After six years of detention in Iran, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was reunited with his family. But how does someone return to normal life after such a long period of detention, and what comes next?
“Take it with care,” says former hostage Terry Waite, who spent nearly five years in captivity in Lebanon.
He compares the experience of a captive adjusting to normal life to that of a diver returning to the surface, adding: “Go up too fast and you’ll twist. If you come out smoothly, you’ll be fine.”
Waite was released in 1991 and went on to create the charity Hostage International, which supports freed hostages and their families.
“It’s been very difficult for Nazanin because of a lot of the uncertainties: threatened with being arrested again, threatened with a longer prison term and never knowing,” he says.
“And somehow he’s had to learn to live one day at a time.”
Waite says it took about 12 months for him to really come back to life after his release.
“The whole experience they’ve been through has to be processed. Sometimes people need professional help, sometimes they don’t. But they just need time.”
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 43, returned to the UK from Tehran after her release was secured on Wednesday after months of negotiations.
It marked the end of a harrowing ordeal in which Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained after being charged in 2016 with plotting to overthrow the Iranian government. She always denied the claim.
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Hostage International CEO Lara Symons says the return home comes with a lot of hardship.
“The spotlight is on you and now everyone sees you as a former hostage, and whatever you do with your life in the future, you will be remembered as that former hostage,” he says.
“You have that label, that badge, and you have to learn to use it and wear it because people see you through that prism.
“That can be very difficult and it’s a challenge, but it can turn into something positive, as you see with Terry Waite.”
She says that people often have to learn to take control of their own lives again and warns that even the most mundane tasks can present challenges.
“People who have been in captivity, whether they have been held by a criminal kidnapping group or imprisoned by a state, have not been empowered to make their own decisions.
“I heard hostages say that when they returned home they were offered chicken or pasta on the plane and they couldn’t make that decision.
“The brain has to get used to adapting to being a free person with freedom of choice.”
Lela Tsiskarishvili, a psychologist and president of the International Rehabilitation Council for Victims of Torture (IRCT), agrees.
“Things that may seem very simple can be very difficult for them,” she says.
“Often because the way the brain works means they’re still in the past because of all the memories, which prevents them from being here and now in the present.”
During her captivity, the Redress charity said Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe needed urgent medical treatment for her mental health.
And Ms Tsiskarishvili, who has two decades of experience treating torture survivors in detention, says detention can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression.
“It’s small steps and small wins because the experience can be very unsettling,” he says, adding, “Sometimes I’m in awe of the clients we work with.”
Ms Tsiskarishvili also warns that it can be difficult for families too.
“Mainly it is difficult for the children. It is also difficult for parents to return to a child who grew up several years later and with whom there was limited contact.
“It’s almost getting to know each other again. There are also problems with couples.
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe spent her first night in the UK in bed with her husband Richard and their seven-year-old daughter Gabriella in a safe house, her sister-in-law Rebecca Ratcliffe says.
Barbara Ratcliffe, Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s mother-in-law, says her granddaughter had no recollection of living with her mother and her son would also find it difficult to adjust.
Tulip Siddiq, a Hampstead MP who helped campaign for the release, says: “Richard is an accountant from West Hampstead. He is not a man who expected to appear on TV on a hunger strike, lobby the prime minister and get to number 10 “.
“They [Richard and Nazanin] They’re going to be very different people, and I think there’s going to be a huge process where they have to get to know each other.
“But Gabriella also has to trust her mother again.”
Ms. Symons says she finds that children often help ex-detainees get back into a routine.
“Absolutely focusing on those little pleasures in life is a great way to start, and getting back into a routine and having kids in the family helps with that,” she says.
“Kids need a routine, so responding to that and focusing on that is really helpful.
“But yeah, it’s a long journey and it’s going to take time. It’s about taking it day by day.”
“There is a positive light at the end.”
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