From Persecution to Prison - Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of ...

feet and hands…. That reminds me of how they treat women inmy country.She described discomfort and frustration from not being referred toa dentist:It’s really bad. They gave me some pain medicine, the same asfor my head, but it hasn’t helped.JG was disturbed by what she considered generally poor treatmentof detainees, specifically verbal abuse by guards. For example:It was time for mass. When the officers come, they shout andyou don’t always know what they’re saying. Sometimes theirEnglish is too fast. [One woman] didn’t realize it was time to goto mass. Later she knocked at the window and asked the guardsif she could go. The guard yelled at her and said, ‘I already toldyou [the priest] was here. Now fuck you,’ and she put her middlefinger in the air and said, ‘You are not going.’ When they dothat, you just go in your shell.I don’t think they understand what we have been through. Theyshout at us. They curse. Someone will tell you, ‘Do you thinkthis is a hotel?’ But you are a helpless person. I don’t knowwhether they are trained to deal with asylum seekers.If the officer is rude, I walk away because it reminds me of howI was mistreated in my country. The look they give you sometimesis so full of hate. Here you are not supposed to expressyour feelings. If I do, I’m afraid they will send me to segregation…Iwish they would not cage people, or that I would besomewhere where I could see the grass.Support from her lawyer and her religious faith helped her cope.After five months, she was granted asylum and released. She stillthinks about detention and experiences nightmares.I think the whole confinement changes your brain… It takestime for your mind to readjust… Even during the day, I walk onthe street and sometimes I don’t believe I’m out. I still feeldetached. I get very upset when I think about it and start crying.Sometimes I wake up and for a moment I still think I am indetention. I look to see the bars and barbed wire and they arenot there; I try to console myself.PHYSICAL HEALTH, MEDICAL PROBLEMS AND MEDICAL CARE 91