seizures and it happened in the hospital. In the hospital they took me in
emergency.” [Boris]
3.7.2 Suicidality
Severe depression can also lead to suicide,82 and some participants reported suicidal ideation.
“I’m stateless and I can’t live like this for the rest of my life because if I will stay stateless,
I don’t want to live. It’s impossible to live without any rights. I feel very afraid. I see black
future and I feel like I can’t hold up anymore. Many times in Jordan I was on the edge of
breaking down. I was having thoughts of suicide. Sometimes even here I just think that I
don’t want to continue this.” [Farah]
“Now I have nightmares. I see things crawling on the walls. I thought of committing
suicide because I feel […] so frustrated. It was so hard. Everything… they’ll [CBSA]
knock you down.” [Richard]
3.7.3 Hopelessness and despair
Hopelessness and despair were discussed by several of the participants. They explained that
despite their efforts, getting a permit (for example) and therefore living independently seems
unlikely. This lead to feeling completely hopeless.
“Basically, I’m losing my confidence […] Yeah, as a human being… I go to CBSA
every month, report, and I still have no way of getting around my situation. It’s
same page, I’m outside. […] And that’s what brought me to become an alcoholic
because I just get desperate and just didn’t care about anything. So security, no I
don’t feel secured, I just don’t care. I just give up. Whatever happens, happens. I
don’t have control over it. Because my experience, in that respect, it showed me
that fighting the system was futile. It didn’t really do anything, neither my hunger
strike nor my arguments, it didn’t bring anything. Right now I am trapped in the
system bureaucracy and I basically rely on this. It makes me really sort of hopeless,
desperate and yeah, lack of confidence.” [Boris]
“There is no future, you don’t dream. Why dream? Every time you try, you get
your hopes up, somebody says ‘I’m going to help you’ and you get your hopes up
only to have them smashed again, and there’s nothing they can do. They swore
that their friend could fix this, or this person and that. You can’t, it’s bigger than
you, it’s bigger than me. Nobody can help me, so I give up, there’s no future.”
[Dave]
“I feel like statelessness has affected me a lot. Like I sometimes I wonder how I’m
human like other people. Why I don’t have simplest rights that all people have,
that those rights are granted for people. I was born in a country, why I don’t get
the nationality of the country? I live in a country for 23 years, why I don’t get it?
And the only citizenship I have, I lose. So it doesn’t make sense to me. I feel like so
82 Garlow, S. J. et al. “Depression, desperation, and suicidal ideation in college students: results from the American Foundation
for Suicide Prevention College Screening Project at Emory University.” Depress Anxiety, 25 (2008): 482-488.
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