In Australia, people in the diaspora go to work, uni or school, spend time with their family afterwards and catch up on assignments or with friends at a cafe—navigating through the same daily routines like everybody else.

Yet, for those in the diaspora, these everyday experiences occur against the backdrop of the brutal destruction of their homeland.

Since 2 March, BBC Verify analysis found Israeli attacks on Lebanon have led to more than 1,400 buildings destroyed, 1.2 million people displaced and according to figures by the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs—2,659 killed and 8,183 others injured.

The Israeli military has also occupied around five to ten kilometres which they call a “buffer zone” to provide an “additional layer of defence for the residents of northern Israel”.

Despite the declaration of a ceasefire, which took effect on 17 April, Israel launched multiple strikes across southern Lebanon, killing 41 people within 24 hours on 2 May. Aid agencies have urged the end of further escalations, warning that Lebanon has been pushed to the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe.

“If the scenario gets worse,” global spokesperson for the International Federation of the Red Cross Tommaso Della Longa said, “we will see an immense humanitarian crisis and a system that is already under pressure that could collapse at every level.”

Since October 2023, over 72,289 people have been killed and approximately 172,040 injured in Gaza. This year alone, 494 Palestinians have been killed despite a truce that was made effective on 10 October 2025.

Around 92 per cent of housing units have been destroyed leading to the displacement of 1.9 million people. The UN has predicted that it would take 350 years to rebuild Gaza.

When people around an individual do not share or understand someone’s emotional reality, it forces them to perform normalcy and contain this inner reality, causing a heavy strain on their brain’s ability to regulate.

This psychological phenomenon is known as—context mismatch—which, as Maddison Cassidy described in an interview with Farrago, is when “someone's emotional expression or behaviour does not align with the situation or physical environment they are in.”

Cassidy is an accredited mental health social worker, who has previously worked in the trauma space supporting asylum seekers and is currently a counsellor advocate at CASA House while working in a private practice supporting youth.

The Importance of Context

“When assessing and thinking about mental health, context is everything,” explained Cassidy. Without understanding a person’s lived experience, she finds it is difficult to get a good idea of why an individual might be presenting their emotions in certain ways.

The simultaneous exposure to daily updates from both the media and family whilst living under peaceful conditions can become retraumatising for many in the diaspora: “they have physical safety around them and, all of sudden, things start to kind of reappear and represent in very different ways,” said Cassidy.

A Muslim community member in the Australian Human Rights Commission’s (AHRC) report, The struggle to be seen, the power in being heard (2026) echoed how experiencing war, even from afar, can be mentally destabilising, “sometimes I think about who I was before and I don’t even recognise that version of myself anymore … It’s the things that we’ve experienced, it’s the things that we’ve witnessed.”

Cassidy added, “many [in the diaspora] have experienced war and things in the past … conflict is not one-off, it's cumulative. They have loved ones back home; they hold connections to the community. Physically, they might be somewhere, but they still have a connection to other places.”

Context mismatch comes with feelings of dissociation, numbness, isolation or surrealness, but it also leads to a real strain on the nervous system, amplifying responses to past traumas and daily stresses.

A Palestinian community member in the report explained how these symptoms ripple into every aspect of their life, including work, “for me personally, I’ve had a lot of health issues because what we’re holding is grief.”

Another Muslim community member recounted her daughter’s declining mental health due to witnessing the genocide in Gaza: “we spent a good portion of our new year in Emergency with her because of her psychosis … I think it’s underestimated how this is impacting on our young people. She’s watching people like her being slaughtered online.”

When someone’s brain receives threat signals that are not validated by their environment, this is where context mismatch occurs. And this can carry onto the online space as well.

Media Coverage and Moral Injury

These symptoms, particularly that of isolation and grief, is also made worse by not only passive coverage, but tacit or even direct approval of the war that has led to the mass demolitions of people’s homes by the media. In a lot of cases, the media fails to report on tragedies entirely.

