Almost Awake

Run

Almost Awake — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 15:44:13 GMT

The girl was crying as she washed the dishes.
She had been standing there for a while, her hands moving almost automatically beneath the running water. A tear slipped down her cheek and fell onto the soapy plate. She wiped her face with the back of her hand and kept washing.
She was tired. Tired of everything. Tired of trying to hold herself together. She looked around the kitchen and thought about leaving. Just walking out and not looking back.
“I just want to break my chains, set myself free, and run.”
She whispered it to herself, then smiled faintly through her tears.
She didn't know how far she would run if she ever got the chance. She only knew that she wanted to run until she couldn't feel anything anymore.
She connected her phone to the speaker and put on a sad mix. Why not? Being sad had always suited her.
The music filled the kitchen as she kept washing. The tears kept falling, drop after drop, disappearing into the water. She didn't bother wiping them anymore. She just kept going, faster and faster, as if finishing the dishes would somehow bring her closer to the door.
There were still a few dirty glasses on the table.
She turned off the tap, wiped her face, and walked over to get them. The floor was wet from all the water that had splashed around the sink. She picked up one of the glasses and turned back.
Her foot slipped.
The glass flew out of her hand.
She reached for it.
Missed.
Her body fell backward, and the back of her head hit the ceramic floor.
Everything went dark.
For a while, there was nothing.
Then, somewhere in the distance, a small light appeared.
She couldn't tell if her eyes were open or closed. She could only see the light moving toward her through the darkness. It grew brighter, then suddenly began to shrink, becoming smaller and smaller until it was nothing but a tiny point.
Just before it disappeared, a voice whispered in her ear.
Run.
Her eyes flew open.
She gasped for air and looked around. She was back in the kitchen. Her head was throbbing. She touched the back of her skull and winced.
“Great. Just what I needed. A concussion.”
She tried to sit up.
Then she heard a metallic sound.
She looked down.
A thick chain was wrapped around her wrist.
She froze.
There was another around her other wrist. Then she looked at her ankles.
Two more.
Four chains stretched from her body in four different directions, each one attached to a wall.
She was lying in the middle of the house, pulled from all four sides.
She grabbed one of the chains and pulled.
Nothing.
She pulled harder.
The metal dug into her skin.
“Let me go!”
She pulled again.
The chains tightened.
Pain shot through her arms and legs.
She screamed and pulled with everything she had.
“LET ME GO!”
She gathered every bit of strength left in her body, pulled her hands and legs toward herself, and screamed louder than she had ever screamed before.
The chains broke.
The sound echoed through the house.
She lay there for a moment, breathing heavily, staring at the broken pieces of metal scattered around her.
Then she heard the voice again.
Run.
She got up and ran.
She ran out of the house, down the street, through the city. She ran past people, cars, buildings, and trees without looking back. The world around her blurred as she ran faster than she had ever run before.
She kept going.
The city disappeared behind her. The streets became roads, and the roads became open fields.
Then she saw a car coming toward her.
It was honking.
She stopped and looked at it.
It was tiny.
Like a toy car.
She looked down at her feet.
One foot covered almost the entire road.
She stepped back in shock.
The ground shook.
She looked at her hands.
They were enormous.
She was growing.
The fields became smaller. The roads turned into thin lines. The houses disappeared beneath her.
She looked toward the mountains.
They were getting smaller too.
“Oh my God…”
Her voice echoed across the land.
“I’m the size of a mountain.”
And then she remembered.
A year ago, in the middle of an argument, while crying, she had screamed:
“I want to be bigger. I won't let you keep me small. I want to be a mountain.”
Now she was.
She looked down at the world beneath her and then started running again.
She ran for days.
Weeks.
Months.
She ran across mountains and fields, past rivers and cities. The world became smaller and smaller beneath her feet. She kept running without knowing where she was going or how long she had been running.
Then the voice came again.
Stop.
She stopped.
She looked down.
The Earth was beneath her foot.
It was so small.
She looked around.
There was nothing.
No city.
No mountains.
No sky.
No stars.
Only endless darkness.
She stood there, alone in the middle of it all.
Then, far away, a small light appeared.
She knew that light.
It slowly moved toward her.
She raised her hand.
The light came closer.
Closer.
Until it was right in front of her.
She reached out.
The tip of her finger touched the light.
And everything disappeared.

The Last Battle

Almost Awake — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 01:24:38 GMT

It’s 3:33 a.m. I’m sitting by the window, smoking a cigarette.
Today was strange. The house we’ve been trying to sell for two years has somehow turned into a fight over who gets to buy it. And, the exact house I’ve imagined in my dreams has just come up for sale.
I keep thinking about the road that brought me here.
Of course, I think about whether that house will actually become mine. But , this whole thing has pulled me into a much deeper thought about myself.
I have always fought for everything I’ve wanted.
I don’t know why, but for as long as I can remember, almost everything has felt like a battle. It was never as simple as wanting something and having people say, “Okay. Have it.”
No.
I fought for that ridiculous puffy dress when I was five.
I fought to be allowed to go to my friend’s birthday party.
I fought to leave my gifted school to study literature, philosophy, and the humanities instead of math and biology.
I fought to wear the clothes I actually wanted to wear.
I fought when I was admitted to a university in the capital and wanted to leave my hometown to study there.
I fought to get my own place and live independently.
I fought to build a career.
I fought so that my husband and I could buy a home during our first year of marriage.
I fought for a marriage that was being pressured from every direction.
I fought for my rights within that relationship.
I fought so depression wouldn’t take me away from myself forever.
And now I’ve fought to have the house of my dreams — or at least the dream I have right now.
And those are only some of the big and small battles I’ve had to fight.
Maybe my battles would seem small, insignificant, or even ridiculous to you. But you don’t know how much each one of them drained me.
And the strangest part?
After every victory, there was no real happiness waiting for me.
Just exhaustion. Pressure. And the same unanswered question:
Why do I have to fight this hard for everything, only to win when I’m already completely exhausted?
The truth is, I’ve decided that buying this house will be my last battle.
I don’t want to fight for anything anymore.
My spirit is much softer than the people around me think it is.
They’ve always seen me in armor, sword in hand. But they’ve never seen what happens when I take that armor off after a battle — how I curl into myself, touch my wounds, cry, and replay everything that happened to me during that fight.
Then I drag myself into the shower and ask God to wash this battle’s wounds from my body too, and make me feel lighter.
War. War.
Even that word has changed meaning for me over the past year.
It became real. I saw it with my own eyes.
But maybe that’s a story for another time. I don’t want to go there right now.
You know, I feel like once I know for sure that I have my home, once I can spend my days freely and simply live, there won’t be much left worth fighting for.
Because this year, I learned how to find freedom without fighting for it.
And that’s what I’m going to do.
I finally understood that freedom was always the point.
This house isn’t just a house.
It is, finally, the title deed to my freedom.
Maybe that’s why the root chakra has always felt so significant to me. Maybe that intense need to find a home isn’t random at all — the need to find a place where I can finally breathe, feel peaceful and free, and know that I am completely, completely safe.
Maybe there’s a reason it’s called the root chakra.
Because if the root isn’t strong and secure, how can I expect myself to truly express who I am, understand what real forgiveness means, or serve something bigger than myself?
This last battle was for my roots.
For my freedom.
For giving my nervous system a real chance to rebuild itself.
And I have a feeling this is only the beginning. :)
I feel like after finally putting down roots, maybe it will be my time to grow leaves, grow bigger, and, finally, maybe one day, bear fruit. :)

