Stress Manifests: Season 1, Episode 3 of My Life as an Ansari
Psychosomatic symptoms of mine. The story of my experiences and struggles as I became an “Ansari” (Helper) of Gazan refugees (Muhajireen)
Here is Season 1, Episode 3 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.
Psycho-somatic issues. What a fancy term. Basically, it refers to physical symptoms in the body that are caused by flare-ups of stress and anxiety. Examples include muscle weakness, vision blurring, and stomach aches.
I’ve been experiencing psycho-somatic issues due to poor stress management and anxiety, for months and years now. I cannot at all say that my anxiety issues were caused solely by Gaza. It’s the way I have been reacting to various issues — related to work, family, health, etc — and some childhood issues I’m working on resolving. Even long before this prolonged Gaza escalation, I have been struggling with handling my anxieties. Over the past few months and years, I’ve faced a growing list of psycho-somatic issues stemming from constant (poor handling of) stress, e.g. vision issues, muscle issues, hair loss, and more.
I am working on dealing with it – a long-term journey of getting a handle on my stress response, stress-inducing triggers, and internal environment. But no doubt, this past year of escalated genocide, and my knee-jerk, frantic activism in response, has exacerbated my psycho-somatic issues considerably.
A bond was formed between me and the brother from Gaza. Right after the transfer was done, I found myself sharing details with him that one might have assumed I would be too cautious to share with someone I barely knew online.
He asked me about my name; his username was his actual name, but mine wasn’t. I told myself that it wasn’t a big deal to share my name, as the social media website and its anti-Palestine censorship could anyways see my email address, which links to my name (and contains my name). He asked me about my age. Also harmless. Turned out he is 2 years younger than me. Then he shared a selfie of himself, and asked if he could see me. I relented and shared a selfie — not like my photo isn’t there online on other social websites. Besides, I didn’t want to say no to my new brother.
A few days later, after Israel heavily bombed the over-populated Rafah border — the normal, casual, bloodthirsty brutality — I was relieved to see that the brother had recently posted online. He was okay, Alhamdulillah. I messaged him and expressed my relief. He thanked me, and we exchanged duas asking for Allah’s help against the evil aggressors.
It takes months and years of unresolved stress and unresolved trauma for this stress and trauma to manifest in the body as psycho-somatic symptoms. A couple of times over the past few months and years, I’ve had cases of corneal tears in my eye (the cornea getting a tear in it — makes the eye super puffy), making it difficult to look at devices’ screens for a short while.
Sometimes, these manifestations of trauma and anxiety in the body can be more long-term. I’ve had a wrist injury for about one year now. It still hasn’t fully recovered. It impairs me from lifting weights, exercising, and playing. Alhamdulillah in any case. I am still wearing a wrist splint even as I type these words. Initially, it just seemed to be a sprain I got when I was exercising. I wore the splint. Weeks passed, and when it hadn’t fully healed, the doctor had me do an X-ray and even an MRI. Nothing there. Apparently, it should heal soon, it just needs time. But the recovery was unbelievably slow. And despite my care, I kept getting re-injured (e.g. by holding something mildly “heavy”), going back to square one of the healing journey. Initially, I was puzzled. What was going on?
Hafsah, in the meanwhile, was going full steam ahead. She was on the frontlines of helping the migrants, those who had managed to cross over from Gaza via Rafah into Egypt. I saw her posts and status updates regarding the heroic work that she and her friends were doing, on the ground in Egypt, delivering aid to the many Gazan refugee families. She would fundraise online, asking for donations, and herself visit, console, and aid the many, many migrant families. Here are two example posts of hers:
At the same time, the massacres would not stop. Evil Israel bombed, ravaged, killed, pillaged, mocked, raped, and humiliated — every day, every week, every month. And Hafsah would continue to post in response to these evil aggressions, too.
May Allah bless her for taking on so much.
Loving someone for the sake of Allah is a beautiful, pure love. The brotherhood and sisterhood of Islam is so pure: we devote ourselves to the Same, One, True God, and I love you in my love of God.
Anas ibn Malik tells us: A man was with the Prophet (ﷺ) and a man passed by him and said, “Messenger of Allah! I love this man.” The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) then asked, “Have you informed him?” He replied, “No.” He said, “Inform him.” He then went to him and said, “I love you for Allah's sake.” He replied, “May He for Whose Sake you love me, love you!” [Sunan Abi Dawud 5125, Grade: Hasan]
That’s what I told him, my brother in Gaza. Around the start of June, I made another transfer to him. I didn’t want to use the same online wallet for a second time, due to security reasons, but since the last time had been a small test amount, I went ahead and used the same wallet again. He was grateful and said some nice things. I told him that I love him for the sake of Allah, to which he gave the response in the hadith above — May He for Whose Sake you love me, love you.
