Turning Around: Season 0, Episode 2 of My Life as an Ansari

The unending genocide had me burning out. I couldn't go on like this.

Here is Season 0, Episode 2 (second of a two-part introduction) for this article series — the story of my personal experiences and struggles as I became an Ansari (Helper) of Gazan refugees (Muhajireen). List of episodes can be found here.

---

The days passed. It felt like I was living in one of those historical novels where characters’ personal lives play out against the backdrop of larger political events unfolding. My messy and knee-jerk activism continued to exacerbate my out-of-control routine and procrastination; it continued to take its heavy toll on my well-being and my daily routine.

It was a strange experience to see life go on in a normal fashion, while a genocide was being livestreamed 24/7. At least at home we were openly discussing the genocide and actively sharing information online. But at work, in corporate life, it felt a bit surreal at times. No one would talk about it too publicly, yet everyone was aware. With a few colleagues, sometimes I would discuss it; we’d express sympathies and share pain. But for the most part, work continued normally. It felt somewhat like I was living in a dream.

The gigantic TV screen in the lobby of my office building would play Gaza news all the time, and walking past it several times a day gave me the harrowing updates. Plus I was continuing to recklessly consume Gaza updates multiple times a day, telling myself that the sleeplessness and the emotional toll was worth my re-sharing and my bits of content creation. I’d spend a lot of time doing the following: doom-scroll on Instagram, screenshot what was important and what passed through my filter of Islamically acceptable content (no swear words, no lack of Islamically appropriate clothing, no music), and dump screenshots onto my WhatsApp status as a quick share of awareness. The least that I felt I could do.

The situation morphed rapidly. The evil gameplan of a southward nakba became clearer and clearer. Death tolls mounting. My brothers in the West Bank being tortured. International outrage limited in effect.

Stumbling through the days, I remember sometimes passing by a colleague who was also sharing a lot of awareness posts online. He was one of the few people who would more regularly share awareness about the situation in Palestine. While passing by him in the corridor, I remember feeling a sense of camaraderie. Even though we didn’t say it to each other during the hustle and bustle of work, we were both fighting for the same cause together.

As I did speak to some colleagues about this all, I learned that others, too, were traumatized by witnessing the genocide. Once, some senior leader at work posted a message in our company’s internal messaging platform, addressing the elephant in the room and wishing that our Palestinian colleagues’ families remain safe. Some time later, I capitalized on this opportunity to boost awareness on Palestine — carefully choosing my words to not get in trouble for being too outspoken of an advocate — and posted the following comment under his message, based on discussions with the colleagues I had spoken to.

You are not alone.

As the count of massacred civilians here is close to exceeding even that of the Srebrenica genocide, many of us remained glued to our phones day and night, desperately keeping up with the horrifying updates. The live images, videos, posts and interviews of the massacred children and desperate humans are haunting. Feelings of anger, frustration and even guilt are common and almost overwhelming. Over the past many days/weeks, I've heard the following from talking to various colleagues:

• One of our colleagues told me that they couldn't sleep after seeing images of the hospital massacre

• Another one of our colleagues took a day off when they ended up going to the hospital - due to a pre-existing condition they have - as they couldn't sleep for three nights because of all this

• Another colleague of ours lost family members in Gaza and was in a very painful state

• One of our colleagues told me that they took pills to sleep after hearing about / viewing such news

• I myself remain active on my social media about this - and it's very painful for me. The stress is really impacting my health. I have to shut down sometimes and not consume this heavy stuff. I lose sleep, but I keep going back as a social media advocate.

So I wanted to break the silence with this post. You are not alone. You are not crazy for feeling so deeply. So many of us are shaken and in a lot of pain over the rampant suffering of the innocent. And it's good to feel that we are not alone in this pain. Take care of yourselves. Take extra care of your diet, hydration, sunlight, exercise and sleep. Talk; be open with your family and friends who you trust - try not to let the stress build up too much. Don't suffer in silence. Take care of your overall health and well-being.

This message didn’t get a ton of reactions (i.e. likes, etc) on the company messaging platform where I had posted it, but I did have a few people expressing their sympathies to me in person after I posted this message. (Looking back at the message’s date now, I’m surprised to see that this post was only a few weeks into the escalated genocide.)