The Last Fifteen Minutes

Almost Awake — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 20:21:52 GMT

“I don’t really want to talk about it. But it’s not like I’m going to put my guard up and refuse to talk just because you’re meeting me for the first time.”
It hadn’t even been a minute, and I was already restless—in a situation that had been my own idea!
We had been talking about couples therapy for months, but never actually followed through with it. Until that last time, when I finally realized there was really nothing left...
The silence was getting longer. I had to say something.
“The truth is, I’ve talked about everything that happened with my own therapist so many times. And now, I’m not doing very well again after what happened, it’s hard for me to talk about our problems. I think it’s really over for me now.”
I couldn’t hold back my tears anymore, and I broke down.
Yeah. I already knew it was over...
The therapist asked me, “Just tell me why you think it’s over. You don’t have to explain.”
I said, “It matters more to him what his friend’s wife thinks of him, or his mother, or his sister, than what his own wife thinks of him!”
“Why do you feel that way?”
Oh, this wasn’t just a feeling...
I was getting frustrated. I put my left hand over my right forearm and gently rubbed the spot that was hurting.
“I don’t know.”
The couples therapist brought up a few of the problems HE had previously discussed with him and asked, “What do you think about these?”
There were some financial issues that had been one of our biggest arguments three years ago, and I had been furious about them.
How stupid that when something this big happens, you don’t realize right away that this isn’t normal!
This is not a normal problem!
You’re not supposed to sit down and work on it!
Stupid girl.
I said, “I don’t have any complaints about it anymore. I don’t care. I don’t want anything.”
“Why?”
Because what happened wasn’t just a financial problem.
It wasn’t simply some ordinary act of cruelty from my In_lows , or some desire to have the upper hand that a man might have over a woman in a relationship.
When it happened, I pretended it hadn’t. I only complained about it in private, when it was just the two of us.
It was money I had earned myself. I had given it to them hoping it would help us move forward, because I trusted them.
But you know what?
That wasn’t even the point.
It was years later that I finally understood what had actually happened.
That what they had done to me had been planned in a way that was meant to bring me down—exactly when I was a newlywed, unpacking my things and arranging them in our new home...
I only understood that after enough years had passed for me to really get to know who they actually were.
I realized how much financial matters meant to them. So much that if they themselves had lost even one-tenth of the amount I had given them—which, by the way, when I first confronted them about it, they completely denied and called me a liar—they could genuinely have felt like their whole life was over.
That kind of attachment...
My heart hurt from a hostility I hadn’t even known existed.
And the further I went, the more that pain twisted inside me, as I learned what they had been saying about me while I was trying to support them.
And the person I thought was supposed to be on my team had, again and again, allowed me to be mocked and attacked in front of others.
Even though, at the time, he knew how hard I was trying to show them love.
How stupidly hard I was trying to make them like me.
He never came to my defense.
I was trying so hard.
Why?
Because my brain couldn’t find any explanation for that kind of cruelty.
And, well, the typically stupid version of me back then had this logic:
If there’s no problem, then I must have done something wrong.
Or maybe there was something wrong with the way I was.
Something about me that shouldn’t be there.
And what an exhausting effort that was...
He asked, “Don’t you want to say anything?”
I said, “It doesn’t matter to me anymore.”
I don’t know why I’m even sitting here...
These aren’t even half of the things that truly broke my heart.
The things that actually broke me were buried underneath endless gaslighting and the biggest doubts I had ever had about my own existence.
I continued:
“If it’s possible, I’d like to end this session early. Next week, we’re supposed to have our couples therapy session. I’ll see you then.”
I didn’t wait for his response.
I quickly grabbed my bag and left.
I need to go to that swimming pool that is mine and mine alone!
Well, technically, it isn’t only mine :)
But it’s the quietest public pool near my house. The last one-and-a-half-hour session starts in fifteen minutes, and right now, it’s my time.
Does this count as a guilty pleasure?
I don’t think it’s very fancy :))
But I always go a little later than the start of the one-and-a-half-hour session.
That way, during the last fifteen minutes, when everyone goes to shower, I get to stay behind with that huge pool all to myself...
Five minutes just lying on my back in the water.
Five minutes of swimming laps—the kind they don’t let you do when the pool is crowded.
And five minutes of being completely ridiculous :)
Which means jumping around in the water, doing somersaults, and laughing while the last lifeguard stands there with her hands on her hips and a very obvious eye-roll, waiting for me to finish my nonsense and get out so she can finally end her shift.
I know, girl!
I know the last fifteen minutes of a work shift are absolutely unbearable.
But believe me, it’s those fifteen minutes that keep the love of life alive in me :)

