Monday Matter: Dispatch from group therapy

Back after a brief hiatus, today's letter is public.

Every other Monday, I send subscribers and gift recipients of immigrant mental health and storytelling newsletter Foreign Bodies stories I recently inhaled and adored. This is also a chance to do some housekeeping and give shout-outs and all that jazz. Today’s issue, a departure from the typical Monday letter, is public.

Dispatch from group therapy

In December, during an off-week with my own therapist, I joined a virtual group healing session with Sane in the Membrane holistic therapist Amenah Arman, also the founder of the Palestinian Mental Health Fund. It was a group of about eight of us signing on from our beds or couches on a dark, bitter weeknight. More than half in attendance were Palestinian, and I believe all identified as Muslim in varying capacities.

It had been just a few days since Israeli bombardment resumed following a temporary ceasefire, just a few days since I had two teeth pulled from my mouth at an emergency dentistry practice an hour from home. In my desperation, I clicked to join a room of grieving strangers hoping for some validation for the way my body has been reacting to the live-streamed genocide of Palestinians and the subsequent gaslighting and denial of such terror — for answers to how the hell I can sustain this fight without my body just falling to pieces, without quite literally losing my teeth.

Physical (or somatic) symptoms are common when experiencing secondary trauma, Amenah tells us. The coffee suddenly stops working, the fogginess prevails. Sleep is a dream, and food is either a dangerous salve or an afterthought. And yes, it can go beyond exhaustion and fatigue, even to the point of deep aches in our bones and nerves. This is the grief of injustice, she says. And everyone on this call, she adds, is holding the weight of collective grief with the weight of advocacy. Our nervous systems are on fire, telling us to run, but there’s nowhere to go.

The only thing that will ground us as we live in a heightened state of hopelessness, she says, is community. Like the space we’ve created tonight, to start. Beyond the horrors themselves, it’s the resentment we feel toward those happily existing in their alternate realities, not to mention the alienation from institutions, leaders, our neighbors or ex-friends, that brings our bodies to a halt. You must look to people who understand, where you feel welcome, she says.

One recently-immigrated father on the call says he doesn’t know how to manage their family’s assimilation in America without alienating their Palestinian identity and the plight of their own.

It’s not that we should be removing our children from Western society, Amenah says to him. But in this specific time, if our children are suffering, they need to cling to community so they are not always in spaces where they have to do the work of educating or convincing. That weight alone, especially when unacknowledged or unheard, can break a soul. Once we know we have a community to lean on, we find it easier to integrate without losing ourselves.

I realized in that moment that, for the past several months, I had been doing the work of trying to educate and convince people still adamant on holding neutral, socially copacetic stances. And in that moment, I also decided to stop responding to their messages, to try and put my energy elsewhere. This was so difficult for someone whose conviction is really a guiding force in my every encounter. But I followed Amenah’s and my own therapist’s advice and zeroed in on sustaining the fight in me.

I began reading even more, protesting even more, writing even more — but made sure I was doing this all while in community with others. I joined a writing class with Fariha Roísín, volunteered at local events for Palestine, hugged familiar faces at protests, cried with friends, and stopped scrolling two hours before bed so the nightmares would stop, so I could muster up the physical strength to make it out to the next rally. I am still breaking apart every now and then, and fuck, I am still so damn angry. But slowly, very slowly, I’m learning to embrace the fight for a Free Palestine and for liberation for all as the long game it is and has always been.

I want to say thank you to everyone who has reached out during my hiatus from the newsletter. I have not responded to you all, but I intend to. You are part of the community Amenah told me and the others on that group therapy session to seek out, and I hope I can be a small part of yours.

Resource(s) of the week

Something helpful and interesting and cool (*storytelling opportunity)

• Pitch call for Misinformation in Immigrant Communities: The Markup is seeking pitches for stories on how misinformation impacts immigrant communities, especially non-native English speakers, in the United States, as a part of our “Languages of Misinformation” series. Pay: $1/word.

• Acacia Magazine: A new magazine of politics and culture for the Muslim left. The first issue features a news story by Naib Mian about the rise of homophobia among certain Muslim American communities, an interview with Mariame Kaba about how Islam informs her abolitionist organizing, short fiction by Mariam Rahmani, cultural criticism by Shamira Ibrahim, a personal essay by Sarah Aziza on growing up in an interfaith household, poetry by Safia Elhillo and Fariha Roísín, and more.

• Publishers for Palestine: A global solidarity collective

• Gaza eSims: Purchasing eSims allows people within Gaza to connect to the outside to communicate with their families during communications blackouts and also to show what’s happening within Gaza

What I’ve been reading lately

Stories and essays I’m loving, with an emphasis on decolonized readings for Palestine

• The Price of a Father’s Labor (Jamil Jan Kochai, The New Yorker): “He was the ideal immigrant. The American Dream personified. And yet, the moment his broken body could no longer be exploited for its labor, he was doubted and ignored and humiliated.” A gutting, beautiful essay about how America treats its laborers, and especially its migrant and marginalized workers. Read here.

• Palestine and the Power of Language (Elena Dudum, TIME): “In today’s near-constant news cycle on Gaza, Palestinians seem to die at the hands of an invisible executioner. Palestinians are shot dead. Palestinians starve. Palestinian children are found dead. But where is there accountability?” A must-read on grammar as a tool of the oppressor. Read here.

