The ghost of the past

Salaam aleikum, my dear Muslim Sisters. Today I would again like to share with you a part of my own personal experiences with Islam and, of course, tell you a little bit more about the refugee camp in Syria I was in. Thank Allah Almighty, several years have now passed since I left the camp and returned home. I managed to escape from there and start a new life. Unfortunately, even as time passed, my anxiety still remains, and I still dream, to this day about the camp and the awful things I saw and that happened to me there. For example, I dream that I am in the camp’s prison and that I cannot escape from there, no matter what I do. You probably remember, from my previous stories, that mobile phones and forbidden inside the camp. Because of that, once you are free again, you are constantly afraid to take out your phone where you are outside and going somewhere. Each time I took out and used my phone, I felt that I would be seen by the guards or by the soldiers and that someone will then proceed to take my phone and start to beat me. I got so used to that living conditions inside the camp, I adapted so well to all the lacks and hardships that, once I got out, what was a normal living standard for most people felt completely unnatural to me.
For more than a year after I arrived in the camp, I lived in a state of prostration, as if I was part of another world. For a very long time after my release, I was afraid and avoided people wearing uniforms. Even now, I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, covered in cold sweat, remembering the camp, remembering my existence there. After those dreams I cannot bring myself to calm down again until morning and I simply lie awake in bed, shaking as a leaf. The camp left me with memories and feelings I cannot fully describe and that, I think, I will never be able to forget. There are constant triggers I face that remind me from things I lived during my time in the refugee camp in Syria. For example, I am also afraid that my children are going to be taken away from me and that there is a chance to never see them again, especially my boys.
The reason I have this irrational fear nowadays is that, inside the camp, the boys were constantly in the danger of being taken away by the guards, as I have written in my previous story. It was simply awful when the soldiers started to physically abuse our children. The Muslim mothers inside the camp lived day and night in a perpetual state of fear. If, during the day, the boys could at least try to run and hide from the guards, in nighttime, it was far more difficult to do this. Everyone wanted and needed to sleep during the night, but the soldiers used to suddenly enter the camp in the middle of the night and search each tent, going from one tent to another while everyone was still asleep and confused about what was going on. As time passed, the children, especially the boys, started to change their sleeping schedule. They hid during the night and slept during the day, when the soldiers rarely came to camp.
It even came to the absurd situation that, wanting to protect and to hide their young boys, the Muslim mothers inside the camp would dress them up in girls’ clothes before going to bed and would make them wear long skirts and hijabs. As you could imagine, my dear Muslim Sisters, such a thing is simply emotionally draining in the long run. You simply cannot sleep during the night, you constantly feel the need to stand watch, to listen to outside noises just to see if anyone is coming to search your tent. I also had a boy that was around 12 years old during the time I was inside the camp. I too, like all the other mothers in the camp, could not sleep during the night. Because you cannot know, you cannot guess what goes through the mind of the soldiers guarding us, and when they could reach the conclusion that one of the boys is old enough to be taken away from the camp and start military training. Even though I did not sleep during the night, I could not rest during the day either, because there was much to do, things needed to be resolved one way or the other, I needed to feed my family, cook, clean, wash.
During that time, from all the stress and exhaustion, I felt like I was about to lose my sanity. Fortunately, my boy was a bit shorter then, so we were not in the immediate danger of him being noticed by the guards and taken away. Nonetheless, there were so many other Muslim mothers inside the camp with older and taller boys that had no chance of escaping the soldiers and risked their children being brutally taken away from them. It was certain that there boys were going to be taken from the camp and put into military training. As I mentioned earlier, there Muslim mothers would dress up their adolescent boys in girls’ clothes that covered their entire body, from head to toe. Each time when, during the day, the guards’ car would enter the camp in search for young boys to take away, the children would go out dressed as women and move about the camp like that, until the car with the soldiers left the perimeter of the camp.
I so wish I could forget everything I went through during my time inside the camp, but all these memories are still alive and I recall them so vividly, as if they just happened moments ago. Allah Almighty helped me escape from there and I am forever grateful to Him for His Infinite Mercy. However, inside the camp there still is a great number of women and children that continue to live there. I am well aware of the fact, during the entire time I was in the camp, a lot of children, above a certain age, were taken away from their mothers, never to be seen again. I know that these mothers did not have the possibility to contact their children after them being taken by the soldiers, and I grieve for them.
I wish to now invoke a dua for all those that are still in the refugee camp in Syria. May Allah Almighty console them and make their pleas, tries and tribulations easier to bear. May Allah the Merciful protect all the people inside the camps in Syria. May He, through His Infinite Power and Grace, free them and reward them for their patience and resilience. Because, I am certain that after each hardship and trial comes relief and solace.
Asira