Stress kills immunity. Prolonged anxiety seriously lowers immunity levels, blocking the impact of certain micro-nutrients. Additionally, trauma can live in the body, manifesting in physical, psycho-somatic symptoms when it is not dealt with and cleansed from the mind for a long time. I am fairly certain that this is an aggravating factor causing the unusual slowness of recovery of my injured wrist. Even my mentor/coach, who has dealt with such cases, told me that this must be the reason why my wrist is not healing, with the doctor not finding anything visibly wrong.
I was injured before October last year. Then I threw myself into a flurry of anxieties with my frantic, sloppy, knee-jerk response to the escalation of genocide that started in October. Various psycho-somatic symptoms got aggravated — hair loss, corneal tears, and more (see here regarding my burnout experience). Including, it seems, this wrist injury not healing well.
Things got worse for the refugees after Israel took control of Rafah border — in a fantastic display of pure evil, they began liberally bombing and assaulting the forcibly displaced people there. At Rafah, the overcrowded limit to which the evil land-grabbers had pushed the native Palestinians towards. At the final “safe space”. Around the end of May, one day when Israel bombed Rafah brutally and murdered hordes of innocent people, Hafsah posted these:
And she posted more, too. Rightfully so, she was livid. But that night, through her posts, I thought I could sense her burning out.
Labeeb Humaid is a Gazan who used to work as a radiology technician. He reached out to me for support with his evacuation fundraiser. Labeeb has a family of 16 members (siblings, children and aunts included). I contributed to their GoFundMe link, and Labeeb responded warmly. This was around April. In May, they shared an update on their GoFundMe that around half of the required amount had been gathered. Three days later, they shared an update that they had been forced to flee for their lives from Rafah to the middle of the Gaza strip.
They are people just like us. Allah has tested them with fear and lack: Allah has tested us with security and plenty. Please, please consider donating, or at least check out their story at their GoFundMe: link.
My brother in Gaza told me that he and his family left Rafah, too, soon after Israel’s initial major attack on Rafah. They moved to the middle of Gaza, in his grandmother’s house, which had not been bombed.
He shared that it had been a hard day. Four buildings had been bombed in his new camp, and he shared videos he had taken of these bombings. I told him I couldn’t imagine how stressful it must be to be so close to the bombings. He quoted from the verse of the Quran, “Say, ‘Never will we be struck except by what Allāh has decreed for us; He is our Protector.’” [9:51]
I asked him how they charge their phones, and he told me they use solar power. We tried to fix a rendezvous time for having a phone call, but he couldn’t be sure due to unreliable internet access at his new abode.
Currently, Alhamdulillah, I am on an upward trajectory with my wrist injury. I’ve been doing wrist pain relief exercises from YouTube, and slowly, ever so slowly, it has been improving. It seems to me like it had been a scaphoid fracture that wasn’t healing, but with these slow and deliberate exercises, Alhamdulillah, it has been improving.
Consistency is the challenge, as usual, to do these exercises twice a day. But with such a prolonged condition, I have enough incentive to be rather disciplined. The reduced physical mobility and the inability to play some stress-relief sports of football and padel — these also seem to have added to my stress and anxiety over the last few months. Despite several ups and downs, Alhamdulillah, I’m slowly getting better. Please make dua that Allah completely heals my wrist.
Considering modesty and Islamic guidelines on gender interaction, normally I would not want to send a direct message to a girl on a personal topic like emotional well-being. But that night, after seeing Hafsah’s pained posts about the Rafah massacre, I sensed that she seemed close to burnout. I have had bad, very serious experiences with burnout, years ago. I did not want Hafsah to go through the same.
One might say it’s a bit rich coming from me, to talk about emotional well-being — given my own issues with stress management and my psycho-somatic symptoms. But how could I not say something? Especially when a sister in Islam, a fellow comrade, someone working so hard on the frontlines, could possibly be going down the same, dark path of burnout.
So I texted her. I told her I knew it was painful, and duas like this one that she had shared, helped. Talking to Allah in prayer helps. She responded that it was what was keeping her together. That prayer was all she felt she could do at this point.
She prayed that people were starting to wake up and act. I reassured her that the narrative really was shifting. I thanked her for supporting the Gazan muhajireen in Egypt, for holding down the fort for us on the frontlines.
May Allah reward her.
A few days into June, one morning after Fajr, I saw a status update from my brother in Gaza. He had shared a recent post from a famous influencer who regularly broadcasted updates about Palestine. My Arabic is not perfect, but the meaning was largely clear to me: the occupation’s army was coming. Towards the camp where my brother in Gaza had just moved to, with his family — the camp where his grandmother’s house was.
They were coming towards my brother and his family.
On top of the repost, my brother had posted the same verse of the Quran he had quoted to me from, a few days before: “Say, "Never will we be struck except by what Allāh has decreed for us; He is our Protector." And upon Allāh let the believers rely.” [9:51]
I screenshotted the post and sent it to my brother. Sounding surprisingly calm, I texted him that I prayed that he and his family were safe. But inside, I was not calm. I was not calm.
He didn’t reply.
He didn’t reply.
He didn’t reply.
I panicked.
Continued in Season 1, Episode 4: Panic. Before you continue, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber to support and to stay tuned: