Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Dear Souad

As usual when i sit there to write something of what i feel, i find myself running in circles in my head on how to put it down. I'll try not do that so this will be too direct and to the point.
I have been abused for four years, I have major trust issues, and I lost faith that the thing people call 'love' exists. I seriously cannot define it anymore, and hence you will never find me talking about it much.
For the past years there hasn't been a time in which i opened my heart and wasn't hurt badly in return. There wasn't a time in which i was dependent on a person and was not deserted in return. There was not a time that i felt something good and wasn't forced to regret it later. There wasn't a time in which i did something i thought was special for a person without that person talking considering it lame and meaningless... maybe i'm over-victimizing myself by rules of common sense, but this is genuinely how i feel. I can never trust a person over these precious things in my life and in myself. I can never feel without worrying what would happen to me next, i'm always waiting for my scoop of ice-cream to fall to the floor. And better yet, I've become less tolerant towards any kind of abuse, even the slightest of bitchiness from anyone strikes memories of everything i've been through for the past four years. I can't go there again ... I can't be that person, and i DEFINITELY cannot allow anyone to a place where there's even the slightest possibility for them to hurt me like that again.
So I'm scared, and i'm sorry but ... i deserve to be.
The feeling i dread most in this world is loneliness ... not just any kind of loneliness ... unfair loneliness ... when u've been deserted in your most critical times of need, in times when u're in most need of support ... when the reasons you hear about yourself are the furthest thing from being true... and when despite all the shit u're in you're treated as if you're guilty when u're not ... and when your deserter apologizes later only to desert you again minutes after ... and when they just come talk as if nothing is wrong, and no harm has been made ... when you're blamed for the existence of things you made clear from day 1. so i'm over sensitive? well then again ... i deserve to be.
I'm sorry but it would take me a LONG while to be able to trust again ... especially with how i've already seen a great deal of my fears re manifest themselves during the past week. I don't think i'm over-reacting ... but seriously, i cannot be hurt again ... especially if it's for nothing wrong i did ... and especially if i don't deserve it ... i cannot allow myself to follow someone else's agenda anymore ... especially with how little appreciation i feel... I need to feel more appreciated in the times of my actual needs ... not when everything falls apart ... i need that to be the norm, not the treat to make me stay a while ...

i don't know what else to say

Kov
Posted by at

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This post has been some time in coming because a lot has happened and I’ve not been able to process it myself, let alone articulate it out loud. But this blog is not dead and he hasn’t killed my voice.

I did not know that he could be so unkind, so cruel and so heartless. I can’t even remember how the argument started- he called me on a Saturday, I was working so did not answer my mobile. He called several more times -14 in total- and I just got annoyed, then he turned to my house phone and it was answered by my housemate. No escaping the inevitable this time. I told him that I was busy, I have my MA thesis to hand in and I hadn’t wanted to be disturbed. I also told him that I was hurt by our last conversation and felt that I couldn’t handle such behaviour at present. That’s when the show really started. “YOU were hurt...YOU were hurt???” He spat at me. “You don’t even know the meaning of hurt” and then he started throwing insults- Fuck this, Fuck that, Fuck the other...you fucking fuck! I didn’t think he would ever use such language with me and I certainly never swear. I asked him to stop talking to me like that but he just ignored my comment. I tried to keep my cool and he just accused me of being cold, heartless and having no emotions. I told him that I didn’t want to argue, that nothing would be solved by losing our tempers. And then he started on my family- my parents were immoral when they were younger –where the heck he gets such an idea from! He called me a slut, a whore, a liar and a hypocrite; he insulted my religion and my beliefs. After that I burst into tears and he seemed to soften, he asked me if we could talk about something else. I was completely incredulous and just said “If you think all those things about me then I don’t think we have anything left to say to each other...we should call it all a day” After that I hung up and I considered that to be that.

Next day he sent me a long email, asking me to forgive him for hurting me, that things could get better...he included so many stupid little things from the last year, times we’d had fun, things that held significance. To me that was salt in the wound and I ignored it.

