Can I cut Alaa out of my life? Stop responding to his texts forever?

“Yes!” say Brene Brown and Nora McInerny and Emily McDowell and so many others who have put their stories of loss and learning and boundaries out into the world (and Instagram).

“Yes!” say Julia Cameron and Laura van Dernoot Lipsky – author of that Trauma Stewardship book I keep talking about! – and many other authors in the self-care genre. “Yes!” says Melissa Urban, all the time on Instagram and in her new boundaries book dedicated solely to this topic.

This is part 3 of 3 in my series on burnout. Catch up here:
Part 1: When I Finally Got Overwhelmed By My Humanitarian Job
Part 2: I Can’t Remember A Time When I Wasn’t Tired

These women say: It’s your responsibility to set your own boundaries. Don’t fail at boundary-setting, be a martyr, and then complain about being stressed by the demands of others and not having time for yourself. If these people aren’t supporting and validating the true you; if it’s a one-way relationship; if you don’t feel valued; you can set yourself free!

Now get out there, says the self-care media mania, and live your life the way you want to live it.

“Yes,” I mumble back, “but I can’t apply that (western) way of thinking to Alaa.”  

In my personal experience, this message does not translate well into Arab culture. Let’s take Melissa Urban’s examples of how to set boundaries via text. The first one reads, “My mental health isn’t great right now, and I’m struggling to be social. Can I text you next week after I’ve had some time to recharge?”

Let me translate that for you into Arabic. This beautiful language, which I’ve spent the last 11 years of my life learning, is flowery, eloquent, and filled with May God give you’s.

My experience is that the way to do what Melissa Urban recommends, here in the Arab world, is to say, “Yes I hope we can get together, may God bring you peace, may God bring you strength, you and your whole family, Godwilling we will find a time to meet soon, yes, maybe when the weather is warmer, Godwilling, Godwilling, Godwilling, okay thank you for calling, welcome, welcome, thank you, bye, bye, bye, bye. Bye.”

And then you don’t call back or arrange a time. This is not quite as direct, but it achieves the same outcome in the end.

Besides my feeling unsure of how to set a boundary with Alaa across cultural lines, there is another reason I can’t, or won’t, permanently stop responding to his texts. It is my genuine empathy for his situation. And the power dynamic at play. He’s a refugee, and I work with refugees. I still consider myself a person who works with refugees even though I don’t work in Zaatari anymore. This kind of work is not something you simply add to your resume and move on, and it shouldn’t be.

Alaa had the bad luck – to put it mildly – of having to flee the Syrian war, while I had the good luck of having peace in my country, so far, and privilege, money, a good education and supportive family and everything that brought me to where I am now.

I can’t play the “Godwilling, see you soon” card, just as I can’t play the “I feel this friendship is one-sided and I want out of it” card, with Alaa.

Since leaving my job at RWG a few months ago, the words “free” and “available” took on new ambiguities for me. I try and fail to define them in a way that makes sense to myself and to others. Free could mean free from time-based obligations. Free from having a constant barrage of work emails to respond to. Free from daily demands from my supervisor. Free from constantly driving up and down the Mafraq highway to get to Zaatari and back. Free from dealing with requests from people in need on a daily basis. From these things, I am free.

But free can also mean free to give of your own self, which is how I see empathy. You cannot be empathetic towards someone without giving something of your own self, whether it’s time, energy, a hug, a cup of tea, a nod of understanding, or a commitment to making follow up phone calls (in the case of being an NGO staffer in Zaatari camp, listening to others’ struggles usually involved a commitment to making follow up phone calls).

That is why, when you exercise empathy, especially when not supported, you feel so tired afterwards. You are depleted.

Free can mean free to use your privilege to try to support people, and even if you can’t help them get to Canada or win a scholarship, perhaps you can be there to listen and provide emotional support as they navigate the terrifying new reality in which they have somehow found themselves.

I’m not free now to give of my own self.

Inherently when I become more available to myself, I become less available to others. These questions circle through my mind every day: Am I free (do I have free time – time in which I feel free)? Should I be more available to myself or to others now that I have this extra time?¹

Yesterday Alaa texted me, as he often does, a link to a website that he couldn’t fully understand because it’s in English, but that he vaguely sensed could propel him out of his current living hell.

His current living hell is walking down the street in Amman, Jordan, fearing being stopped and interrogated by the police and asked for his refugee papers; caring for and endlessly worrying about his mom and sister; having no professional outlet or ladder to climb; extreme boredom and frustration; grief and heartbreak for his country; and an ocean of fear about the future.

First he sent the usual “Hi. How are you?” Then he sent me a link with the accompanying message, “Hey Georgie, when you have a chance could you please look at this website and help me figure out how I can apply for this opportunity?”

I expected another University of Aberdeen situation, but no. The link he sent me was Canada’s immigration site. Not a specific opportunity or scholarship; just the honest-to-God landing page for seeking asylum in Canada.

I couldn’t figure out how to explain to him just how broad and useless this link was for his purposes.

What would you reply to him?

What could I?

A response floated into my mind:

“Hey Alaa, I’m good how are you? I’m sorry I can’t help you get to Canada because I’m not Justin Trudeau. Also, because the refugee resettlement system is f****d, and you don’t happen to fall into the less than one percent of refugees who are considered vulnerable enough to possibly get resettled. That is to say, as a Syrian refugee in Jordan you are screwed, but not screwed enough to get you to Canada. I’m really sorry about that. Have a great rest of your day.”

Then I took a deep breath, buried my fatigue away somewhere, and replied with something softer and less truthful.

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¹ The birds-eye view answer from today – a few years after I wrote this piece: “Yourself! Yourself!!!! Watch Netflix all day! Bake apple cinnamon muffins. Go on long, easy walks around your neighborhood. Call a friend you haven’t called in a while. Who cares what you do! Don’t worry about Alaa for the moment. For goodness sake, please relax (you’ve done enough) and take care of yourself (you’re exhausted).”

Hmm. On closer reflection, I think that might be the message my mother was trying to send me, in her calls, texts and emails, all those years I worked in the camp. Whoops. I’m sorry, mom – I guess I got there on my own eventually.

It took me a few months (years?) after quitting my Zaatari job to realize how much it had depleted me, to learn how to really recharge, and to reach the conclusion that I’d never again put myself in such a boundary-less work situation. That Never Again is a lasting gift burnout gave me. It’s serving me well to this day. And yet – while re-reading this piece, which I wrote soon after quitting RWG, I could see how much I was still in a fog of fatigue and confusion about what to do with my limited time and energy.