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We Iranians are pushed into a seriously depressing and anxiety provoking situation.  Past couple of weeks of May 2009, millions of our people cheered for a seemingly peaceful and secular election. We managed to argue for change in order to ask for an active participation in this election of presidency in Iran.

On June 12, 2009, Thousands of us who had let go of practicing our rights to vote, broke the cycle of indifference and went to the polling stations every where they lived.  People voted for reform instead of stagnation, life instead of death, and hope instead of violation of human rights in Iran.  In this process people invested their emotional, physical, and spiritual health into working for change of a president who seems to be willing to put the whole world into fire just to boost his insecure yet self-righteous mind.  Young people in Iran who had before lost hope for a human, trust able, and dignified life worked hard to get their friends and families to vote for reform.

Level of excitement, joy, happiness, fellowship, and recognition of democracy made these peaceful people go out, stay in lines, and vote for the candidate they believed would be able to move Iran beyond it’s capacity for change. Soon however, all these emotional investment showed to turned into anger, disbelief, shock, loss, fear, hopelessness, and anxiety.

Those in the Iranian government who are clearly against change and happiness for Iran managed to find ways in which they could switch all the ballots for a  president who had shown his anti-social personality in the past four years.  Lies and deception became to impact our individuals health and wholeness.

Millions of votes became useless and worthless while this belligerent regime of Iran used the old ways of silencing people.  All the ways of communicating with the outside world was stopped and a coup took place. This way of fighting against people’s will and votes has now caused a national grieving for this dark retrogression. Our Iranian mental health is once more time challenged to the maximum and in an intricate path.  At this point the level of sadness and frustration among many of us Iranians are overwhelming.  Now we may remain positive and think of either a miracle or a peaceful solution for justice.  Is that possible?

August 18, 2009
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Original Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Election-in-Iran—Deception-and-Challenge-For-Our-Iranian-Mental-Health&id=2473324

For a long time our Iranian culture has respected certain customs when it comes to mourning.  Day 3 and day 7, and day 40 are those important days when family and friends get together to pay respect to the deceased one.  These days are a manifestation for dignity, care, love, greeting, value, and healing.   The level of anxiety over losing a loved one’s often is helped when a community is offering its support to the deceased family.
When a trauma hits, our Iranian tradition and Iranian culture appreciates a collective action to individuals, families, and communities in pain.  From a clinical stand point this collective response helps to lower the collective grief and loss, while individuals benefit from one another’s solidarity, compassion, and empathy.  In a large scale of trauma, when our people are being beaten on the streets, tortured in prisons, and life in general seem to be threatening, the mourning ceremonies are even more significant.
Our people have carried a huge psychological trauma due to 30 years of injustice while a collective mourning has not been possible.   Now the barriers imposed by government of Iran creating more harm when individuals and families have no way to get help for an emotional processing.
The violence and brutality to stop people from mourning will result in more damages to everyone’s mind and soul to a degree that people’s every day functioning is impacted. A growing level of pain, disappointment, frustration, anger, and resistance are all feeding a boiling pot, in which innocent people will only be more traumatized and left in a psychological chaos.
A collective mourning is people’s right to deal with their trauma.

July 30, 2009
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Lies, dishonesty, inaccuracy, corruption, falsifications, and deceptions have caused great pain in our Iranian lives during past decades.  Evidently the quality of life back home has been directly impacted by the obvious lies told by those in power.  Our sense of integrity is insulted when authorities keep telling lies about the truth, power struggles, and decisions made over every one’s heads.
There are no needs of examples of lies, because each one of us Iranians know multiple of them.
Now the question is how do we feel about lies? How are lies damaging out trust, worldview, perception, and integrity?  Remember when you were a child and some class mates spread a rumor about you. How did you feel? You wanted to do anything to help clarify the lies and proof that you are not what they think you are.
During past 30 years, our human agencies and our human rights activists have worked hard to raise awareness about the level of injustice and lies in our home country.
After the corrupted election now in June 2009, we Iranians are now facing a whole new situation.   Now the heartbreaking lies about the killings, torture, rapes, and arrests of dissenters in our home country have come to the forefronts of the whole world.
The damages of lying to a nation in this large scale are many.  The direct consequences of a systematic lying that we Iranians have witnessed are anger, pain, frustration, and sense of humiliation.  This deliberate and corrupted way of lying to people in order to control or manipulate them, has caused serious damages to the structure of our communities.  Now that our people in Iran have shown clear distance from their government, people just feel an overwhelming sense of anxiety when they hear the damaging and perpetuating lies about the situation.
The bold-faced lies about shootings on the streets and the brutalities we have witnessed through our TV screens are another harm to people’s well being. It seems that Iranian government has nothing else to do than fabrication and misleading of our people.
Lies allow a stream of widespread pain rushes to our bodies, souls and minds. Lies, censorship, brutalities, and more lies have been a negative circle in which fewer and fewer people can tolerate it.   Lying by those in power does however help the truth to come forward by itself.  Resistance, heroism, action, collective attention and protests have been unfolding as result of the lies about our nation, our communities, and our families.  May the truth be always the only thing we stand for.
July 29, 2009
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