When I started writing my memories in this blog I unearthed feelings, ideas, and a wave of emotions that I probably was not ready for. However, without talking honestly about what I have been through and what I have witnessed then I would not be where I am now and who I am now. To be fully honest I had a full blown CPTSD where even my dreams were not a safe place. Because I did not know what to do I went to psychoactive substances, it was terrifying.

The most aggressive experience I had with psychoactive substances sent me in an acute psychotic episode that I wrote about in an earlier post. It was a total nightmare that it scared me of my own brain and my own self. Slowly, I recovered and I even felt grateful for the experience because I would have never been able to explore those areas of my mind and soul if it was not for psychosis. I started then doing controlled psychedelics where I only used them for a purpose to answer a specific question or to visit a specific area in my soul. Of course they took me to other places and I finally could see how everything inside my mind was connected even if the connection seemed far and unlikely. I could see the construct.

In neuroscience we say that we have no objective way of knowing what reality is because once sensorial messages are transferred to our nerves the brain will construct whatever it wants out of them and tells you that this is the “reality”. We have no idea how things really look like, smell like, or feel like. It does the same thing to our memories and experiences. It constructs a reality that is plausible enough to be believable and that is pleasant enough to make us survive and exist. Psychedelics strip the brain naked and enable the user to either reconstruct a reality or just observe how the brain mapped out and designed its reality. This will sound silly until you try yourself.

In my next chapter I will talk about the deconstruction of reality that makes me stand on the verge of insanity. It is the place where I meet my odd friend where we together explore the vast universes and realities of everything.

“ah ah, I see you opened the door, you thought it was fun, just playing around ha..ah ah it is dark in here, you got food?” the odd friend

“You again, I thought I got rid of you” me

“That light is flickering, can you see it, it bothers me… wake up we need to go somewhere” the odd friend

“Man, it is post mid-night, I need to sleep sorry, whatever that is it can wait” me

“see, see, it is flickering again, you won’t be able to sleep like this, come on, i prepared everything, off we go”

The small light coming from my charging electric tooth brush was still flickering. My odd friend had a hat this time and looked much skinnier than the last time I saw him by the Seine. It was his trip but I was leading the way. I started hearing voices and they kept getting louder as we moved further in what appeared to be a tunnel. The tunnel was completely dark and when I looked at my feet we seemed to be floating, suddenly the tunnel disappeared, we were floating in space.

The voices were too many, too intertwined and I could not make sense of it. I saw the drops that contained my many lives before like in my psychotic episode but this time it was not scary.

“ts ts ts, see this is where I always get stuck, right here, I need you to take me inside” the odd friend.

“Inside where, what are you talking about” me

“the drops, see all the universes you lived in, i cannot get in without you” the odd friend

“No, last time this did not go well, one day we will never wake up from this” me

“ts ts, listen listen, aaah, do not look at the flickering light, stay here, listen, you see this? yes yes, this man with the grey moustache, i think that was the best one we had” the odd friend

I grab him tight “hey, listen man, you gotta listen to me, we are back there where the flickering light is” me

“ah ah ah, i hear i hear, but no no no, wait look look, this one is good too, look, here you have the little one, what was the name again, aah memory of eternity does get glitchy” the odd friend

“get out of my head please, illusions, what u r looking at are illusions” me

“No no no, not illusions, llll ookk look, it it it it is fi fine now. not illusion no, you live in one too, look, oh ahaha how beautiful that one is look” the odd friend

“wait wait, what happened, where are you? waaaaai” me

the flickering light disappeared and the voices got louder, a laughter, a scream, a crying child, a squeaky door not opening not closing… the sounds and voices were overwhelming….. I need to wake up NOW

“ah ah ah i see, you went there to the stripes, nothing is good there, very confusing” the odd friend

“what do you mean, what stripes?” me

“It is better to look at the dew drops not the stripes, too much information in the stripes, too many details” the odd friend

“where did you go? i called for you”me

“ah ah, yes yes yes, i i i heard you, i was right here did not move, you went” the odd friend

silence….

