Thread by @monaeltahawy

tw: assault
One of the things I'm doing more with my writing is to sit with past trauma and remember. After Egyptian police broke both my arms and sexually assaulted me, I felt like I'd been pushed down a bottomless well of grief. I had not reckoned yet with displaced trauma.

https://twitter.com/monaeltahawy/status/1366089278825054215

I felt the assault robbed me of beauty but an actual robbery took out the bottom from my bottomless pit of grief. It took the theft of a suitcase seven months after I was assaulted to break me in a way that three fractures could not.

I am not a materialistic person. I own very few things. I have no house, no car, no savings in the bank, no assets, no fancy furniture. My laptop, smartphone, a 1950s red recliner and my books are my possessions. And I recognize those are much more than many people own.

My suitcase was stolen during a layover in Tripoli airport in Libya in June 2012. The theft inflicted a sharp and desperate pain that hurt me more than my actual assault. I was astounded at how much it hurt. I did not cry after I was assaulted.

But when it became clear that my suitcase would never return, I would run into the bathroom and sob, convulsively, into the sink, as quietly as I could because I did not want my parents to hear me break down.

When I disappeared for 12 hours after a protest on Mohamed Mahmoud Street in November 2011, they thought I had died. After all I’d put them through with my own disappearance, I did not want them to see me break down over the disappearance of a suitcase,

I not only survived my assault but here I was back in Egypt less than a year after the regime sent its riot police to assault and detain me. And here I was sobbing into the bathroom sink, breaking down over a fucking suitcase.

The suitcase made material my grief and made Deliberate Beauty even more urgent. I wanted beauty that could not be stolen like that suitcase.

Two months after my suitcase was stolen, I got my first ever tattoo; it took engraving my body to save my heart. feministgiant.com/p/deliberate-b…

Ancient Egypt and the power of the goddess on my right arm. The courage and resilience of revolution rendered in the beautiful letters of Arabic on my left arm. Forever mine. Never to be taken. My mother goddess on one arm. My mother tongue on the other.

The way I broke down over the stolen suitcase makes me wonder about displaced grief a lot these days.

As I say in my essay, we have not reckoned with the immense grief of 2.5 million people killed by #COVID19. We have not reckoned with our bottomless pit of grief.

I don't know when I'll be vaccinated. I'm getting invitations for in-person events this summer onwards. And I'm thinking of how we will emerge. Not "back to normal." There is no going back. Refuse to emerge as if unscathed. I insist that we all be scathed feministgiant.com/p/essay-fallin…

Grief and trauma are sneaky shits. They know our subconscious is full of holes. They know where to kick and where it will hurt. They know a stolen suitcase will have me sobbing convulsively into the sink.

Those holes outlined in fear and chaos. So I write to trace them.

Those of us who did not die will emerge, our hearts unhealed and scarred but awesome.

We have to find our place in communal mourning & whisper to each other’s hearts “We know you’re strong. Look at what you survived. You can be soft here, we’ve got you.” feministgiant.com/p/deliberate-b…

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