I’m writing this while sitting in my usual spot, facing the living-room painting :)
My headphones are on, I’m listening to Surah Al-Kahf, and I’m posting my first fictional story for you, just like I used to back when I had a blog.
I hope you like it :)

I Swear We Don’t Live on the Same Earth

Almost Awake — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 16:49:32 GMT

He was driving, and I was sitting beside him. It was late at night, and we had gone out for a little drive. The neighborhood we live in is, in my opinion, the most beautiful part of this city. For someone like me, whose hometown isn’t here, I had only one condition when it came to living in this city: we had to live in this neighborhood.
It’s a huge neighborhood, with streets branching off in every direction, most of the houses being detached villas, and trees—sooooo many trees. I mean, seriously. Everywhere.
Do you know what the name of this place translates to? City of Love. Isn’t that beautiful?
Almost every other street has a big, old park, filled with trees that are hundreds of years old. And nightlife here is very much alive. There are cafés and restaurants everywhere, most of them staying open until late at night. And lately, there have been more and more girls riding motorcycles. Honestly, I think they’ve made the city even prettier.
I don’t remember exactly what we were talking about, but once again, I felt that strange sensation in my stomach.
In my opinion, there is nothing more exhausting than having to repeat yourself several times—or having to hear the same thing over and over again. Especially for me.
I mean, I’ve always had a little ADHD mixed into my personality, and the impatience I sometimes have tends to show itself, especially in the middle of conversations.
Although, if I liked hearing the same thing ten times in one minute, I’d definitely have kids.
And, well, now that there are no children involved, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that I don’t have to play that role!
I put on some music and decided not to say anything. Now that I was finally out of the house, I just wanted to relax for a little while.
I hadn’t left the house for three days. I had been making my brain work nonstop. I felt like my head had gotten so big that it was practically taking up the entire house.
Then, late that night, he came to pick me up, and I happily got in the car, more than ready to get some fresh air.
As we drove through the little streets, looking at the houses, the conversation about moving came up again.
For almost two years now, we’ve been talking about moving. Just a couple of streets over.

Selling our house and getting somewhere newer and better.
And, well, two years is no joke where I live.
The inflation and the social and economic situation here are such that the house you want can easily cost two or even three times as much after two years.
And that is exactly what happened to us.
But that’s not even the whole story.
Every time, I’m given a whole list of different reasons, and honestly, I don’t really understand any of them.
I genuinely don’t understand why, if something makes me happy, makes my life easier, and—most importantly—I can afford it, I shouldn’t do it.
But, well… this is what this is.
We got ice cream cones, and licking mine somehow made me excited all over again. So, with a little more enthusiasm, I continued the conversation about the house.
The more we talked and explained our reasons, the more obvious our disagreement became.
It honestly felt like we weren’t understanding each other at all.
I didn’t understand his reasons. He didn’t understand mine.
Wait a second.
Are we even living on the same Earth?
Oh. Maybe that’s the problem.
I swear we don’t live on the same Earth.
I don’t know if it’s just me, or if other people feel the same way when they’ve simply had enough of a place.
I just know that the energy here bothers me.
I don’t want to live here anymore.
Why isn’t that enough of a reason?
Of course, there are a million things behind this feeling. I’m not just pulling a dramatic I don’t want to be here anymore out of thin air.
But I don’t want to think about them.
We came back home, and the conversation about the house was still going when, somewhere in the middle of it, he jokingly asked,
“So if we move to a new house, does that mean we’ll still have delicious food every day, like we used to?”
I laughed.
“Of course! You know how much I love cooking.”
The only problem is that I don’t enjoy cooking in this kitchen anymore.
The old, broken cabinets—
Oh, no. I’m not getting into the details. I’ll just get annoyed all over again.
I imagined myself as Cinderella, in a modern kitchen with steam and the smell of food floating through the air from every corner.
I was singing,
“La la la la laaa, laaa…”
and gently moving my hands as I danced around by myself.
A few little sparrows landed on my fingers, then flew away again.
Then I would bend down and take a cake out of the oven.
“La la la laaa…”
Wait.
WAIT!!!
Why Cinderella?!
Think of someone else.
Another character!
Who?
Rapunzel?
Oh, come on.
Whatever. Just—why can’t I think of anyone else?
I looked at myself again.
I was wearing Cinderella’s work clothes, dancing with the sparrows, putting the cake on the table, and heading back toward the stove.
All I wanted was to be wearing the beautiful dresses Cinderella wore at the palace.
But no.
There I was, still wearing Cinderella’s work clothes, dancing in the middle of my modern kitchen.
Well, damn.