“So here you are too foreign for home too foreign for here, never enough for both” Ijeoma Umebinyuo

“Mozart wrote the requiem in 1791, the year of his death. Mozart died before he finished his requiem. The requiem was distanced for immortality not shared with its creator” Fact

“Maybe I do not belong in this world because I have created my own parallel universe where I cry, laugh, play, scream and run” unknown

“ًWhen they remember me, they will say “she killed herself” forgetting that they have killed me a long time ago when they took away my freedom, when they denied me my body and my choice, when they declared they are the word of god on earth. They were in a battle against the devil and for them I was the devil” Homa

“I wanted to love so they exiled me. Here I am a lone like a sick animal dying. I wanted to die a hero and here I am dying as a whore asking for forgiveness. I was a whore advocating freedom to a crowd of believers” Unspoken

“In the beginning I was here alone dancing on the cathedrals naked. I am the spoiled daughter of Satan who refused to burry her head in the sand, I dance in your nightmares in your comas. Stop reciting your worn out books and recite after me the book of neogenesis. Declare war on your disfigured gods.”

“My name is Homa Daraby. Now I am just a name in the book of the deceased. Another idiot who refused to kneel.”

“I pressed the gas pedal and the car screamed. The road turned but the car refused to turn with it. In this moment the I finally felt free as the car flew off the narrow mountain road. I do not know what happened next but I am still flying” Unknown

Those are captions of memos sent to me by many dear friends. Some people come to this world and feel lost in their desires, ideas, choices and are faced with an oppressive monotonic society.

Read about Homa Daraby of Iran and read about Sarah Hegazy of Egypt, although the stories are heart breaking they are a source of enlightenment, courage and they are definitely humbling.

Rage Against the Veil: The Courageous Life and Death of an Islamic Dissident

I took one hit and my world shattered. I lived a million lives in the span of 20 minutes or less. I had full lives, friendships, partners, jobs and whatever elements that might be present in the day to day life of any individual. What happened next was a disaster.

“It is ok, I am here now. Can you hear me?” I kept hearing this in a loop that never seemed to end. My worlds took a drop shape and I could see all of them then I started spiralling inside all of them very quickly. “It is ok, I am here now, Can you hear me?”. I started feeling there is an outer world other than the ones I was trapped in, this should be where the voice is coming from. I tried to open my eyes to see it.

When I opened my eyes I saw a girl. “Open your eyes”. I tried to keep my eyes open but they quickly shut down again and the phrase “open your eyes” went in my head in an endless loop too. I knew I needed to wake up so I started screaming, I pushed myself to stand up but the screaming was only in my head and I discovered I was completely paralyzed.

“It is ok, I am here now. Can you hear me?” I heard her saying. I started remembering the girl, she was in one of the very first worlds I lived in, but that was a million worlds ago. I struggled to remember her name and what she was to me. I asked “Is this real, is this now?” and I shut my eyes again. This time I felt peaceful, I felt maybe I will wake up if I rest and all this will be over. I felt maybe it is not too bad to dream. I felt my whole life was the trip itself and anything else is starting now. “open your eyes, open your eyes, open your eyes, open your, eyeees,zzz”

“It is ok, I am here now. Can you hear me?” I opened my eyes one more time, I heard my dog. She also was in one of the first worlds I lived in. The girl locked her up in my bedroom because she did not know how the dog would react to me like this. I woke up. I started grasping reality again but I did not know who I was, where I was and how long I have been here. I also did not know what was real anymore. Maybe this is what babies feel when they are first born to this world.

I am back to reality or whatever this version of life is; and yes, I can hear you.

It was supposed to be another lazy Sunday in Paris when I received a message from a Syrian friend I met a long time ago that he will join me for an afternoon drink and a snack. He came to my apartment in the 13th and I promised him a homemade meal of Hawawshi.

