Depression is the most common mental illness in Gaza. I feel there are more people with depression in Gaza than those without it. It is not a survey I did, but their eyes tell me.

And when I say depression, it should be noted that Gazans are high-functioning. We don’t have the privilege of admitting to ourselves what we feel. We force ourselves to live, and life goes on.

Thoughts of death

I think about leaving. The idea of not existing flows into the room. It has a blue shady aura. It comes and goes. But it breathes through the air I breathe.

I always longed for something I never had. I longed for a feeling of serenity. It’s a hunger inside me for something I can’t picture in words, for a place I have never been before. I wish I could just leave. But it’s not an option.

Within every aggression I went through in Gaza, suicide was something that I thought about. If I left now, they would believe that I simply was bombed. It would be easier to deceive my family and convince them that somebody else decided that I should go away.

That idea arises, too, when I cross in front of a car. Please, take my life. I am not brave enough to do this on my own. Do me a favor. If I am not brave enough to face my life, I will escape it by dying. The cover is fearlessness, but inside, it is cowardice.

I have never attempted suicide. I was scared of going to hell after I did. And I was ashamed of my family’s expected grief. I know that when I die, I won’t fade away. I won’t undo me. I will just transform into another body and exist in a different dimension.

I was always scared of Allah. It’s not my body; it is theirs. It’s not my life — it’s a gift I should take care of until they decide it’s the right time to leave. I no longer view Allah the same way. I love them enough to know that they would forgive me even if I took my life. But I have different reasons to force myself to live.

Reasons to live

I wish I could just vanish. By vanishing, I mean to never exist in the first place, to erase all the memories people had with me. I know that that would make a difference. I know my worth and what I did to my people and family. I know I did well. But I am too tired to continue what I started. The idea of leaving is soothing.

I learned to fight those weeds inside my heart. I couldn’t uproot them. But I learned to plant other plants within so that the garden inside my heart would have reasons to live, not only reasons to die. I have flowers now. They are more than my weeds. But they make me tired sometimes. It’s hard to water them. When I do, I sometimes water the weeds. They grow next to each other; they are entangled. My reasons to die are my reasons to live.

I learned that loving myself is harder than hating myself. When you love, you put effort into something. I am too tired to love me. I am too tired to wake up and get things done for Alia. But love is what wakes me up.

Being suicidal is not a choice. Antidepressants help, but they don’t uproot the trauma. Sometimes, your trauma is you. If you uproot your pain, you will kill you. Antidepressants help you live, but they don’t help you love. You have to love your life even if you didn’t sign up for it. It’s a choice you make; it’s never a choice your depression pills make.

Therapy is teaching me to view depression as an outsider. She is not me. She is someone who makes things more complicated for me. I try to visualize her so I can understand my voice and tell whether she is speaking or I am the one who spoke. Sometimes, my voice and hers overlap. It’s contradictory how wise she can be and how unfair she can get. She bombed me more than Israel did.

Survivors guilt

Being a genocide survivor, I learned about life. I learned to value trees and nature. I learned to see Allah through pain. But my depression stubbornly refuses to learn the lesson.

I know I survived by a miracle. It’s one of the reasons that forces me to live, too. I was offered $5,000 to evacuate. Some Gazans didn’t get the same chance. You should be grateful and pay back. You should give to others, too. Life is a gift.

I sometimes regret leaving and think another person would be more worthy of that $5,000. They would be happier and more grateful. The idea of being offered this amount of money just because I am Alia makes me anxious. Do I deserve it? Now, life is more challenging because I need to be good enough. I need to be worthy of this unconditional love.

Breathing is hard. I get panic attacks for breakfast. When I cry, my problems don’t fade away. When I sleep, I don’t vanish; I wake up only to realize that sleeping didn’t make me die. I helplessly say: it is another day to live.

Maybe I should have stayed in Gaza. I wanted to publish my first novel. I didn’t call myself a writer because I thought publishing short stories was not enough. When my Japanese translator recognized me as a writer and decided to donate money to evacuate me and all my eight family members, I could finally say that I don’t have to publish a novel to be an accomplished writer. I am still called one, anyhow. But I lost that will to be a writer. It’s no longer that persistently strong. It was one of my reasons to be alive.

My friend told me that my life is not all about me. My life is about people who love me. When he said it, I knew, more than any time, how suicide can be the most selfish reaction, according to my life story, at least. I don’t mind living for others. Those $5,000 spent on my evacuation, not on any other Gazan, should be worth it even if my depression says otherwise.

PS: I used non-binary pronouns in English to describe Allah. Not because Allah has two entities — Allah is one — but because I believe that Allah is not a male or female; Allah is not a human. So I thought they/them was the most fitting. However, in Arabic, masculine pronouns are neutral, so we tend to use he/him.