The Girl Who Came Back

Almost Awake — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 14:48:07 GMT

I used to be an academic girl.
I spent six years of my life at university. Most of my clothes were university clothes, and most of my time was spent on campus. And for an 18-year-old girl, it was incredibly exciting.
Then, when I was 23 and started my master’s degree at a new university, it somehow became even more exciting.
Let me tell you a little about the country where I studied.
Here, universities are generally divided into a few categories.
There are public universities. You take a national entrance exam, and if you get accepted, you can study without paying tuition because the government covers the cost of your education.
Then there are universities where you still take an entrance exam, but you also have to pay tuition. You can pay for it yourself, or you can use a student loan for some financial support. Although, to be honest, the loan is pretty small compared to the tuition.
And then there is a third option: campuses and programs affiliated with some of the country’s top universities that accept students through easier entrance exams, or sometimes without an exam, but charge much higher tuition.
That option was never really on my list. :)
Anyway, when I was 18, I took the national entrance exam and got accepted into one of the best public universities in the capital.
At first, everything was different.
A different city. A different culture. Different people. And, of course, a completely different university environment.
I knew absolutely nothing about course planning.
Until my fourth semester, I basically took whatever classes I liked.
Then one day I realized:
“Oh. I have a ton of prerequisites for the next semesters that I haven’t passed yet!”
A pretty stupid mistake that could have turned a four-year bachelor’s degree into a six-year one.
And that was how, for the next two years, I somehow ended up taking classes at universities all over the capital. :)
I would become a visiting student for a semester, take courses that my own university wasn’t offering that term, and basically… if I put it simply, I somehow studied at all five of the capital’s top universities.
I was fascinated by university campuses.
The huge buildings.
All those trees.
The professors I met.
Those years were some of the hardest years of my life, filled with studying, work, endless sleepless nights, and somehow, so many memories I still carry with me.
Somehow, by whatever force necessary, I finished my bachelor’s degree on time.
Then I took a year off and went back to my hometown to prepare for the entrance exam for my master’s degree.
Four years of living in a dorm in the capital had been incredible, but I genuinely needed that year off.
I found a part-time job and became a music therapist for children with cochlear implants.
At the same time, I was preparing for my master’s entrance exam.
And honestly, living with my family for a little while at that age felt surprisingly easy.
When the results came out, I didn’t get into a public university this time.
But I did get accepted into one of the best universities in the capital for my field — a university with a global ranking, where admission was based on the national entrance exam and tuition was required.
At the time, the tuition was still affordable for me.
My family supported me to some extent, and I was also working at several different clinics as a music therapist and play therapist.
This time, I rented my own apartment.
And that was when my independent life officially began.
As a master’s student, I had several part-time jobs.
And finally, I was living alone in my tiny little apartment in the capital.
When I think about that period of my life now, I honestly can’t believe that girl was me.
I went to university.
I took new courses.
I kept learning.
And I can say that if I eventually became a professional in my field, a huge part of it was because of the work I put into those two years of my master’s degree.
I got to know some incredible professors in my field. I started to understand where I stood professionally and, more importantly, who I wanted to become.
I became more familiar with different psychological approaches, as well as the assessment and treatment of childhood and adolescent disorders.
I took so many courses.
And little by little, I realized:
I wanted to become a child and adolescent therapist.
I remember that for almost an entire year, I spent every weekend taking professional training courses.
During the week, I was at university and working at different clinics.
And then it was time to choose a supervisor for my thesis.
At the time, I was taking a professional neuroscience course with one of the top professors in the field.
Eventually, he became my thesis supervisor.
