{"id":5809,"date":"2012-04-03T13:44:41","date_gmt":"2012-04-03T13:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wemeantwell.com\/blog\/?p=5809"},"modified":"2012-04-03T13:44:41","modified_gmt":"2012-04-03T13:44:41","slug":"state-of-women-in-modern-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wemeantwell.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/03\/state-of-women-in-modern-iraq\/","title":{"rendered":"State of Women in Modern Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following was written by a woman in Iraq to her Twitter followers, an open, raw assessment of her own life and the life of many Iraqi women. Powerful writing, powerful sense of life on the ground for too many women.<\/em>
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Dear Twitter,<\/p>\n

I am writing this message to you because I believe that everyone has had enough of me and my crap ”mind my language”, at least if you got annoyed with me there isn’t anything you can do about it no?<\/p>\n

It’s been two weeks of this Twitter, two weeks of severe soul-killing depression, and I am getting really tired of myself. I have been suffering from depression on and off since I was 17 years old, and here I am; I am 26 years old, a qualified doctor, and yet I fear seeking therapy or counselling because of the social stigma associated with seeking psychiatric help. Once your family and friends learn that you are depressed and you want to seek help they either think that you are mentally ill or simply lack faith in Allah and that’s why you got depressed. I have been hiding what’s been going on with me from everyone I know down here in Iraq, because I do know very well that they’ll judge me and will never view me the same way again, and that’s why I am pretending to be normal infront of everyone here in Iraq, and it is an absolute torture. To say hello and smile at everyone, to treat your patients, to make conversations with your friends, to deal with your family, to do all of that when the only thing you want to do is to crawl to somewhere dark and isolated and cry your eyes out-it’s just torture…<\/p>\n

You know what? The hardest thing to deal with is the guilt. I keep asking myself the whole time ”Why am I depressed when apparantly I have no reason to be depressed?”… I am perfectly healthy, I have a decent job and I do make good money, and yet over the past two weeks I have been praying each night to Allah so that he’d take away my life while I am asleep, but for some unknown reason each time Allah kept turning me down. Take a look at the world Twitter, there’re millions and millions of people out there who lack money, health, jobs. There are many people out there who cannot afford to eat and dress properly. And yet instead of looking at them and thanking Allah for what I already have I go and drown myself in depression, how clever!<\/p>\n

You see Twitter, I am a 26 year old single woman who lives in Baghdad, Iraq. I have no parents and no first degree male relatives. My family (a very traditional Baghdadi family) loves me and wants the best for me, but what they don’t know is that they are suffocating me, the whole time they exert their full control over me and prevent me from being the real me, and that’s breaking my spirit. Each time I ask ”Why can’t I own my life?” I get the usual answer ”It’s because you’re a woman!”. Everyday I die a thousand times, and they won’t listen to me because they think their way of dealing with me is the right way. I just want to be me, I just want to have control over my own life, but they won’t let that happen. You have no idea how much I’m hurting because of this, for me almost everyday is ”I wish if I were a guy” day. I tried to leave Iraq for a while, but that wasn’t possible either, immigration is a very difficult thing to pursue especially if you were an Iraqi because no country wants you, so I’m stuck in my cage.<\/p>\n

I am writing this because I want you to understand the plight of many other Iraqi women who might be even more depressed than I am and yet don’t have the means to express themselves or tell the outside world about their ordeal. You see, we have no functioning mental healthcare system in Iraq, and even if we do we wouldn’t be able to benefit from it freely because let’s face it we’re women so we don’t own our lives…<\/p>\n

After two weeks of pretending to be perfectly normal with everyone and crying my eyes out when I’m behind closed doors I am just too tired, so I had to write this. I am sorry for bothering you Twitter, but I have no other choice. At least with you I won’t have to wear a mask that hides the real me, and I do know that you’d tolerate my rants, I mean Justin Bieber uses you so I believe we’re fine!<\/p>\n

Baghdad, Iraq.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n



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