• This Is What They Call It Now (Mary Turfah, Protean Mag): “These same sources that don’t hesitate to circulate Israeli propaganda to manufacture consent for our extermination, concern themselves with facts once the facts are no longer of material consequence—a cheap attempt to reestablish their own credibility.” Mary Turfah brilliantly writes about her ancestors’ town of Salha, massacred and renamed by Israel during the Nakba — and the politics of narrative framing. Read here.

• There Is No Moral Imperative to be Miserable (James Creig, Mental Hellth): “It’s obvious, banal even, that the kind of world we live in has a strong structuring effect on our mental health, and that certain aspects of capitalism—exploitation, domination, loneliness—are especially likely to cause distress,” writes Scottish writer James Greig. “But when it comes to depression and anxiety, we have become stuck in a false dichotomy of either affording people too much agency (the idea you should pull yourselves up by the bootstraps and maybe start journaling) or far too little—capitulating to the idea that you are doomed to unhappiness based on your relation to capital and that there can be no respite from this on an individual level. While good intentions lie behind the tendency to blame capitalism for our mental health woes, leaning too heavily into the idea has unintended consequences. When you’re depressed, rationalizing your way out of getting better is the last thing you should be doing. It doesn’t matter how well-researched or even objectively correct those rationalizations might be.” An appreciated analysis of universalized mental health issues and shared reliance on theoretical solutions to our woes. Read here.

• It Was All Songs: A Letter From Gaza (Nabil S. and translated from Arabic by Sarah Aziza, Mizna): “Our talking—it was all songs, a bit of poetry, letters made of kisses, the eagerness of a lover, and a torment of longing. The talk was hope and the talk was life. It was hours on the phone, and friends always nearby, and coffee—my darling, there was coffee! And when we drank, we sipped it—truly, we sipped. But if any coffee remains, it is by sheer coincidence. Even this precious, scarce coffee, this bon1 is overshadowed by another word—ton. A ton of explosives, a ton of lies about ‘aid,’ and where is the watan, the homeland? My dear life, I’m still searching, little by little, for shelter, or what they call a “tent.” And in the midst of searching for hope for this human soul, all forms of humanity are falling away from us. Yet humanity is within us. And inside us, there is a dignity we can choose…” It feels like a high honor to get to read this letter from Sarah’s cousin, Nabil S., who is currently writing to her from Gaza. Read here.

In the news

Relevant news coverage that doesn’t really fall under the larger Foreign Bodies mission to de-stigmatize through personal storytelling, but is still essential reading for anyone who wants to stay up-to-date on immigrant and refugee mental health and well-being.

• Georgia State University Expands Mental Health Support for Refugee, Immigrant and Migrant Communities (GSU News): Now that the pilot program for The Georgia RIM Mental Health Alliance is complete, researchers have begun applying what they’ve learned to serve more people. In addition to providing one-on-one counseling, the expanded program will offer group-based psychoeducation, which combines elements of cognitive behavioral therapy, group therapy and education. To help address issues rooted in housing and food insecurity or lack of employment opportunities, researchers are also connecting with campus and community partners with the goal of adding support from social workers. Read here.

• For Chicago's new migrants, informal support groups help ease the pain and trauma (Kristen Schorsch, NPR): “More than 30,000 migrants and asylum seekers have arrived in Chicago since August of 2022 — most of them from South and Central America,” reports Schorsch. Social workers say they’re in survival mode, and are focused on getting their basic needs met. But informal support groups led by volunteers and mental health professionals are popping up in shelters, storefronts, churches and schools to help migrants cope with the loss and trauma they’re ignoring. Ignoring these issues can have a lasting impact on their well-being and brain health, experts say. Read here.

• Sixteen percent of Philadelphians are immigrants. How easy is it to get mental health care in their native languages? (Massarah Mikati, Aseem Shukla & Jasen Lo, The Inquirer): “Mental health professionals are largely in agreement that sharing a language, particularly the patient’s native language, can deeply impact the therapeutic experience for the client and the client’s relationship with the provider,” according to The Inquirer’s team of mental health reporters. “Sharing a native language not only provides more room for connection between the patient and provider, but also allows for the patient to better articulate emotions.” Read here. | Also read: Finding and hiring bilingual therapists in Metro Atlanta is a struggle. (285 South)

+1

One sorta unrelated story on my mind

• Jack Sprat’s Wife (Kristin Kovacic, Slate): “How do you love someone, not to mention make love to someone, whom you persistently envy? How do you set aside the bitterness you never asked to carry without placing it on his slender shoulders? I suspect I’m not the only lover who’s toggled between desire and resentment in the dark, and if there’s a diet to control this habit of mind, no one ever told me about it.” I love an unhinged, well-written marriage or divorce essay, OK? Read here.

Bookshelf

Books and collections I’m currently reading (plus reader-recommended works!)

• Just finished: Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, a novel told in complementary essays that takes place in a Tokyo coffee shop where patrons can go back in time so long as they return before the coffee gets cold

• Currently reading: The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See, a novel set in a remote Chinese mountain village exploring themes of mothers and daughters, tradition and more

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Special thanks to our growing Foreign Bodies Sustaining Members for keeping this newsletter going through all my ups and downs