Today is the 26th of January, 9 years ago the Egyptian revolution was 1 day old. Later on another uprising would take over Syria and Syria would never be the same again. Our casual meeting started of rather formal and whenever possible I sensed that my friend is trying not to discuss anything of a political nature. He mentioned he wants to visit Egypt and I said Egypt may not be the happiest of places right now. He asked “why?” and that was enough to talk about everything that started 9 years ago in the Middle East and never finished…

Syria is a very unique example of what can go wrong in the Middle East. Like its neighbours, Syria also suffers a deep sense of identity conflict. Syria has been one of the oldest civilizations in the Middle East until the Arab invasion. The Syrian identity suffered from the eradication of everything that is Syrian and replacement of the Syrian identity with an fragmented Sunni-Shii identity.

My friend tells me that he learned more about Syria since he came to Paris than he learned when he was in Aleppo. He would love to identify as Assyrian but he does not speak that language and the language he speaks attaches him to a culture he is so distant from. I felt his pain since as an Egyptian I suffer a similar conflict of identity where I try to tell myself I have a “complex identity” that consists of all the identities Egypt has been through.

I asked him how it all felt in Syria when the Arab spring happened. For him, Syria is a very conformist country where the Assad regime has been part of the Syrian fabric. He says that before 2011 no one dared to say “Bashar Al-Assad” and they would refer to him as the “master”. It was an absolute social taboo to talk about the regime not to mention the legitimacy of the regime. The protests broke up in Idlib and they were peaceful in nature. Rumors started spreading that the Assad regime was using brutal force to suppress the opposing sounds and many videos spread over the internet documenting the atrocities committed by the Assad regime. He recalls that at this point only the regime had weapons. The protestors were harmless and unarmed. The situation stayed like this until 2012. Suddenly, weapons appeared in Syria and the conflict became an armed conflict. Hell broke loose in Syria.

He tells me about his life in Paris and how annoying it is when people refer to him as “Arab” because he feels this term is empty of any real meaning. I, personally, can relate to this because I feel many Europeans have no idea how diverse the Arab world is and just because some people speak the same variety of one language does not make them “similar” and does not make their behavior “predictable”.

Lost in our search for identity and home we talked about the meaning of it all. He says “I would take Aleppo over anything. Over there it was peaceful, easy and just lovely. Over here, the society is better but I am lost.” I tell him I feel the same about Egypt but we are both in self-exile because someone holding a gun thinks they know better than us all.

Silence fills the room as we both take sips of our drinks and reflect on the past. We both look at each other and smile feeling that we know exactly how we both feel. My dog lets out a deep sigh and turns in her sleep. My friend receives a text urging him to move to another hangout and we promise to stay in touch.

9 years since the Arab spring happened yet here we are remembering and contemplating what could have happened if things went a bit too different. From Paris here is Alipp, Cairo and all the other Arab cities where dreams simply died.

مع أني ترددت كثيرا في أن اكتب بلغتي الأم إلا أنه لا مفر من العودة لها لان افكارا بعينها لا سبيل لها لان ترى النور الا من وراء ستار تلك اللغة حتى إن أنقص من بريقها ما أكاد أن اقترفه من اخطاء لغوية و نحوية من شأنها ان تدفع من درسونيها للإنتحار.

الخريف و ما يتلوه من شتاء بارد في باريس يدفعك للشعور بنوع فريد من الوحدة. فالشوارع هادئة و الثلج يمتص كل الاصوات فلا مجال للهروب من ذلك الصوت الداخلي يسألني “وماذا بعد؟” سؤال أزلي احاط بي و حاربني احيانا فنال من نومي و لا زال يرفض ردي حين أقول له “لا أعلم”. ليس غريبا ان يطرح ذاك الصوت ذلك السؤال ولكن الغريب أن أشخاصا يعتقدون حقا أن هناك من يملك الإجابة لذلك السؤال. و كأن حياة البشر مسلسلا دراميا مكون من حلقات يعلم شخص ما في مكان ما كيف ستدور أحداثها و كيف ستنتهي. نفسي لا تجزع حين أصارحها بعدم معرفتي و كأن جهلي في حد ذاته يضفي شئ من الأثارة لما هو آت. و لكن ما يستثير تعاطفي هو أن نفسي تستشعر أو ترجو أن في نهاية الترحال سكون و دفئ و بيت. أعلم جيدا النهاية و أعلم جيدا أن ما تتمناه النفس محض أمنية يظمأ الساري لها كسراب بان أنه ماء بغير قصد أن يضل السراة.

