How late film director David Lynch is helping Scottish refugees and those dealing with trauma

Zeinab Elsayed can still hear the crackle of gunfire and feel the scorpions in her bed, but a gift from the late film director David Lynch is helping her to exorcise the demons of Khartoum.

 

The mother-of-two fled to Glasgow shortly after civil war broke out in Sudan 20 months ago. Millions fled Khartoum risking long, dangerous journeys to escape the street battles between rival factions.

 

Elsayed, 37, feared she would be targeted as she was a regular feature at pro-democracy protests in the capital.

 

Three weeks ago she learned Transcendental Meditation (TM), the stress-reducing mental technique made popular by The Beatles, thanks to a grant provided by The David Lynch Foundation UK.

 

The charity was founded by the Twin Peaks and Elephant Man director in 2005 to help people struggling with trauma, including veterans, prisoners, refugees and the homeless. He died from emphysema on January 15 aged 78.

 

The David Lynch Foundation UK has been working with Refugee Sanctuary Scotland to offer TM scholarships to asylum seekers, and also mental health charity Andy’s Man Club to help men in Glasgow at risk of suicide.

 

Elsayed, 37, said Sudan was a nice place to grow up before the civil war and she was protected from some of the more brutal misogynistic policies of the former Islamic regime by her progressive parents.

 

She said: “I lived in a nice area, my house faced the royal palace, but it was hard growing up as a woman. All of our rights were taken away beginning with [genital] mutilation and prohibition on studying.

 

“My mother was circumcised, but she spared us this trauma, allowed us to go to university, encouraged us and fought for our rights.

 

“I never thought I would end up as an asylum seeker. I have a brother who lives in Brighton and we always used to visit, go shopping, lie on the beach, and enjoy the vacation in a safe haven.”

 

Elsayed joined in the popular uprisings against the corrupt regime of Omar al-Bashir in winter 2018 and narrowly escaped death at her first demonstration.

 

“Suddenly the police appeared from everywhere,” she said. “They shot people directly with tear gas cartridges, which are supposed to be fired in the air.

 

“I started running and I felt somebody fall on my shoulder. I thought he had tripped, but when I turned around I saw he had been hit in the head and he was vomiting.

 

“I was hysterical. If that cartridge hadn’t hit him, it would have hit me. Men took him away and he died. I wondered why people had to suffer like this just for demanding democracy and fairness.”

 

Despite this traumatic experience, Elsayed continued to protest after Bashir was deposed in a military coup in April 2019.

 

Those fighting for freedom wanted democracy, not military rule, so the demonstrations continued. At least 100 protestors were killed in June 2019 in a government crackdown that became known as the “Khartoum massacre”.

 

The ensuing power struggled erupted into civil war in April 2023, with rival factions battling for control of Khartoum sending millions of citizens fleeing for safety.

 

Elsayed said: “The military forces began to target protestors, slaughtering them or prosecuting them and sentencing them to death. I lost my home, my family business, my savings, but I still consider myself lucky because I got out.”

 

Her family squeezed on to a packed bus to Halfa, a city on the border of Egypt, where schools had been turned into makeshift refugee accommodation by sympathetic locals.

 

“There were seven of us squeezed on to two beds and we were lucky to find those beds,” she said. “The school was infested by scorpions, which was stressful as there were lots of children and you know they like to explore. Luckily we found another bus that took us to Egypt.”

 

She flew to Glasgow on a holiday visa that was still valid from a recent vacation to the UK and applied for asylum.

 

Glasgow accommodates the highest proportion of asylum seekers in the UK, and there are a range of charities and support groups in the city for asylum seekers, including Refugee Sanctuary Scotland and the Mental Health Foundation.

 

Elsayed said: “My body would still think I was living in a war zone. The sound of fireworks would make me jump. It’s really hard watching all the news from Sudan after losing everything I owned.

 

“I didn’t want to go out, I didn’t want to do anything, I was a depressed person.”

 

Elsayed was offered a lifeline at the Mental Health Foundation’s Boxes of Hope art exhibition at Kelvingrove Art Gallery in December that featured some of her artwork.

 

She said: “On the opening day I met a beautiful lady who invited me to a meditation session for asylum seekers. TM came to me on the day I received a decision from the Home Office granting my asylum application.”

 

Elsayed was introduced to Sarah Bence, head of fundraising and partnerships at the David Lynch Foundation UK, who also teaches from the Glasgow TM centre on Union Street.

 

Elsayed said: “I had tried some online meditations in the past, but I never understood the power of meditation until I tried TM. It’s very simple, but at the same time very powerful. In life you have these shift points, where something happens without knowing, and TM is a shift point for me.

 

“It has allowed me to relax my mind, manage my stress, improve my sleep, and improve my relationships with other people. I listen more. Before I would interrupt because I was always rushing to speak my mind, in case I forgot what I needed to say.

 

“It has allowed me to connect with my body and my feelings without having a dialogue in my head, which is really fascinating. I’ve been telling all my friends about it.

