there are some great ones as well who will actually go through the therapy so this is a psychiatrist they're seen in hospitals and private clinics and usually they're covered by local health insurance if you have medical insurance national whatever we have the local provincial government will cover any medical costs that way in the states you have to buy insurance for that then you have a psychologist so a psychologist somebody who studied graduate school and has done their PhD in psychology there's experimental and there's clinical experimental are the ones that do the research on amazing types of research to see you know different factors that affect this ABC different hypothesis you know and they'll do the research and publish then you have the clinical who do the therapy now the clinical psychologist can diagnose but cannot get prescription medication which is what a psychiatrist can do they can diagnose and give prescription as well as treat a psychologist will diagnose but cannot give medication but they can do treatment and they specialize so they could be in anxiety they can do cognitive behavioral they can do you know marriage they can do anything they can specialize then you have psychotherapist such as myself or counselors now we're a legalized registered body just like doctors and lawyers so we have a specific name which is a registered psychotherapist now a psychotherapist is somebody who has finished their graduate studies as well as their masters and so they are the people we are the most popular ones because we don't charge as much as a psychopsychologist and we do the talk therapy so we cannot diagnose but we will be the ones that do the processing and the therapeutic work and dig deep into helping people work through their challenges we skipped what very important one which is a general practitioner a GP psychotherapist now I call them unicorns because they're very rare I know unicorns don't exist but it's just a term that we use because they're very rare but incredibly powerful because what can they do they can diagnose give medication and treat they do the therapy so they're very popular in that sense but rare to find to get somebody who has that medical background as well as the therapeutic background we have them in our clinic and they do testing also for ADHD which is attention deficit disorder and learning disorders which is very common as well then you have social workers and these are people who have their graduate studies in social work like myself they will do treatment so we don't diagnose they will do treatment and talk therapy there's a multitude of others as well these are the most common ones that we have when we talk about who are the mental health practitioners and of course you have doctors like I said these are your first point of contact go to the doctor, get a referral or they can do the treatment themselves yeah interesting right? I didn't expect that you know there's different you have to go through different levels to get to you know the help that you need well that's just the thing that's part of the misconception people don't know where to go if their child is depressed or their child is talking about killing themselves or they're into drugs and that's another topic that we're going to take a look at drugs and addictions they don't know where to begin what do they do they go to the sheikh they go to the imam they say my child is depressed there's jinn in my child or there's jinn in my wife she doesn't want to come near me anymore so these are the misconceptions now I'm not saying that these things do not exist because we know it does exist in our faith but where does it come to the point where you are actually going to go get medical help the proper help there's only so much that the sheikh can do in help because it could be something that has to do with that like you said the broken leg the sheikh is not going to fix your leg you know he's not and reading Quran is not going to fix your leg yes it will soothe your spirit in terms of working through the struggle but you still have the broken leg in the pain absolutely and I always use that analogy when we talk about that and also explaining it to my clients or my clients of faith not necessarily just Muslims and say they're very much ashamed of you know I have this illness how do I deal with this and I'm like well they say I'm not praying or how do I cope with that not a lot of people are going to be happy if I have to say I'll tell them don't pray and I'm a practicing Muslim and I do believe prayer has a huge impact on your mental health and your well-being I've done research on that I've presented on that but if I have somebody in front of me who's broken a spirit again the analogy of the broken bone is this person going to be strong enough or in the mental state in that moment to read Quran to heal themselves no they're not they're going to need to get first diagnosed see what is it that they're dealing with is it a mood disorder is it depression, is it anxiety, is it suicide what is it that they're coping with we take a look at that then we take the next step alright so now we have an idea let's now get the proper treatment thank you for the introduction of this fascinating topic we look forward to exploring it more further respected viewers thank you for tuning into today's episode please keep a lookout for more episodes Peace be upon you