The following day he tried to call me –thirty six times- I left the house and went to my Dad’s for the weekend where I knew he wouldn’t be able to contact me. He called my friends, my Mom, my brother and sister and they called me to tell me that they were sick of this drama. That evening I got a long email telling me how sorry he was, how we could rebuild things, how we were tied together. He sent me pictures of a friend’s wedding and told me that this could be us! He told me how depressed he was, how he felt moments of utter despair and then times of complete euphoria. He told me how he thought of suicide and how only our life together could give him meaning.

He asked me to spend the summer in Ottawa with him and then Xmas with his family in Vancouver. He dismissed my objections as Wahhabi nonsense and just ‘excuses’. He said that his concept of Islam was that of love and my ‘extreme’ version was an aberration, he told me he didn’t understand my decision to wear hijab, that it was unnecessary and that I would ‘come to my senses’.

I told my Mom and she said that it was worrying, he sounded like he was going through a manic depressive phase (he’s on strong anti depressants) and that I should forward this to his mom so she could help him, perhaps visit him in Ottawa to cheer him up. I did so....no answer for several days.

During that time I was taken ill –blood poisoning and I was stuck in hospital for a week- when I got back I found an email asking me why the heck I’d sent a private email to his mother and that my actions had destroyed his relationship with his family. Oh shit!

What could she have taken such exception to, I wondered?
A day later he forwarded me the email conversation he and his mother had. Turned out he never told her that he had converted and she took this as a betrayal. How could he convert to such a barbaric religion?? She believed in respecting others beliefs but converting?!?!? Was he out of his mind?!?!? I was so shocked.

Unfortunately I had to drag my Mother in to mediate between us, I was still in bed convalescing, trying to get a thesis done and was in no shape for the situation. She tried to persuade him to give me space for a while until I finished my degree, she offered to speak with his mother on his behalf and help her understand Islam a little and maybe accept the choice.

He sent me an email- asking for my apologies. I had apologised as soon as I had found out that my actions ha upset things between him ad his mother so much but he didn’t seem to rcognise that. My mother told him sternly that she knew that I had- she had seen me write the email. He shut up for a few days after that.

Slowly it started again...calls to my brother, extremely frequent visits to my blog and now he’s emailing me stupid poetry and cards commemorating the anniversary of our engagement.

DOESN’T HE GET IT!!!! IT’S OVER!!!! No one who ‘loves’ me could possibly insult me and my family in such a way! I do not want to marry someone who lives a lie, who tells his parents one thing and me another....it is now clear why he took such exception to me wearing hijab, without it he could pass me off as ‘civilised and western’!!!







In response to your recent blog entry I would like to assert a few things. First: I am terribly sorry for the pain and hurt I have caused you. I am sorry for the 'drama' of the situation. However, I do feel that you really should have been more honest with me, then I could've understood. Perhaps being more honest with yourself would have achieved this.

1) I never called 14 times. I did call a number of times on a Friday, a Friday well before the horrendous lashing out I lashed onto you. If you recall, you chose not to answer for no particular reason. In fact, just two days prior to that you had mentioned you wanted spontaneity, and I tried to play to your erratic temperament. You see, dear reader Amira/Arima Ha Ana Za became pregnant by me prior to her new found religiosity. She had not mentioned that she stopped taking the pill, and I did not use protection--I had never used protection with Amira for she had always been on the pill. Also, you must understand that prior to this fit, we had spoken everyday because Amira was pregnant and wanted to hear my voice to help her relax, calm down and alleviate her anxieties. I offered her as much help as I possibly could, and she very gratefully took it all. Then unbeknown to me, she decided to end communication once she became healthy. I felt and still do like a used wet towel, discarded once finished with.



2)I never spat you. I never have and never will.



3)I never said your parents were immoral. I asked about their relationship prior to getting married. How you dramatise this into saying I insulted your family is beyond me.



4) I never called you a slut or a whore. I have never done so and never would. That is an outright lie.



5) I questioned your religion and your beliefs because you failed to explain any of these drastic changes that had taken place in the past two months. If you spoke to me rather than your blog people or friends, family, etc. than things could be resolved. But you told everyone else and never me.



6) This email you refer to I believe I sent you two weeks before. It was in fact a poem. I had no idea that you hated me at that point. I certainly did no deserve it then, though I understand why you would now.



7) I never EVER called you 36 times. That is an outright lie. I did call you a number of times on a Sunday evening, a week after the lashing out. I called your phone 4 times, and house phone twice, the second time you hung up on me.



8) I sent you a long email as an explanation, trying to sort out what had taken place. We are tied together because you killed our child.



9) Pictures of our friends' wedding were sent well before the lashing out.



10)The moments of euphoria and despair were feelings I had about our relationship. The despair feeling was the abortion.



11) I told you I felt suicidal in October. I never said how our life together could bring meaning, you arrogantly insinuating that I would commit suicide without you.



12)I never asked you to spend the summer with me in Ottawa. Rather, I asked you to come and visit as you had promised me you would after I visited you in March, after you'd had the abortion.



13) I did dismiss your objections but not because of Wahabism, or thinking you are a Wahabi. Rather, I dismissed them because a) you lied to me for why you would not visit me (money) and b) because you failed to explain your changing emotions. If you recall many months before you did plan on spending the summer with me, you also planned on moving to Canada upon completing your MSt.



14) I never criticised your wearing the hijab and have never made those horrible comments about the hijab, or taking on the hijab. Rather, as I explained to you a thousand times I PERSONALLY FEEL THE HIJAB HAS A LOT OF POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE IE. HAS BEEN POLITICISED TO THE POINT WHERE IT HAS LOST ITS MEANING. (Read your Ha Ana Za blog entry on the hijab).



15) I am not on strong anti-depressants, yes I am on anti-depressants but they are as strong as yours, darling.



16) I am sorry you were in the hospital during this time. I did not know you were in the hospital for you chose not to tell me anything.



17) My Mother reacted the way she did because she was hurt. I am her best friend and I deceived her by not telling her. I did not tell her because I have not been around my parents for any length of time in the past 4 years. I wanted to tell them face to face so we could have a conversation to it. I told you many times that I did not tell my parents.



18) I did not send you an email asking for your apologies. I phoned you and left a message stating I was hurt that you had not sent me an email with apologies for ruining my relationship with my mother. It turned out that I simply did not get your email but once you forwarded it to another account I did receive it. Apologies for the confusion.



19) I have never called your brother. We spoke a number of times on skype, sometimes about you, sometimes about girls, school, exams. He was my friend, so I thought.



20) Stupid poetry was in fact Nizar Qabbani, from the book you gave me. I have checked your blog frequently, in part to see what you're writing about (that is how this relationship began, by conversing about ideas) and also because you have a number of excellent website connections, especially those for the Arabic language, a language that is not that easy to learn for us ajnabis.



21) I explained my rationale for telling my parents one thing. How is it possible that you accepted my proposal, planned to marry me, became pregnant with our child, had an abortion, lived with me for a month in Exeter, spent countless hours enjoying the sun and the moon with me and NEVER NEVER told your father anything about your 'other' life about your fiance, the ajnabi.



22) I am not an orientalist, and am insulted that you paint me in such a light. I have spent the last 7/8 years of my life defending arabs and the middle east against orientalists. I have travelled in the ME, I am learning Arabic, I wish to become an ME librarian. On the other, Amira you visited me in Canada, asked if we could go to the United States, bought countless books about Arabs and still have never learned anything about Canada, Canadian culture. You have also dismissed my heritage numerous times calling the Irish ungrateful for their nonacceptance of British occupation.



I get it, it is over. I am sorry for invading your privacy like this. However, as you continue to let think there is hope by saying you love me from time to time I feel this is the best forum for this. For I have discovered your duplicity in dealing with me as a friend, a lover, a person you once were prepared to marry, a person who almost became the father of your first born.

Good-bye, salamtik, ma asalamah, may God be kind to you, and finally I hope you never endure the suffering you have caused me. I apologise for the hurtful and regretful things I did to you in one conversation.

Sunday, 08 June, 2008

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)