“I feel broken and voiceless”: depression, stigma, and coping among Palestinian women with addicted husbands

J Ethn Subst Abuse. 2025 Nov 10:1-19. doi: 10.1080/15332640.2025.2587208. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

This study examines the experiences of Palestinian women living with addicted husbands, highlighting how addiction transforms the home into a site of despair, humiliation, and fragile endurance. Drawing on testimonies shared in women-only digital forums, the research uses thematic analysis to examine how addiction intersects with depression, suicidal ideation, fear, stigma, and coping. Six themes emerged: depression as daily life; despair turning inward as self-harm; suicidal thinking as routine and planned; fear and hypervigilance; silence and abandonment; and fragile coping shaped by faith, work, and social media. Findings show that addiction is not simply a private matter but a structural phenomenon that intensifies economic burdens, corrodes family safety, and erodes dignity. Coping strategies offer temporary relief but rarely secure transformation, as stigma and institutional neglect amplify suffering. The study argues that addiction in this context functions less as an individual illness than as a systemic mechanism of harm that constrains women’s agency and reshapes everyday survival.

PMID:41212039 | DOI:10.1080/15332640.2025.2587208