leilll

[leilll]

never the loudest in the room. always the most observant.

[leilll]

23 May 2025,

For years, I’ve carried depression inside me not as a passing phase, but as a companion rooted deep in my heart.

I walked with it.

I traveled long distances with it.

I bore it like a weight that could never be set down.

But this time, this time is different.

This time, I don’t just carry it.

I breathe it in.

It fills my lungs with every inhale and clings to every exhale, and still it never leaves.

It’s been more than a year now, and I’ve lived with a single, unshakable desire:

To die.

Every single day.

Can you imagine waking up in the morning, and the very first feeling that hits you is the wish not to exist?

Breathing feels like a burden as if the air goes out but refuses to come back in.

Like even oxygen doesn’t want to stay in your chest.

None of this shows.

Not in my wide smile, not in my colorful photos, not in the fake lightness people swore I had.

They said I was delicate, light as a butterfly.

But inside, I’ve been carrying mountains.

With depression, you try everything.

You pray not out of peace or faith, but out of desperation, begging for your heart to soften, for your soul to find rest.

You take the meds.

You follow the doctor’s advice.

You try being alone, then around people, then lost in crowds hoping the noise might drown out the silence inside you.

But nothing works.

You cry a lot, and you don’t even know why.

There’s no clear wound to point to, nothing you can name and say, “This is what’s wrong. Fix this, and I’ll be okay.”

You walk for no reason.

And sometimes, a thought will whisper: “What if I just stood in front of that car right now?”

You’ll be chopping vegetables with a knife and wonder, “What’s the point of this life?”

You’ll think about it.

But you won’t do anything because the truth is, you’re too afraid to go through with it.

Depression isn’t sadness.

It’s life slowly draining out of you, breath by breath, until you no longer recognize the person inside your skin.

It’s a voice that won’t shut up.

And everything inside you is screaming while your mouth stays quiet.

And I, I don’t see a way out.

[leilll]

11 APR 2025

The Art of disappearing..

Trying to figure myself out…

It’s been more than half my life now, and I’m still not done.

It all started with PTSD and a deep depression, the kind of trauma that shakes your whole being, leaves nothing standing. I like to describe it as something that wipes everything out and leaves nothing behind.

Most of my beliefs feel shaky now, like there’s a clear "before" and "after" in my life.

But the weird part? I can't even remember what life was like "before."

Was I happy? Content? I honestly don't know.

I struggle to let my feelings out.

My thoughts are all over the place. I can’t organize my thoughts at all. My mind is a mess.

And yet, I talk a lot. I’m one of those people who can go on for hours about random stuff—but when it comes to my actual feelings, my real thoughts? Total silence.

Everyone who knows me has struggled to keep up with the way I tell stories. Nothing ever flows in a straight line. And I’ve struggled too—just to be accepted.

Sometimes I write like it’s a silent scream for help.

Other times I write just to convince myself that if it’s written, it’s done with.

But... is anything ever really done with?

It’s been a long road, and along the way, I’ve lost a lot.

Dreams, goals, people. they’ve all fallen away, one by one.

That’s the part that stings the most.

My relationships with people were always built on what I showed them.

And the moment I got tired of pretending and let even a little of the real me show… that was the end (GAME OVER).

Rejection doesn’t always come with harsh words or being abandoned in your darkest moments.

Sometimes it’s just in the look in someone’s eyes and then, boom, it’s over.

I’ve spent years battling depression.

Sometimes I fight, sometimes I let it win.

I developed a bunch of coping mechanisms over time.

At first, I just let the depression drown me, like a slow death with no actual dying.

Then I switched to keeping myself constantly busy, just enough to wear my brain out till it shut off on its own.

Those were my “glory years”, three years of nothing but studying, working, and sometimes the gym.

Then came another three where I crashed again, slipped back into depression, lost everything, all over again.

People only saw the strong version of me, while I was falling apart piece by piece.

Did I completely fall apart? I’m not even sure anymore.

I’ve given everything for just one tiny moment of real happiness… but I never seem to get there.

I honestly don’t remember the last time I had a normal, healthy connection with anyone.

Even with the people I lived with I’d go days, sometimes months, barely saying more than “morning” or “goodnight,” or just paying what needed to be paid.