ينتهي الليل و يستيقظ الصباح و يقوم معه من نام و من لم ينم. تعلو الأصوات فيخفت صوت نفسي و أمارس يومي بشكل طبيعي حتى ينزل الليل بسكونه مرة أخرى فيآنسني صوتي مرة أخرى سائلا ها و ماذا بعد؟؟؟

It was the early hours of the morning of the next day. I was going back home with a friend I met. I think I blacked out many times on the way because suddenly I was on one of the bridges that connect the south part of the Seine to the north part.

Me: How did we get here?
Friend: We walked, I followed you.
Me: did I? Ha…
Friend: Do you know where we are going?
Me: Yes, I am going home.
Friend: Yes, but where is home?
I look at the horizon and say: somewhere there.
Friend: I trust you. How far is it, do you know?
Me: As far as it takes. We have to get there,
Friend: Yes, I will follow you, I always have.
Me: I know we have met, but forgive me, can you remind me, who are you?
Friend: Yes, we have met many times in many different places and many different forms. I am you….

The cassette tape

Interviewer: When you go to the school library, what kind of books attract you?

4th Grader: I try to read about animals and nature. This type of book allows me to know why we are here. I also like to read science fiction.

Interviewer: Tell me what you like about science fiction.

4th Grader: The universe in science fiction books makes sense. There is always a goal. Not like real life.

Interviewer: You think life does not make sense?

4th Grader: It should, because if God created all this, then we are here for a reason; it has to make sense… Otherwise, why wake up every morning? It is so difficult to get up every morning.

Interviewer: Why is it difficult? because you want to sleep more and not go to school?

4th Grader: No, no, just coming back to life every morning is difficult. Every night when I go to sleep, I feel that I will sleep forever, but then I wake up, and it is difficult.

This is part of an interview I had in 4th grade with the local radio station. My mom gave me the cassette tape before I moved to Paris.

Existential Crisis

To be fully honest, I never remembered I thought like this as a child. I thought my existential crisis started with adulthood and university. When I listened to the tape, I figured that I have always had a problem with existence. Life never made sense; there is no point of anything, and that makes it difficult just to carry on. However, I am a slave to my own wiring, so I got to play the game, and I lack the constitution of suicide. I created my parallel reality, where I created a short-term goal to create a fake sense of purpose. I figured that life for me is a casino. Regardless of losing or winning in the games in the casino, when the bouncer kicks you out, you cannot have anything. So instead of stressing about winning or losing, I just enjoy the games and fuck it. Only my casino is a house of cards that gets shattered with the slightest inconvenience life hands me. Existence is dreadful and tiring, at least for me.

Techno

The New Year’s Eve of 2018 in Berlin provided me with a reliable alternative: Techno. We went to Tresor to celebrate the end of 2017 and welcome the newly born 2018. It was my first time in Tresor. It is a large space that looks like an abandoned factory. It is dark inside, with multiple floors banging with hard techno music. Almost everyone I met there somehow escaped reality to an alternative reality. I know you might be judging now and thinking, “Oh, it should be the drugs.” No,  you are wrong. It is important to understand the context of techno if you want to understand how the escape gateway is created. The lights are so dim that you can barely see who is standing next to you. Your eyes adjust to the low light, so your brain gets extremely relaxed. The music is so loud with high BPM that it puts you in a trance state, while your interaction can only be with the music because it is just stupid to try and strike a conversation with anyone. Dimmed light, hazy vision, brain in trance state, and boom, your body is just moving with the music in a world where only you exist. The drugs help exaggerate those feelings, but that is really besides the point.

