Chapter 9: Free Fall

The excitement and happiness with the revolution of 2011 waned completely for me and others by the arrival of 2013. At this point the counter-revolution proved very strong and we simply came to realise the society was not ready for what we called for during the revolution: bread, liberty and social justice. One might wonder what society would not be ready for such simple principles and demands?! My dear friend, the Egyptian society was definitely not ready. The Muslim Brotherhood was in power and they had the majority in the parliament. The society was divided and everything just seemed grim and dim and unhappy. I, among others, went back to my daily life routine. I wake up, go to work, eat, hang out with my friends and bitch about everything, go to bed and the cycle repeats the following day. Personally speaking I was at one of the lowest points of my life. My career was stagnant, I had no stable relationships and my friends kept disappearing one after the other for different reasons. My sphere of friends shrank significantly. Every night we would go to “Happy City” rooftop bar, drink until drunk and watch life go by. The stagnation of daily life was briefly disturbed in June 2013 when the masses went to the street to ask the president to launch early presidential elections. The Islamist president answer was to gather all the extremists and radicals of Salafi Islam in the Cairo stadium to give a fiery and divisive speech against Shiia Muslims and to support Syria. The immediate result of this speech was the gruesome lynching on June 23, 2013. An angry mob torched Shiia residences in the small village of Zawyat Abu Musalam in Giza , killing four citizens, including Hasan Shehata, a prominent Shii cleric who was visiting one of the families in the village when the attack took place. By the 30th of June the people declared massive sit-in to force the president into early elections. He refused again and suggested that he also has supporters that, with one signal, are capable of waging a civil war. In 48 hours the military coup, that came with General Abdulfattah El-Sisi, took place. Sisi then would become a national hero and the country would be ruled by military fascism, until now. In August of the same year I was sure the conscience of the society was dead when people celebrated the Rabaa massacre. I just gave up on so many levels and I was, subconsciously , getting depressed.

2014: life was good, very good. I started working for another big multinational that offered me 6X of my previous salary and my new roll was full of challenges and excitement, I needed that. I loved the company and the job so much. I also adopted Montie, my first ever dog in January of that year. I met a special person that later would become my ex-wife. I started diving, I partied, I drank, I did drugs and I just had it all. However, Egypt was happening in the background. I tried to mute it, I tried to ignore it and immerse myself in my own bubble. But I was getting more depressed everyday. The thing with depression is that it sneaks on you. You do not see it coming, you do not feel it coming but it weighs on you. I am so strong mentally that even with my depression I was perfectly functional. I was a rising star at work, I hung out with my partner and friends and everything looked so perfect. I was getting impatient with my family because of their conservative and fascism supporting political views. As I try to remember how I felt back then everything seems like a blur, so I open my diaries from 2014. For many reasons I cannot publish here my thoughts back then. All I can tell you is that they were bleak and scary and surprisingly depressed. The two pillars that held me together were my ex-partner and my dog. My partner was supportive and our values were aligned. To understand the importance and weight of that last sentence you need to know that in 2014 it was very difficult in Egypt to find people with similar basic values against violence and fascism. My dog was growing beautifully and she filled my heart with joy, she still does. 2014 ended with me getting married to my partner.

2015: I cannot remember much of 2015. I traveled around a lot. I visited multiple destinations in Europe, the US, Lebanon and North Africa. My career was steady, I was making so much money, I had the best family-in-law anyone can dream of and my marriage was functional. Montie filled the house with energy and laughter and we started having an incredible bond. My partner and I wanted to leave the country so I started looking for opportunities abroad. By the end of 2015 I was offered a job in a multinational for a regional position. The plan was to be based in Cairo then relocate to Birmingham in the UK. On paper everything was just so perfect that even I cannot believe it because I was extremely depressed. I did not have any drug addiction to escape my depression but I was addicted to traveling, working, spending time outdoors. I was always restless, irritable and longing for something that I did not know what it was and that frustrated me.

2016: The economical situation in Egypt was taking a nosedive. I had a lot of savings in Egyptian pound but the pound was losing its value everyday. The foolish president launched mega projects with no return-on-investment studies that all failed and put Egypt in significant debt. Egypt had to borrow from the IMF so the IMF put its own conditions. Egypt had to release the pound from its fixed value and suddenly the Egyptian pound lost 50% of its economic power. I know many people that lost half their savings over night. Luckily for me, I followed my best friend’s advise and converted all my savings to euros. My new job was okayish, my marriage started getting dysfunctional, my relationship with my family worsened dramatically, and my relationship with alcohol and drugs became very strong. I went back to my blog in 2016 and I can tell I was pretty much aware I was depressed.

In my next piece I will talk about Berlin because Berlin was the beginning of the end for many things and the starting point for a new life…..