In the last ten years out of my not -yet- thirty years of life my biggest talent has been disappearing.

I disappear so well that sometimes people forget I was ever there.

Like maybe I’m just a made-up person in someone’s head.

Nothing has ever come easy in my life.

And sometimes, that makes me want to just break down and cry.

Antidepressants? I’ve been through a whole shelf of them. Didn’t do much.

It’s always been hard to explain what I’m going through.

That constant feeling of being misunderstood slowly morphs into something worse, The feeling of being invisible.

So many sleepless nights where I wanted nothing but death.

The nightmares won’t stop.

There’s no such thing as peaceful sleep.

Only the sleep of the anxious.

And then you get the “you’re overreacting” crew. who mock or downplay your pain.

How’s someone who sleeps 7–8 hours a night gonna understand what it’s like to barely sleep 2 hours, to go days without proper rest, afraid of falling asleep because of the nightmares, living a life that’s just nonstop headaches and exhaustion?

At first, your therapist tells you that depression hits smart people the hardest.

But after a while, when your focus is shot, your brain’s all foggy, and you can’t remember basic stuff—you start doubting if you’re smart at all.

You start redefining who you are—with no achievements to hang onto.

Can you see what depression does to the people you love?

Honestly? Most of the time, no.

Because the longer it lasts, the more you learn how to hide it—how to play a version of yourself that others are comfortable with.

All just to avoid the constant “talk” about how you’re feeling.

Those same old words that never really describe anything.

They don’t help.

Does this ever end?

Is there even a life without this damn depression?

I don’t know.

And I don’t have much hope.

Sometimes, I wonder if it ever did go away, would I even know how to live without it?

I don’t remember what life before it felt like.

I don’t know what it’s like to feel calm.

All I know is jaw clenching, and teeth grinding day and night,

avoiding family, friends, and anyone who loves me, curling into myself like I’m trying to disappear.

Of course I write all of this in English, to make it feel a little less harsh, like always. That’s one of my talents too, I guess.

[leilll]

04 APR 2025

I spent my whole life with my family, and I’m not just feeling this I’m pretty sure of it: their love always came with conditions. One condition really, that I had to be perfect all the time, no room for mistakes. I was never allowed to mess up, ever. Even the smallest slip-ups, way smaller than what my peers did, were treated like huge failures. Every mistake meant I was a disappointment, that they deserved better kids. That was my dad’s favorite line in every argument.

Everything was always about them, never about me. Every single thing in life was tied to whether they succeeded in raising us, whether they’d go to heaven or be punished because of us, whether society would judge them for having kids like us. And because of that, I spent my whole life chasing this impossible idea of perfection. Anything less than perfect drains me, even though I know life doesn’t work that way.

Now I’m stuck in this endless cycle of guilt and self-blame over everything. My therapist keeps telling me CBT alone won’t be enough, that I need to go back to my psychiatrist because I’m in a really bad place with depression. That the only way I’ll get through this is with stronger meds—the kind that turn me into a numb, lifeless thing that’s barely functioning.

I spent all of last week, including the Eid holiday, with them. I barely slept, just anxious, waking up every little while in a panic, checking if my phone was still next to me, terrified they might have taken it away because my relative told them I don’t wear hijab anymore. I’ve grown up, moved out, become completely independent, faced some of the worst things life can throw at me alone, and yet I’m still scared of them finding out. Scared of facing violence again, and this time, it won’t be like before.

I’m scared of losing their conditional love. I’m scared something bad will happen to them. I’m scared of our society and how they’ll be judged. And now I’m wondering—should I just go back to wearing hijab out of fear? Just like I wore it for years out of fear?

Is the issue really about the hijab itself, or is it about me constantly begging for their acceptance? Is it about always having to bargain for my basic right to choose(starting with my own appearance, and everything else that follows?)

I’ve spent years waking up every day wishing I could just disappear rather than live this double life. And I don’t think I can keep going like this.

[leilll]

Loneliness, always.

Every guy who tries to get close, once he gets what he wants, he disappears. And if I don’t give it to him? He disappears anyway, 'cause it was never real to begin with.

Then there’s the others, the ones who stick around for a bit… until they catch wind that I’ve been diagnosed with bipolar spectrum. Then they run. Fast.

Is it like this for everyone with this disorder?