I have been to many techno events before, but Berlin is a very different experience. What makes Berlin different is the people that you meet there. As I said in a previous post, Berlin is Sin City, and the people who embrace it understand the beauty of the freedom of not giving a fuck. Also, this scene knows no bullshit. A guy or a girl will talk to a guy or a girl and decide to have fun. No questions asked, no answers needed. It is the greatest escape of all, where everything is straight to the point.

When I went back to Paris, I came across a What’s App group for techno lovers in Paris. I met most of the people I know in this group in La Concrete (a techno club in Paris). We are all very different in the way we think, how we see life, and what drives us, but we all share that common feeling we get when good techno music is playing regardless of the genre. I cannot remember how many raves and parties I have been to since I came to Europe; all I remember is that I go to the front of the dance floor, shut my eyes, go into a trance state, and escape for the whole night. It is that temporary escape that eases down the burden of existence. Every wiring has a backdoor; the backdoor of my brain was those frequencies created by techno music artists.

I still remember the exact moment I said goodbye to my family and my in-laws. My mother started crying when I hugged her and my father tried to stay solid. Part of me felt sad as I hugged my in-laws who had no idea about the divorce plans. They said we will see you later in Paris but I knew this wouldn’t happen. I felt I betrayed them and I knew they would hate me and curse the day they ever met me once they learn the news, they did. My best friend was there and he insisted on driving me to the airport and say goodbye to Montie, my dog. As we arrived at Cairo International Airport I felt heavy and a deep sense of sadness dawned on me. The airport police was trying to rush my friend to drop me off and leave as it was a specially busy night at the airport but we lingered. I looked at him and said “I guess that is it, time to go”. He did not say anything, he looked at my dog and told her goodbye and see you soon.

As the trip was booked before my partner and I arrived at the divorce decision, we took the plane together. I had my dog and she had her 4 cats. When we landed in Paris I felt some relief. One of the first memories I have in Paris was when I took Montie for a walk then decided to have a coffee at Starbucks. I asked the barista if it is allowed for my dog to sit with me in the terrace and she looked puzzled with my question and said “oui, bien sur.” later I learned that you only need permission for dogs indoors but no one really cares in terraces. That was a small culture shock because Cairo is extremely hostile to animals, in fact it is hostile to life.

When I try to remember my first emotions 2 years ago, I can remember that there was this excitement of living in a new place, new office, new colleagues and new life. As I got older the idea that I was running out of “first time” experiences bothered me. Moving to Paris allowed me to have new “first time” experiences. The first month was super busy. My furniture was arriving, I was getting more familiar with the public transpiration system and I faced a brand new challenge which is finding dog sitters for my dog when I traveled.

The second month was the worst. I officially started the divorce procedure. I think I can write a book on divorce alone. It is such a draining, humiliating and nerve wrecking experience. As the dust started to settle I started seeing myself clearer. It is like I have been in a surgery and the painkillers have started to wear off. I remember I called a close friend and she made a mean joke and I told her “be nice to me, I am in pain.” It was such a sentence out of character of me that she went silent then asked “You are kidding, right?” I did not answer and said “I gotta go, talk to you later”. The pain of the divorce was taking its toll on me, I had no friends, I had no family, and nothing felt or sounded familiar.

To break the cycle of solitude I started using dating applications and went to more MeetUps than I could count. It helped. I met a lot of internationals who were going through a similar process like mine. Everyone had a story and everyone was running from something or towards something. I chose the title of this chapter to be uprooted because this is exactly how it felt being in France. When a tree is uprooted and replanted it is not dead but it takes a lot of time for a tree to adapt to the new environment and surroundings. In humans it can cause anxiety, restlessness and nostalgia to where I ran away from. Luckily for me this experience did not last too long.

