Are You Okay? - Season 1, Episode 14 of My Life as an Ansari
I check in on someone. Someone else checks in on me.
Here is Season 1, Episode 14 of this article series — the story of my personal experiences and struggles as I became an Ansari (Helper) of Gazan refugees (Muhajireen). List of all episodes can be found here.
My brother in Gaza uploaded a post with his family’s fundraiser link, the one he had reached out to me with in the very beginning. His fundraiser had been for raising funds to evacuate him and his immediate family out of Gaza through Rafah border.
Before Israel had closed the border, people had been forced to pay five thousand dollars (!) per adult for crossing the border and escaping genocide — greedy border authorities profiteering from genocide. Lots of Gazans had sent out donation links to raise funds for this, some of them successfully so. Since May 2024, since Israel had shut down the border even on this way out, people had still been collecting, waiting for the border to re-open.
I had seen the collection page for my brother in Gaza; several thousand dollars had already been collected, Alhamdulillah, yet more was needed to cover his entire immediate family. He had told me early on that he was unable to access these funds, which were being collected by a relative abroad for evacuation through Rafah.
This post from my brother in Gaza was a sign that things were getting more desperate. That after everything they had been through, they must have been getting more desperate than ever to leave Gaza through the Rafah border, as soon as it opened. And we weren’t sure when it would open; by that time, around July 2024, three months had passed since it had been closed.
Julia, the content creator on social media whose fundraising videos I had been coming across, continued to support her Palestinian individuals and families by promoting their fundraisers online. With the medium-sized following that she had, her amplifying of their campaigns was helpful for the considerable number of Palestinian refugees that she had “adopted” and regularly supported.
While the large number of Palestinian families she was supporting was surprising and impressive, her tireless work seemed to be wearing her down, and I had already seen her video where she had been crying and openly sharing her struggles about taking on this burden. I think she even mentioned once that this was taking away her time from her son.
Julia appeared overwhelmed, overworked, and at risk of burnout. I did not want to end up like her. She seemed to have taken on a large number of families, maybe a bit more than she could handle sustainably. Over time, I consumed less and less of her videos. I did not want to head down that path and end up overwhelmed and burned out.
Maybe I was subconsciously uncomfortable at the idea that Julia represented the future state of where my current trajectory was headed. That my messy, sloppy, careless activism, that not prioritizing self-care, was leading me down the same path as Julia’s.
Around the end of July, one day I came across this awesome video from Yaqeen Institute, about the need for men to be there for each other in their moments of difficulty. It’s short, check it out. I’ll wait here.
Watching this video, I realized that I was not quite being there for my brother in Cairo. I felt I was not being a good enough brother to him. Sure, I had been occasionally texting him, and we had been commenting on each other’s posts. But as the video points out … I wasn’t checking in on him. Injured, away from his family, worried about their survival in a genocide — and I hadn’t really checked in on him during such a difficult time.
I texted my brother in Cairo, offering to have a call the next day to just catch up and chat. He was, as usual, quick to respond. He agreed about having the call, and when I asked about his arm (which had undergone surgery and had implant/s), he said that it needed more time, but in a few months would hopefully be recovered. I responded with praying for his recovery.
Just at this much, he thanked me. He thanked me for asking about him, saying that it meant a lot to him. I told him we were brothers now. I asked about any news from his family members, and he said that they were suffering, but Alhamdulillah [in every case], and that they were being patient. I replied, praying that they be rewarded by Allah for every moment of patience, and that their test would end soon.
My brother in Cairo then told me that from the coming month, he would have to rent his own house, which would cost a lot. The friend in whose apartment he was staying, had emigrated out of Egypt, headed to a country in the West — wanting to emigrate there. My brother in Cairo praised this friend for being very respectful; he had been letting my brother in Cairo stay with him without paying rent. The rent for this house was too much for my brother in Cairo, so he would now have to manage and somehow rent a house on his own.
My brother in Cairo reassured me and/or himself, saying that everything would be easy, In Sha Allah. “Allah will not forget us,” he said. And I agreed with him.
Seemingly bored of the ceasefire, Israel has begun to starve our brothers and sisters in Gaza again, since around a week at the time of writing this. Food supplies have been cut off.
Especially given that it’s the holy month of Ramadan, I encourage you to invest in your afterlife. Let your charity ripple out towards your eternal afterlife. Reviving Gaza is on the ground, providing much needed resources to our starving and thirsty brothers and sisters. These people are our people. They are us. Invest in your afterlife by clicking here to donate.
I think it happened on the very same day — the day that I had checked in on my brother in Cairo.
Someone in my family commented about my hair, and I mentioned that my hair fall had increased due to stress. Later in the day, one of my immediate family members wanted me to come and talk to them.
Uh-oh.
I won’t say who exactly it was, but it was one of my first-degree relatives (remember that I am the youngest one in my family). The conversation went something like this.
“What’s stressing you out?” they asked me. Straight.
The first thing that rose to the front of my mind was … Palestine. Probably because of my recent chat with my brother in Cairo.
Now, I won’t pretend like the escalated genocide of Gaza was the only potential stressor in my life, as if my poor stress management was not already an established bad habit that I needed to work on. As if my previously perfect habits had been knocked sideways by the genocide. Yet it was true that my frantic, irresponsible activism around Gaza had been wearing me out faster.
But I kept my mouth shut. The details of my Palestine activism wasn’t something that I shared with my family. And I think I told myself that the reason was for their own protection, to not get them worried about me.
Not to sound arrogant, but I am good with words (at least I like to think so), and must have said something to avoid giving a straight answer. And they seemed to understand that they weren’t going to get a clear answer on this.
They asked me to agree to always tell them whenever something would stress me out. In the future.
I appreciated their concern and their love, but … I couldn’t agree to that, either. It was not something I could commit to. The details of my Palestine activism, for one, was something that I felt I should not share with my family — for not getting them worried, at the very least.
While I didn’t commit to their ask, I did make good with them. Alhamdulillah, I have a strong relationship with this family member, and despite the fact that I could not satisfy their questions, I let them down gently. As the youngest one in the family, I am naturally somewhat of an expert at having my way with my family over such small matters, and playfully getting away with it without burning bridges. I imagine it comes with the territory of being the youngest, at least for some family dynamics.
We ended the conversation nicely. They seemed to understand that this was the best they were going to get out of me. I appreciated their concern. But I couldn’t share everything.
I couldn’t.
But I really did need to sort myself out. My slow, downward trajectory with my health; my reckless, frantic activism and doomscrolling; my inability to get a handle on my out-of-control daily routine; my anxiety and psycho-somatic symptoms; my sinking self-esteem — I was tearing apart at the seams.
With Allah’s help, I really needed to work on myself and turn things around.
Continued in Season 1 Finale: Half an Hour. Before you continue, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber to support and to stay tuned: