Sometimes, life doesn’t take the path you’ve always wanted. It might be the path of college, your career, or maybe even love. But as a 17-year-old, no one wants the path of ending up in an Egyptian cell, for what will turn out to be the next four years of your life.
These years are some of the most important in life. The years where you develop as a human, meet new people, and experience for the first time what life is really about. But at 17 years of age I was thrown in one of the worst cells, in one of the worst prisons in Egypt.
In the blink of an eye, my life changed for many years to come. I moved to nine different prisons. I was beaten, physically tortured, mentally tortured, stripped naked, sexually harassed, and denied contact with my family. The list goes on. Despite how much I could write about each one, I will never do it justice. Freedom being taken away from you alone is enough.
Was I going to let my experience drive me to depression and isolation for the rest of my life, to gain nothing in the end?
I struggled throughout my journey. My family did too, as did my friends and a lot of the Irish people who just wanted me to be back home. It was not an easy journey. But I’m back home now, life having taken me down a path I never intended. And that path, now, is fighting for humanitarian causes.
This is really what I want to write about. It’s about the unexpected experience that life throws at you. Sometimes it can be bad and sometimes it can be good, but we call both “experience”. It is really what you make out of it, and how you deal with the end result.
Was I going to let my experience drive me to depression and isolation for the rest of my life, to gain nothing in the end? Or would I use it to become a better person who could be the voice of those without one? It was a critical decision, as the wound within me was causing so much pain.
I have come to learn that nothing is about absolutism. I was a strong believer in God, but some believe in different ways. The point is to always believe. I believed I could see a positive side of the struggle I went through. And that’s where it started. I knew I needed help, that I needed to talk and for someone to listen to me, so that’s what I did. I took the simple equipment I had and drew a figure. I started to talk to her. And it really helped me, but I needed more.
I found it hard to talk to someone because the last time I opened up to somebody in prison, he sold my secrets to the guards for extra food. They had a saying in prison: “If you and your brother are imprisoned… don’t trust your brother.” I wanted to tackle that belief, and I had to start with my own cell. I needed help, mentally, because I felt on the edge of the cliff. But I thought, if I can listen to people and become the trustworthy one, maybe one of the struggles they share will help me too. I found a lot of people were extremely relieved after finding an ear to hear them. Experiences differ from one person to another, but you can also read about other people’s struggle to apply it to yours. It doesn’t have to be the same struggle to learn from it. That’s what I hope to do for others through writing this.
But I always fought hard within, telling myself that I would not allow oppression to defeat me. I would repeatedly say: just one more day.
People often ask me if I regret standing up for the people I stood up for. My answer is always no. I would have never seen or understood how much people are in need of help if I had not experienced what I did. I would have never seen the torture people go through to gain basic rights, rights that we take for granted. And that is life: we see and learn things to tell it to those who haven’t.
I always took family time for granted, because they were always there. I never told my mother that I loved her enough. And, along with the struggles of prison, came the news of her being diagnosed with cancer. Before, I also never paid attention to the homeless. For me, my sisters’ story is a success story, but I always felt sad that they had to stand in the rain for days just to free me when, in fact, there’s homeless people that live for years in the rain and cold.
But at that moment, in prison, I didn’t want anything other than the ground to swallow me. So many questions filled my head. What if I never see my mom again? Why is the world so unjust? I helped the people in my cell – was it not time to be released to help others?
But I always fought hard within, telling myself that I would not allow oppression to defeat me. I would repeatedly say: just one more day. Even though time was my worst enemy, one day my dream did become a reality, and the doors of the elevator opened in front of my people.
So my advice to you, if you’re facing struggle in life, is this: first, help yourself, and then help others.
Sometimes, when you go through hardship, you will also find incredible help comes your way. I found that when my sister wrote to me about the work of Lynn Boylan, my lawyer Darragh Mackin, and Katherine Zappone. There was also help from human rights organisations like Amnesty International and Reprieve, and a lot of people from the Irish government and the European Parliament. Opportunities will always be flying your way, but they won’t stop for you. I learnt that I had to to catch them myself. If you drown in your own problems, you’ll miss the lifebuoy being thrown at you.
So my advice to you, if you’re facing struggle in life, is this: first, help yourself, and then help others. Seeing others smile can make you smile at your own problem. Be grateful for the people you have. Tell the people you love that you love them. Be grateful for everything you have, as it’s better than not having anything. Be grateful for a pillow. Be grateful for water. Be grateful for freedom. Life can get tough and if it does, always remember: just one more day.