Did loneliness swallow them up too? Did sadness eat them alive, the way it’s eating me?

[leilll]

Dancing makes me feel like a woman, that feeling I’ve spent my whole life running from. I still remember hiding my breast when I first hit puberty, not wanting anyone to notice I was becoming a woman. I hid it as much as I could. But how long can you really hide something like that?

Femininity always felt like weakness to me. My mom never left the life she hated because she was weak. Did having me force her to stay? I don’t know if she would’ve actually left, but she told me my existence made her weaker.

The first time I was harassed, I was 9 years old. A tiny, helpless kid, violated by a man with a disability. I don’t mean to disrespect disabled people, but I couldn’t even fight back. I was just a child, I didn’t understand what was happening, but I knew it was wrong. I knew I was powerless. Powerless against a man who couldn’t even walk properly. Do you have any idea how weak that made me feel?

Was that the first time? I doubt it.

There’s this image that keeps haunting me. No matter how much I try to escape it, it finds me every time I close my eyes. I don’t even know if it’s real, but why would my mind create something so disgusting if it never happened?

A blurry, hazy, terrifying picture that makes me feel completely unsafe. Once again, I was helpless.

All these horrible memories have one thing in common, I was a weak woman.

God, I hated being a girl for so many years.

When I dance, I feel my body resisting, stiff when it should be soft, but still trying. I try to shake all of this off me.

[leilll]

I love playing puzzles, putting the pieces together until they form a complete picture, nothing missing. It’s been my favorite game since I was a kid, and it still is.

When I look at my life now, I feel like I'm a puzzle piece, one that looks like so many others but only fits in one specific place. No matter how much you try to make it work with other pieces, it just won’t fit.

Lately, I feel like a lost puzzle piece that doesn’t belong in the picture at all, not in this one, not in any. And that hurts.

[leilll]

يارب ولاد العرص اللي بيقولوا للناس كلام جارح ومش في دماغهم الناس بتتأثر وتزعل ازاي يموتوا ونرتاح من دين ابوهم، الواحد تعب.

[leilll]

So it’s my birthday! I feel extremely overwhelmed, maybe even hopeless about everything. I can’t quite put my feelings into words right now. This past year has been unbelievably tough on me so tough that sometimes I can’t even process it, and that makes me cry. I don’t want to cry on my birthday night. I’ve always loved my birthday, always loved how my parents tell the story of the day I was born and why my dad chose this name specifically for me. God, I love that man.

But this year feels different. I don’t remember ever crying on my birthday night, except for the year after my brother passed away, when it finally hit me that he was gone forever, like our days together had only existed in my head.

So much has happened this year, so much that breaks me down every time I think about it. I’ve felt the full weight of Cairo’s harshness, everything its name holds in terms of harshness. Completely alone. Did I choose this loneliness? Maybe. But what I do know is that I no longer recognize myself around people.

I’ve lost touch with everyone I was once close to. Depression has consumed me piece by piece until I can only find myself in my own bed. That’s the only place I feel any sense of peace.

Life is all about choices, and I know I chose this. Paying the price is just part of the experience, no doubt, but it’s more than tough.

No wishes, except for peace and satisfaction.

[leilll]

Whatever will be, will be..

[leilll]

About a year and a half ago, I decided to break out of the isolation I had lived in for almost three years and see what the dating scene was like. I went on a date with someone—I have no idea where he is now or even remember anything about him. We were talking about tattoos, and I mentioned a line from a song that I wanted to get tattooed on my back: "طائر غادر عشه, طائر لا يبالي الخطر..." He surprised me by writing it down for me—he was really good at calligraphy. I loved how it looked, so I framed it and hung it in my room. I spend hours just staring at that frame.

Did I really leave the nest? Do I really fear no danger? It seems like I did leave, but the truth is, the nest never really left me. I care—I care with every part of me.

But oh, how much I wish I could be that bird—free, unchained, fearless. Sometimes I think that being unafraid of anything means you've experienced losing everything and made peace with it. But that’s not the case for me. If anything, I’ve lost everything over and over again, yet I’ve never accepted it.

How can someone be fearless if they’re still holding on?

"ما زالك بلا شي, ما فيك تخسر شي وأنا مليت من عشرة نفسي..."

I got nothing, yet fear still won’t let me go. I’m really sick of being stuck with myself—bored out of my mind, lost in dark roads I never thought I’d walk.

[leilll]

Always end up trying to approach the wrong guy! so fuckin dumb as usual!!!

[leilll]

I’ve discovered that I never truly knew what safety meant, except in his arms. But I doubt all my feelings. I can’t tell, at all, if what I felt was real or if my mind created it because that’s what I needed, even though it gave me nothing!!

Do you see where I’ve gotten? I can’t know if my feelings were real or if I just knew him during a manic episode under the influence of drugs and alcohol, and I convinced myself I loved him, that he was *safety —the answer I was searching for?

Can you imagine that I’ve resorted to alcohol so I don’t kill myself? Can you see what a miserable state I’m in?

The last time I drank alcohol was two days ago, and it turned into a hysterical crying fit because I saw you die again in my nightmare. You die, and everyone treats it like it’s something normal, and I’m sobbing with all my heart!! Why do I have to keep seeing this over and over as if one death wasn’t enough? Do you know how many times I’ve seen this nightmare since you left?

I can’t remember that you and I, all those years we spent together in one house as brother and sister, ever hugged each other, not even once? How is that possible? How can I miss a hug I don’t even know the meaning of? How did you die without me hugging you? How did you die so suddenly without me seeing you, without knowing that you were going to die, and that this movie, which I don’t even remember, was the last one we watched together? Siblings don’t leave like that.

Throughout my life, I never saw my dad cry, not even once. He was always the image of the strong man who feared nothing. Do you know when I saw him cry for the first time? The day my uncle, his older brother, died. He hid his face with his hand while he was lying in bed and cried, like a little child lost for the first time. The strange thing is, he cried as if he was lost, even though he was in his fifties!

That’s how I felt, but without tears. I didn’t have enough tears for your loss. I couldn’t. This is the extent of losing a sibling, and you weren’t just any sibling. You were my world, the world that crumbled and disappeared the moment you were gone.

What can I tell you? How can I share all these years in just one message? I feel like a tormented soul, born into misery and will die into it. Can you come to me in just one dream, just to soothe me, so I feel that you’re here again? Sometimes, that’s all I want. To feel that you’re here again.

I want to tell you about those who let me down, those who took advantage of your absence to hurt me, those who used me, and those I let use me, hoping for just one moment of love or safety. I long for love and safety, thirsting for them as if my brain rejects any other kind of emotion.

I want to tell you about failure, success, and the loneliness, and what it has done to me. I want us to go back to the roof of our old house, stay up late there, and tell you everything without feeling afraid.

Do you know that I still feel afraid, even though you’re dead, of how satisfied or angry you would be with me for what I do with my life? Do you realize how miserable my life is, that your approval or disapproval is the center of my world, even in your absence?

I want to know from you, at the moment of your death, did you feel loneliness? Pain? Was it a brief moment, or did you suffer? Do you know how many nights I spent crying, afraid that you felt lonely then? Do you know how many times I wished I could’ve been there, no matter how hard it would’ve been for me, but if your death was inevitable, then don’t die alone without a hand to hold yours and ease your pain!

I know you died and it’s over, and that’s something I’ll never know, no matter how much I try. But it hurts that you were alone, and I don’t know what you felt then or what you wanted.

Ah ya raby, how I long to see you, to fall into your arms, and cry until this pain is gone from my heart. I don’t want you to leave, and I don’t want to forget you or lose you in my memories. I hold on to you, even if it hurts like the soul leaving the body.

Do you know how I felt the day you left? I felt like God had abandoned me, like He no longer saw me or heard me! Do you know how hard that was? To know you are alone in this world with your back exposed, without any reference or ground to stand on! My faith in everything shook from that moment. But should I object? Of course not, who among us can refuse fate? To feel pain that cannot be stopped.

[leilll]

The last session I had with my therapist was on January 3rd. She asked me to write about you—or rather, to write to you. I don’t even know what to call it—a goodbye letter, or just a message? I have no idea. She asked me to imagine you being here one last time, that I could see you and hold you as if you were alive. What would I tell you?

A man who once took advantage of this unhealed wound—his only redeeming quality, I guess—once told me that I shouldn’t write before bed so I wouldn’t have nightmares about the things I’ve always run away from. But here we are, January 28th, and my session, the one I’ve postponed so many times, is supposed to be tomorrow—or not tomorrow but today, after work, considering the new day has technically started.

All month, I’ve tried again and again to write, but I always end up writing about everything except this letter. Would you believe me if I told you my mind is completely blank, with no coherent sentence that could carry any meaning?

BRAIN FOG… Do you know what "brain fog" means? And why did I specifically choose this name for my writings about this journey? That’s exactly what’s happening in my mind—just fog.

I can sense that there’s so much to write about, so much to tell you, but the moment I start writing, I find nothing. Just fog.

So many tangled and complicated thoughts, as if every sentence I try to form only gives me one hollow word, meaningless without its pair. That’s how I feel without you—like my existence has no meaning.

Most likely, any attempt to write will just end in hysterical crying, and I won’t write anything at all. Did you know this has been the closed loop I’ve been stuck in for eleven and a half years?

I keep repeating the same scenario: I feel like I’m drowning in depression and suicidal thoughts, I get scared of the idea of actually ending it, so I run to therapy. They ask me to write about you, and then I break down and run away. Then I start thinking about suicide again, and the cycle repeats.

I’m in pain, but I can’t describe it. My heart feels like it’s being crushed, but I can’t find the right words to express this pain as it truly feels inside me.

If I could see you one last time, I would absolutely touch your face with my eyes closed, just to memorize your features without needing any pictures.

Did you know I never kept a picture of you on my phone? Not because I don’t like remembering you—no, it’s because I don’t want to forget you. I want to remember how you looked when you got excited, when you were angry, when you smiled, and even when you were scared—without needing a picture.

I miss you, as if the world emptied of everyone the moment you were gone.

Do you know how much my life has changed? Do you see me from where you are? Do you feel me?

If you were here, would you comfort me and hold my hand? Would you still love me as if nothing about me had changed?

Would anything about me have been different if you had never left?

I can’t say for sure that you would’ve still loved me. Acceptance doesn’t belong here—in our family, in our tribe, in our society. And you were definitely a part of it.

I’m so angry at you for not saving me in my nightmares. You don’t answer me, you don’t even look at me. Even when I scream and the darkness tears me apart, you don’t move.It’s as if your death severed all ties between us completely. Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen?

So why am I still trapped in the moment of losing you, consciously or unconsciously, as if I’ve been locked inside it?

I always remember you smiling—that innocent smile of yours that reminds me I’m no longer as innocent as you were.

Sometimes, I wonder if you weren’t as angelic as I imagine you now, but I’ve made you into something sacred because I love you, because I miss you, and because you’re gone.

But you left, and you left me all alone.

Do you realize how lonely I am? Do you know what loneliness has done to me?

Can you see the consequences of my life being nothing but you—and the moment you were gone, everything lost its meaning, and my connection to people was severed?

Sometimes, I wonder if I’ve gone mad. I talk to myself in my head far more than I talk to people.

People complain about how often I zone out, and I even start believing that the things I’ve only said in my mind are real.

This might seem like a message of reproach or blame for a fate you didn’t create, but I’m angry, sad, and more than that—hopeless.

I want to tell you about everything that happened in the past years. I want to feel safe. If you were really here, alive, would you give me the safety I’m hoping for? I’m sorry, but I’m almost certain the answer is no.

But I still want to tell you everything. I’ve started forgetting so much of my story. You don’t know about the forgetfulness and lack of focus that hit me. Can you believe that the one with the "steel memory," as you used to call me, can’t remember most parts of her story? It’s not someone else’s story, even!

True, I’ve lost most of the details, names, and places, but I still feel the same pain, with the same intensity.

[leilll]

You can't imagine how much loneliness can turn you into a pathetic mess. Somehow, every problem I have ties back to feeling alone. Every guy I've been with, every messed-up "relationship" with a name or without one—it's all because of loneliness. Every lame joke I cracked just to make my coworkers laugh, hoping they'd let me in, came from loneliness. Every dumb shopping decision that left me broke afterward was because of loneliness. Everything I've done, on purpose or not, if I dig deep enough, I’ll always find loneliness smirking at me, like it’s won.

[leilll]

[leilll]

why are all interesting women here completely straight? and are you one of them..?

Dumb, and yeah, I’m one of those dumbasses.