The days passed. I joined a few group chats along with other online Palestine activists, being hooked up to the fantastic and active community of UK Muslims. I participated in a weekend hackathon online for pro-Palestine content creation, which led me to meet and team up with some amazing young activists for a content creation project, which lasted a few months, until we decided to retire the project once we felt it had run its course.

Hospital sieges. Massacres. Rape. Murder. Bombing. Amputated children. My children. The horrific ground invasion. The resistance.

I was letting myself go and just pushing forward with my knee-jerk online activism. A colleague at work told me, more than once I think, that I didn’t look too well. I wasn’t sleeping well or managing my stress effectively, letting myself doom-scroll through the traumatizing posts. What made things worse were the social media algorithms engineered for keeping us hooked. And I was hooked, fueled by guilt and pain and an urgent sense to do something, anything, anything I could.

Finally, a close family member of mine took matters into their own hands: they themselves went ahead and got me connected to an online mentor for self-improvement. I followed and admired this particular mentor already, and began having their paid online sessions with them. While their work focuses on personal excellence and effectiveness, this mentor told me something that really stuck with me, and it actually improved my attitude towards activism for Palestine.

When I mentioned to this mentor about how burnt out I was due to my Palestine activism, they gave the following analogy: if your foot was broken, would you continue to walk several miles in it? If you’re already not doing well, would you continue to submerge yourself in traumatic pictures and videos that harm your wellbeing further? That was a lightbulb moment for me. My body has a right over me, too, which I was really neglecting.

It wasn’t an instantaneous correction, but I was clear on the need to change. I felt … relieved. Like I had been given permission. A reason to not feel guilty for not taking action online all the time. My misplaced response to empathizing with my suffering brothers and sisters, had been to damage myself. But I can’t help others if I’m not well. It simply wasn’t sustainable. If I continued to sacrifice my health this way, I could not continue to help others while I’m out of service. Most importantly, Allah wants me to take care of myself and not self-sabotage unwisely. That duty is my priority. I had to be wise and play the long game.

Over time, then, I tried to control my activism to not let it take over my life, damaging my health. I decreased the amount of time I spent doom-scrolling. I deleted the Instagram app from my phone and started to use it only on my laptop. I installed an app blocker for impulse control. I decreased the amount of time I was spending on social media, no longer keeping up with the news every few hours.

The face of the war morphed. While bombings and murder and hospital invasions continued, engineered famine began, too. As Rafah became an over-crowded limit, mass starvation became a clear strategy of the genocidal settlers. While I got my doom-scrolling and traumatic content consumption under control, I started to get involved, instead, with the many individual attempts to send aid to the starving populace. With the fundraisers for paying border controllers, bloodthirsty criminals preying on the oppressed, to let people out of a hellish nightmare. Rather than just boosting awareness in a self-sabotaging manner, I was more focused on supporting action on the ground, and my own content creation.

So I’ve been trying to be more measured, controlled, and to take better care of my health. Sometimes I still do end up wasting time doom-scrolling on social media — sometimes a trigger will sneak past my defenses and get me hooked onto social media against my will. But I’m trying to improve at impulse control. I am working on resisting random scrolling urges that disrupt my schedule, on building long-term habits over short term guilt-removing bursts. This is better and more beneficial for my Palestinian brothers and sisters, and for myself.

I still do send out awareness posts. I still urge for donations. I still create content. But I don’t let it take over my life now, and I try not to self-sabotage and exacerbate emotional trauma. That’s not what Allah wants; that’s not the Sunnah method of working to bring about change.

My brothers and sisters in Palestine, I will keep fighting for you, In Sha Allah. But in a wiser and more effective way now. Besides continuing to raise my voice for change in a sustainable way, there is even a longer-term solution. This long-term solution is for me to continue to work on myself. To build myself physically, mentally, emotionally, and most importantly, spiritually. To work towards my own financial freedom so that I can quit my day job and give more time to my true callings. To fix the macrostructure, we need to fix the microstructure. To fix the ummah, we need to fix individuals — starting with ourselves.

---

---

How did my journey continue? Read more of my story as this multi-part article series gets going — the story of my personal experiences and struggles as I became an “Ansari” (Helper) of Gazan refugees (Muhajireen):