My best friend in Cairo decided to visit me and together we traveled to Berlin to meet other friends for New Year’s Eve. This time the trip went wild. We decided to meet in Amsterdam and spend a few days before new year’s then go from Amsterdam to Berlin, Montie came with us. My friends in Berlin already had a plan for New Year’s Eve. The plan was called “Tresor” which is one of the best techno nightclubs in Berlin. Next chapter is again about Berlin, this time it is about rebirth. It is going to be spicy, so stay tuned….

In December 2016, I was informed by my company that there has been an organizational change I can either choose to relocate to Poland or Singapore. The news came as a shock as I was not interested in the weak financial proposal from Poland and the prospect of moving to the far east. I had no plan B so I was uncertain and frustrated. My boss promised to keep trying to hook me up with an opportunity in other locations in Europe. A few months earlier that year one of my closest friends moved to Berlin to work for an online shopping giant. He was one of the last close friends I had left in Egypt and it seemed that it is only a matter of time till I find myself a lone in cruel Cairo.

As per the in laws tradition, we went to Paris for Christmas. I was distant, confused and not in a happy place. My partner and I decided to go to Berlin for new years eve to celebrate the wedding anniversary and celebrate the beginning of 2017. However, at that point we were fighting all the time with brief truces of calmness and desperate attempts to enjoy time. The trip to Berlin was catastrophic in every way. My partner got sick the night of the travel so she spent agonizing 8 hours in the train. It was a specially cold winter and we were not prepared. As she rested at home I took the opportunity to catch up with my friend and see Berlin a little. If there is a city that would earn the title “sin city”, it is Berlin. Everything is allowed in Berlin and everyone is revolting against everything. I felt as if I have been submerged in water and finally I could raise my head up and get some air.

Here, I would like to invite you to my mind at that time. At this point all my hopes and dreams for Egypt have died, I lost 2 friends to suicide, my career was at the verge of collapsing, and my family life was at its lowest. My problem was not that I lived in Egypt anymore or that the Egyptian revolution failed. My crises was existential. My feelings were frozen and my eyes were dead. I could not stand those who went about as if everything was just fine, as if life was a holiday, a dream or a theme park. I am cursed with true sensibility, betrayed every day by the injustice of the world and life seemed like a long spell of prison time and a long illness with no remission. This is why Berlin made sense to me. Everything is allowed in Berlin and those who choose to live there are in constant revolt for liberation. It is a dark, dirty and loud place where waves of human go on and on defying everything any society has ever stood for. It is a city that paid the price of human cruelty and has nothing to prove, nothing to demonstrate, Berlin is vulgar because to survive in this society you have to be vulgar . It is a city city for those who seek oblivion. Berlin was the city that witnessed all the evil and horrors of WWII and the hypocrisy of the “Liberators”. It is a city that saw it all and decided to stand tall and tell the world FUCK YOU.

The trip back to Paris was quiet. I was reflecting on my trip and part of me was not ready to give up. I was not ready to submit and I could feel the fire inside of me again, a true desire to start over and leave my ruins behind. In 2nd of January 2017, I receive a phone call from a former boss who tells me about an opportunity in Paris in a leading multinational. I agree to explore it so I meet with the person in charge on a cafe in Paris. By March 2017 I got a written offer to which I agreed. I was thrilled and anxious and scared. I am finally leaving Egypt, I will finally be able to start over again and forget all the traumas Cairo has inflicted on me. On the marriage front everything that could go wrong went wrong. In April, I decided to go to the red sea to dive. I came back one day before my partner’s birthday. The following day after a brief birthday party with her family we had a major fight. This time I was calm, I did not try to defend my behavior or position towards things. After the yelling stopped I asked calmly for divorce. We tried many things to fix the marriage but it was just too broken to be revived. We hid the news from the families because we did not want unnecessary drama in addition to the moving drama. By June 2017, I said goodbye to people I knew very well that I will never see again. This time my journey started with me and my dog a lone. Montie was three and half years old. The first night we spent in Paris we have no furniture so we both slept in my sleeping bag. I broke free and I had a blank page for me to write.

A whole new life is about to begin, stay tuned…