 

“I wish I had been introduced to it in the early days of coming here. I feel some things would have gone differently. I ask myself if I would have achieved more if I had been able to regulate my nervous system and be calmer.

 

“I really hope TM is accessible for more asylum seekers. Some of us are coming from war zones, some of us don’t understand about mental health, TM is a very helpful tool that will help a lot of asylum seekers.”

 

Bence also taught another asylum seeker from Kenya, who did not want to be named as she was illegally trafficked into the UK and fears she will be identified by her captors.

 

She escaped to Glasgow penniless, alone and afraid.

 

“I just had an empty handbag, a jumper, jeans and shoes,” she said. “Someone said I should ask a person in uniform for help but I fear police and I thought they would arrest me.

 

“It was dark when I arrived and a homeless man asked me for money. I had to tell him I didn’t have anything either and I asked him if he could help me.

 

“He said he couldn’t, so I just started walking around until morning. When I finally heard voices I asked them if they could help me find work. They took me to a lawyer who explained it wasn’t that simple. It was only then that it was explained to me that I was illegally trafficked into the country.”

 

She was also introduced to TM through Refugee Sanctuary Scotland and felt it would be a safe space as both of the local teachers are women. Bence works alongside Angela Landers, a former nurse and drug rehabilitation counsellor who has been teaching TM in Glasgow for 20 years.

 

“People in my situation often have trouble trusting anyone because of the experiences of our past, so I was sceptical at first,” the Kenyan said.”I didn’t know what I was getting into, but it is a trusted organisation led by women so that made it less scary.

 

“When I learned to meditate everything just stopped. It was serenity. For those 20 minutes I forgot everything and just focused on myself. My personality has changed. I used to complain a lot, but I’m more reserved now.

 

“It’s early days, but I hope at some point in the future meditation will help me let go of my past. It won’t happen overnight, but it is teaching me to be at peace.”

 

Trauma does not only come to Glasgow on trains, boats and planes. Glasgow has the highest rate of drugs deaths in Europe, and is only eclipsed globally by the US states hardest hit by the opioid crisis.

 

The suicide rate is above the Scottish average and well above the level of death by self-harm on the continent.

 

Foster Douglas, 40, a high school teacher from Cambuslang, was offered a TM scholarship through Andy’s Man Club, another David Lynch Foundation UK partner that organises support groups throughout the UK.

 

It was founded in 2016 by Luke Ambler, a former Ireland rugby international whose brother Andy died from suicide.

 

Douglas had struggled with mental illness since his teens when he began drinking heavily, and started suffering from anxiety, panic attacks and insomnia during teacher training.

 

“There were days when I would [think about it] … but unlike others at Andy’s Man Club I never attempted suicide and I never missed a day of work through mental illness.

 

“I would always battle through it, but in my early 20s I broke down.”

 

Douglas added: “My previous coping mechanisms would be to drink too much or withdraw from activities. I began Googling things that would make me feel better and most of the instructional videos told you to focus on your breath, which was frustrating as I could never master it.

 

“With TM there is no focus on breathing. For the first time in my life I felt like I had actually meditated. Others have noticed a change in me. After meditation I have reset, regrouped and I’m able to approach conversations with a renewed approach.”

 

Alex McClintock, 50, a former prison officer from Perth who is now head of groups at Andy’s Man Club, was approached by the David Lynch Foundation UK to offer free meditation teaching to group members.

 

Like Douglas, he had struggled with depression, anxiety as well as panic attacks and has been on medication since his early 20s. He began abusing alcohol and painkillers to cope with a divorce in 2012 and contemplated suicide three years later.

 

“I was in a trance on my way to kill myself when my phone rang and snapped me out of it,” he said. “My daughter phoned me on the way home from school to tell me that she loved me, she missed me and was looking forward to seeing me again.

 

“I broke down, phoned my mum and asked her if I could come home at 40-years-old.”

 

Alex found TM on Facebook two years ago after a familiar fruitless search for cost-free online mindfulness techniques and paid for the course. TM is practiced sitting comfortably for 20 minutes twice a day and does not involve concentration or controlling of the mind.

 

McClintock said: “I walked out onto the streets of Glasgow after my first meditation and everything was so bright and colourful. I just thought ‘wow’. It blew me away from the first session.

 

“I meditated on the beach in Ayr for my second session, it was so dark and peaceful, then went to my next Andy’s Man Club meeting and told everybody about the difference it has made in just two sessions.

 

“I’ve been off medication for over a year, the longest period of my life, and stopped drinking.”

 

Course fees from paying meditators will also help towards fundraising for a new Glasgow TM centre to complement the two-storey Edinburgh Peace Palace, the first purpose built TM centre in Scotland which opened in Prestonfield in May last year.

 

Donovan, the Sunshine Superman singer who learned meditation with The Beatles under founder Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India, opened the centre alongside David Rae, who retired as head of TM in Scotland in December after half a century teaching meditation and years of tireless fundraising to make the Peace Palace a reality.