When the Australian government announced it would be boosting defence spending to $53 billion, The Guardian amongst other news outlets, paid no attention to the victims of these weapons, instead focusing on whether US President Donald Trump would be satisfied with the increase.

The role of accurately representing and depicting the realities and the humanity behind war is consequently placed on diaspora communities whose nervous systems are already under immense stress.

Cassidy highlighted, “that’s such a huge responsibility for people in diaspora communities to take hold of and to hold that burden … More inaccurate representation of human experience only makes people feel dismissed or disregarded and in such amplifies feelings of anger, grief [and] guilt.”

The level of racism that is embedded in media reportage cannot be neglected, said a Palestinian community member in the report, “the language and rhetoric that the media uses is dehumanising. The fact that they won’t say genocide or apartheid or Palestine. That they say that this is a war and a conflict. That they try and platform Hamas instead of talking about Palestinians’ need for liberation and justice. And the fact that they try to trivialise what’s happening and make it about one point.”

For some in the diaspora, it is not just inaccurate representation by the media, but the lack of representation at all that can exacerbate these feelings.

“There are always horrific events that take place that are unrecognised and unnoticed—I think it's tough for people who are from those communities … thinking about places like Sudan, Congo, Myanmar, Ethiopia [and] Yemen,” Cassidy explained.

Cassidy has worked with many people who witness other country’s issues being responded to while theirs are neglected, creating very complicated emotions amongst her patients who feel simultaneously supportive of the solidarity but immense frustration at the media’s neglect.

The dehumanising, inaccurate or complete lack of representation in the hands of the media can also exacerbate another phenomenon—moral injury—which refers to a harm that's social, spiritual or psychological and arises from a betrayal of a person’s core values.

“[It brings about questions of] injustice, fairness and morality—it's a deep inner conflict with yourself, really. And I think many people can relate to that when they are experiencing context mismatch,” explained Cassidy.

Holistic Solutions

To understand how context mismatch manifests in these communities, it is important to note how structural racism can amplify or compound the symptoms that come with the phenomenon.

Cassidy noted, “social workers have this beautiful ability to see people in their environment and see when distress can be connected and also alleviated through system, structures, society [and] community … Disregarding the structural systemic factors in somebody's life isn't holistic. It’s not going to lead to healing or connection.”

In acknowledging the structural factors that contribute to how the diaspora experience context mismatch, Cassidy recommends channeling your emotions through advocacy, but with caution: “I think universities are a really great place to start where you've got a lot of smaller community led groups that kind of advocate for change.”

“It can be really defeating and exhausting though when you're going up against really big level conflicts … It's a really tough balance to find between fighting the system and getting a break or a rest,” she added.

On an individual level, understanding your triggers and emotions, and approaching them with curiosity can help relieve symptoms of mismatch and displacement.

“There's a lot of power in being able to name your experience … it's interesting to see how often people's symptoms do start to alleviate once they name and acknowledge it,” said Cassidy.

Reorienting yourself in the present through grounding and sensory awareness exercises can also help kickstart your nervous system and remind yourself of your current safety.

Connection is important, especially for those in the diaspora that come from collectivist societies. Dalia Halabi, a Lebanese psychologist, emphasises the importance of processing emotions collectively through seeking spaces where one’s emotional reality can be acknowledged.

“I think we're living in an age where there is such beautiful opportunities to connect with others. There are more migrants here than there ever have been and there's people in the diaspora that can connect. There's heaps of peer-led social community groups,” said Cassidy.

For those outside the diaspora, Cassidy recommends the best way to help is by, “showing up for people to connect with them, asking them what they need … we don't need to lean into a saviour or solutions focus mode.”

“I think what's important is if you're supporting someone, do your own work … it is not the responsibility for people in the diaspora to educate you or to tell you everything about what it's like,” she added.

For many in the diaspora, the burden is not only to witness and grieve the loss of family and their homeland, but to do so within systems that refuse to recognise their realities or validate their humanity.