AHMR African Human Mobilty Review - Volume 8 No 3, SEP-DEC 2022 career advancement, education, and travel, among other necessary life chances. It is a life filled with daily stressors — an existence that is stressful and detrimental to one’s well-being. Daily stressors experienced by stateless persons may worsen their mental health adaptations that are experienced by limiting every-day protective factors and reducing their sense of resilience.43 Environmental stressors may vary in intensity and can include: lack of access to basic needs, residing in insecure and overcrowded housing, fear of being arrested, lack of academic opportunities, and diminished livelihood prospects. Daily stressors associated with poverty and insecure conditions have an adverse impact on mental health — with ongoing chronic stressors interfering with recovery and prolonging symptoms. Stories shared by stateless persons illustrate their frustration with a lack of identity or belonging and are indicative of their struggles for survival and recognition. Experiences of statelessness can easily be viewed and understood to be traumatic and capable of inducing symptoms of anxiety and depression. Stateless persons are frequently exposed to severe psychological trauma, characterised by social stigma, violence, detention, and threats of (or actual) deportation. This could lead to a decrease of the severity of (un)diagnosed disorders even after citizenship is granted. In this regard, trauma-informed psychosocial care and support is aimed at addressing the stateless persons’ psycho-emotional needs and providing opportunities for a better future. The help includes engaging with the person’s internal resources by drawing on their unique lived experiences, creativity, and motivation while acknowledging the long restorative healing journeys to be undertaken. The duration of being stateless may serve as a proxy for statelessness adversity – being associated with prolonged and repeated exposure to violence, marginalisation, restricted movement, and lack of access to services. This mirrors the impact of multiple traumas, which are often more challenging to process, as they are of a longer duration, unpredictable, and entail varying levels and intensity of violence and discrimination. V. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE, RESEARCH, AND ADVOCACY What makes statelessness traumatic are the experiences that are both visible or hidden, and that involve a threat to a person’s functioning, physical or emotional well-being and that of their family members. Being in a state of statelessness can also be overwhelming — it can foster helplessness and result in intense feelings of fear, anxiety, and lack of control. The knowledge of being stateless, is bound to change and influence the way that person understands themself, relationships, the world, and others. It is also important to understand culture-specific descriptions and manifestations of trauma or of stressful experiences. These are aspects that any professional who works with stateless individuals and families ought to know and acknowledge. 43 Andrew Riley et al. (2017) op cit note 9 304 at 306. 52