Project Apology

In this episode we meet Idil. Idil is in her mid 30’s and she, like many of us, is a child of divorce. Idil’s parents divorce felt like a war. She was punished for loving both of her parents. She had to grow up very quickly at a very young age.

Idil’s mom shares stories from her life - stories that help Idil and some that hurt her. In one of her stories, she discusses the regrets from her life, a regret that implicates Idil. But Idil isn’t toppled by this. She learns to both love her mother and her self.

In this episode, we meet Anila. Anila is in her 30s and she’s a single mom. She’s in a good place in her life but this was not always the case.

When Anila was 13 years of age she shared a painful secret with her mother. Her mother’s response is that it should remain a secret. In fact, Anila’s mom has a secret of her own. Anila was left to deal with both secrets alone. She goes through a depressive episode and her relationship with food and her sexuality are both negatively impacted.

But Anila finds a way to reconcile her earlier trauma and her mother’s reactions. She explains that she needed to find a way to live, so that her children can have different from her and different from her own mother too.

This is a story of cycles - ones that continue and ones that will go incomplete. There is a lot to learn from Anila’s journey to healing - a journey that starts with getting outside to walk, one step in front of the other.

* content warning: sexual abuse, disordered eating

Reem is in her 20’s and she questioning the central role that her mother plays in her life. Reem is a gifted linguist. She shares many analogies that get at the psychic pain she is feeling and carrying physically. She’s both full and empty; has too much and too little.

Reem talks a lot about splitting. In Emotion Focused Therapy we recognize that we each have parts of us. Parts that hold our sadness, our fears, our shame. But what if those parts are never in conversation? What if they never reach our consciousness? These are the big questions that our linguist Reem raises.

*content warning: disordered eating, emotional abuse

Meet Nafisa, a queer woman in her late 20’s. Being queer is central to the trauma of her life - her mother doesn’t know and thus cannot accept her. She ends her interview reflecting on this loss - the loss of never being known by those who are supposed to know you most fully.

Nafisa struggles with her emotions throughout our conversation. She’s worries that she cannot be soft enough or authentic enough. Her worries remind me of Dr. Adele Lafrance reminder of the wisdom of the block. Sometimes we judge ourselves for not feeling, and we curse the blockages that prevent our feelings from fully getting out. But there can be a wisdom in this. Perhaps we are not ready. Perhaps the feelings are too real. Perhaps we can learn to see the wisdom in this blockage. Perhaps we can be patient with ourselves. Perhaps we can be patient with the feelings that are too big to feel.

Meet Lily. Lily is in her late 20’s. Her letter is addressed to her father, a man who was absent from her life and manages to be intrusive at the same time. Any conversation she has with him about his absence leaves her feeling disoriented. Lily describes parental absence with the best analogy: it’s like untangling your own knot, while helping the remaining parent untangle their own. It’s messy work. Lily teaches us about the empowering ways anger can feel and how lonely shame can make us feel too. For her, the key to any solution is the village. No matter how different we might be, we each carry trauma that makes us more alike than we can ever realize.

Meet Aaliyah, a mom in her early 40’s. As an interviewer I enjoy asking questions, in this interview Aaliyah challenged me by asking questions back. Really tough questions. Like, what if this actually happened? What if my dad did actually apologize. Would I want to even hear it? She reflects that in order for her dad to apologize he would first have to hear the words. I guess that is the point of this project in its entirety. Putting the words out there for others to hear so that we can use the words to acknowledge the psychic pain of others.

*content warning: sexual abuse, physical abuse

Meet the brilliant Daddou. She invokes Ghada Al-Samman, the Syrian poet who commits her life to rebelling against the illogical logic of things. Daddou rebels against many illogical things in her life: anti-Black racism, anti-Muslim hostility. Violence comes from all directions and she learns to be at peace with herself and at peace in her relationship with her mother. It was a tough journey for Daddou, she faced discrimination against her in her North African home for the sin of being black and being the daughter of a divorcee. And yet she retains romantic notions for herself. She dreams, she fantasizes she escapes.

*content warning: physical abuse, discussions of suicide