He wasn’t even a professor at my university, but somehow I managed to do my thesis under his supervision.
My thesis was about evaluating a cognitive rehabilitation program and its effects on the theory of mind in children on the autism spectrum.
And around that same time, my phone finally rang.
I was invited to an interview.
Where?
The biggest clinic in the country.
And what happened?
I got the job.
I officially became a child and adolescent therapist.
At the same time, I started the process of getting my professional license. There were exams, interviews, and several months of waiting.
And eventually, I officially became a licensed psychologist. :)
So far, it sounds pretty beautiful, right?
Do you think the success continued?
Well, you’d better keep reading.
I applied for another master’s degree, this time in neuroscience psychology.
And the university I really wanted accepted me.
Guess where?
London.
And this was where my life could have completely changed.
Around the same time, my boyfriend proposed to me.
I didn’t go to London.
I stayed.
I got married.
And with the same motivation and ambition, I continued working at the clinic.
I supported my husband’s career, and together we bought a house.
Three years into my work at the clinic, I started noticing the signs.
I couldn’t keep going.
My mental state had reached a point where I wasn’t satisfied with any of the therapy sessions I was conducting.
I was declining.
Depression, stress, and all the problems I had ignored for years had finally caught up with me.
And I got scared.
What if I couldn’t be a therapist anymore?
How was I going to make money?
I took the government employment exam.
I passed.
I spent a semester going through the required training, went through the interviews, and eventually became a teacher for children with special needs.
I felt a little safer.
Now I had a government job.
I knew that if I couldn’t continue working as a therapist, at least I had some job security — even if the salary was much lower, and even if the workplace wasn’t exactly somewhere I could connect with my coworkers.
I don’t know what government workplaces are like in other countries, but where I live, they’re… well, not exactly great.
I lasted a little over a year trying to work at the clinic, teach at a special education school, and help with my husband’s work at the same time.
I completely burned out.
I left the clinic myself, using “personal reasons” as an excuse — before my performance declined so much that they would have had to let me go themselves.
I couldn’t even talk to anyone about my mental health.
I couldn’t explain what was happening to me.
I stayed at the school for another three years.
And the pressure on me kept getting heavier.
Married life and its problems.
The fear around money that the people around me had planted in my mind.
All of it was slowly suffocating me.
And finally, I did what I should have done much earlier.
I took a one-year unpaid leave from work.
I canceled the occasional online therapy sessions I was still doing and stopped taking clients altogether.
I started setting boundaries with the people around me.
And, well…
I lost a lot of people.
I distanced myself from friendships and family relationships that were putting pressure on me, until I somehow found myself in a kind of self-imposed isolation.
But the more I tried to work on myself, the worse things seemed to get.
I broke my hand.
I had surgery.
Around the time I went on leave, I had also enrolled in an online trading course.
The plan was actually pretty simple:
I would spend that year learning to trade and see whether I could make something out of it.
But I couldn’t even study a single topic.
The state of my mental health, and everything I had endured for years, had turned me into a completely different person.
A person who didn’t trust herself at all.
A person who couldn’t even trust herself to keep the simplest promise:
“Tomorrow, I won’t spend the entire day in bed.”
Can you believe I’m talking about just nine months ago?
I spent at least six of those months completely consumed by myself.
Who am I?
What is wrong with me?
Why have I become like this?
And how am I supposed to save myself?
Then, three months ago, I started taking spin classes.
And I realized that this was actually my kind of exercise.
I started therapy.
And finally, as a complete beginner, I entered the forex market.
And now, as I’m writing this, I have only one month left of my one-year leave.
I don’t know what’s going to happen after that.
I don’t know which direction I’m going to take.
I don’t know whether I’ll go back to my old career or start something completely different.
I just know one thing:
This past year felt like the death of ego for me.
I disappeared.
And then I came back into existence.
Not as the same person.
As someone new.
Like that little phoenix I got tattooed along my spine when I was 24. :)

