Turkey as a Vast House of Mourning
In recent years, Turkey has almost turned into a vast house of mourning. Earthquakes, forest fires, mining disasters, femicides, workplace accidents, attacks against LGBT individuals, the unlawful imprisonment of elected mayors, the detention of young people exercising their right to protest, and other social traumas have created an atmosphere of collective loss, leaving individuals feeling helpless.
Mourning is not only an emotional state experienced in the face of personal losses; it is also a process that shapes collective memory and public mood. Yet in Turkey, mourning has often become a suppressed, politically manipulated, or ignored feeling. More troubling still, the accumulation of such events not only generates a deep sense of grief but also reinforces learned helplessness, threatening the mental health of individuals across the country. This dynamic makes it harder for people to build psychological resilience, weakens social solidarity, and undermines the possibility of leading a meaningful and fulfilling life.
This paper takes the metaphor of Turkey as a “house of mourning” to explore how collective mourning affects psychological resilience and to discuss how resilience can be sustained within this difficult atmosphere.
Collective Mourning and Invisible Sorrows
Mourning is a natural human response to loss—whether the death of a loved one, unemployment, or the end of a relationship. But when disasters strike on a societal scale, mourning transcends the individual and becomes a collective state of being.
The earthquakes of February 6, 2023, which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, left survivors in profound trauma—one of the starkest examples of collective mourning. Similarly, femicides not only devastate families but also erode society’s sense of security and justice.
Yet in Turkey, mourning is frequently rendered “invisible.” The magnitude of loss is often left undiscussed in public spaces, commemorations quickly fade from the agenda, and rather than allowing grief, people are urged to “move on.” As Butler (2004) notes, whose grief is deemed worthy of recognition is shaped by power relations. The deaths of women in femicides, workers in labor accidents, or families displaced by earthquakes are at times erased or ignored by official discourse. This invisibility hinders individuals from making sense of their losses and grieving in healthy ways.
Moreover, in Turkey, not only is the question of “whose grief is recognized” controlled by political authority, but the relentless repetition of disasters forces individuals to carry on with life burdened by suppressed grief and deep learned helplessness. This places psychological resilience at great risk, distancing people from the idea of a meaningful life and increasing the prevalence of mental health struggles.
Dynamics Undermining Psychological Resilience
1. The Accumulation of Continuous Traumas
In Turkey, collective traumas occur back-to-back, forcing individuals to confront new losses before they can process previous ones. This cumulative trauma erodes the capacity to grieve, increasing emotional exhaustion, hopelessness, learned helplessness, and chronic anxiety—all of which undermine psychological resilience.
2. Suppressed Mourning
In society, mourning is often suppressed, with individuals pressured to “stay strong.” Phrases like “don’t cry, be patient, move on, nothing can change the system, speaking out will only harm you, focus on saving yourself” block the natural expression of grief and reinforce helplessness. Yet, as Worden (2009) notes, the inability to express grief or act rationally on it leads to the internalization of trauma and worsens psychological problems.
3. Hopelessness and Learned Helplessness
The persistence of femicides, the scapegoating of LGBT individuals, the destruction of nature, the failure to take adequate precautions after earthquakes, the impunity of perpetrators alongside the unjust imprisonment of citizens exercising their constitutional rights, together with structural issues such as injustice, inflation, and unemployment—all reinforce trauma and collective mourning. When political leaders respond with undemocratic practices rather than preventative measures, individuals fall into the belief that “nothing will change, whatever I do is meaningless.” This dynamic, described by Martin Seligman (1975) as learned helplessness, entrenches hopelessness at the collective level and severely undermines psychological resilience.
Paths Toward Preserving and Strengthening Resilience
1. Building Networks of Solidarity
Resilience is not solely an individual trait but a capacity strengthened through social bonds. Volunteer networks after the earthquakes, Pride marches, student protests, feminist vigils, and environmental movements all remind individuals they are not alone. Such solidarity not only protects well-being but also enables people to resist learned helplessness, transforming mourning into resilience and adaptation.
2. Sustaining the Search for Meaning
As Viktor Frankl (2006) emphasized, the ability to create meaning even in the harshest conditions is a cornerstone of psychological resilience. In Turkey, the demand for justice, the pursuit of rights, and the call for social transformation imbue losses with meaning, revealing the transformative potential of grief. This pursuit guides individuals toward adaptation and motivates them to fight for a more dignified and fulfilling life.
3. Seeking Professional Support
Mourning is an intense and complex process. Living in a “house of mourning” often leaves individuals overwhelmed by despair and hopelessness, unsure how to adapt. Seeking professional support in such times is not only legitimate but also invaluable for maintaining resilience and mental health.
4. Art and Forms of Expression
Art can transform grief into collective resistance. Poetry, music, documentaries, and monuments make suffering visible and embed it in social memory. These creative expressions strengthen psychological resilience while ensuring that collective mourning remains alive.
5. Collective Memory and the Culture of Mourning
Examples from Germany’s Holocaust memory or Latin America’s truth and reconciliation processes demonstrate that mourning can serve as a collective process of repair. In Turkey, rather than erasing losses, keeping their memory alive can support individual grief while also enhancing psychological resilience.
Conclusion: From a House of Mourning to a House of Hope
Today, Turkey has become a vast house of mourning through successive losses. This atmosphere of grief challenges psychological resilience while testing social solidarity. Yet a society that does not suppress mourning, that renders suffering visible, that remembers losses with a call for justice, and that raises its voice for democratic governance can strengthen its resilience on both individual and collective levels.
Preserving resilience requires holding our grief together, refusing to forget our losses, and looking toward the future with solidarity while acting in line with shared values. To the extent that we can transform our losses, it becomes possible to turn a house of mourning into a home where hope and justice take root.
With the wish for a society where love prevails, where losses are few, where grief can be expressed healthily, and where we support one another in an equitable, democratic, and compassionate community—may we preserve our psychological resilience and live meaningful, fulfilling lives.
References
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Butler, J. (2004). Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. Verso.
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Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man’s Search for Meaning (Trans. S. Budak). Okuyanus.
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Seligman, M. (1975). Helplessness: On Depression, Development, and Death. W.H. Freeman.
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Worden, J. W. (2009). Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy: A Handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner. Springer.