The Woman in the Little Room

Almost Awake — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 17:26:16 GMT

She said, “The moment you walked into the room, I could tell you were feeling good.”
I laughed and said, “We went back to my hometown over the weekend, for the first time in nine months. It was so nice. I’d really missed my family. I’d missed my city. Have you ever been there?”
I didn’t even let her answer before excitedly continuing, “It’s so beautiful. You have to see it!”
My therapist picked up the conversation from where we had left off in our previous session, connecting it to some of the things we had been talking about regarding my childhood and to my recent trip back there.
And there I was, sitting comfortably in my chair, talking to her with a sense of ease and contentment.
At the same time, I found myself thinking about this little room, these two chairs, and the woman sitting across from me.
Over the past few months, this room has become a safe space for me.
It’s a four-room apartment in an old building, not far from my home.
And interestingly enough, I was wearing this exact same outfit the first day I came here.
I only realized that just now.
Half an hour before my first session, I was sitting in my car, puffy-eyed, parked somewhere in a random alley, with a cigarette in my hand and Surah Ad-Duha playing in the background.
I had searched for a surah that might be comforting to listen to during difficult times, and that was the one I found.
I should probably mention that I don’t speak Arabic. But listening to the Quran, even when I don’t understand the meaning, somehow makes me feel better.
And the name of this surah means “The Morning Brightness.”
I mean, what could be more fitting than that?
I picked up my phone, searched for a psychology clinic nearby, and called the number. I asked if they had a female therapist available who could see me, and I went to meet her.
She brought me into this little room.
And I started crying.
I told her everything.
And now, weeks later, I can sit comfortably in that same chair and laugh with her.
You know, I never expected to walk into that room and have the Freud himself suddenly appear and magically fix me.
I didn’t need that.
What I needed was to be able to sit in a safe room once a week and talk to a woman without being afraid of being judged, without worrying that she might use my words against me, and without later regretting the things I had said.
I needed to be able to speak freely, cry, and laugh with her.
And it turns out, I didn’t need Freud himself after all.
In fact, healing had already begun for me through this healthy connection.
As a woman, loneliness has been intertwined with my life for years.
I’ve experienced it in so many different forms and at so many different depths. I’ve both enjoyed it and suffered through it.
But the loneliness that came from not having someone to talk to, not having a female friend I could truly connect with, was definitely one of the hardest kinds I’ve experienced.
And in a strange way, therapy filled some of that space for me.
Now I know that once a week, there’s a woman sitting in a little room, waiting for me to walk in and take the chair across from her.
A woman who gives me permission to be vulnerable, so that little by little, she can help me find my way through life.

Dear Substack, I Swear I Wrote This

Almost Awake — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 21:43:59 GMT

I’m sitting on the couch, my legs stretched out on the coffee table, staring at the painting on the wall in front of me.
This is my usual spot.
At least, it has been for the past six months.
Little by little, the whole house started pushing me out, until I found this place—the living room couch that was supposed to be for guests, although, other than me, I don’t think more than a handful of people have ever actually sat on it.
And one day, I sat here, pulled the coffee table in front of me, put my laptop on it, and somehow, this became my room :)
My private room!
I have a pretty good view, and I don’t have to be in the parts of the house that make me uncomfortable anymore.
Anyway, after staring at that painting for an hour, I still haven’t found an answer.
For someone like me, whose third language is English, what does it even look like to be active on Substack?
Do you know why I called language a challenge?
Let me tell you how I ended up here.
When I first heard about Substack—or, more accurately, when I saw an Instagram post in my own language saying, “If you love writing, Substack is where you belong”—something lit up in my mind.
Of course I love writing.
I always have.
And now I’m at a very specific point in my life, with only a few months left until I turn 32.
This past year lifted me up and then dropped me from the highest possible height, at full speed, straight onto the ground.
And I, like a mischievous little kid, got back up while twisting in pain and crying my eyes out, and said:
“It didn’t even hurt!”
It did.
It hurt like hell.
It still does.
But the version of myself this year gave me is probably something I could never have found any other way.
And this version of me brought my love for writing back to life.
Naturally, I downloaded the app, searched around, read everything I could find about it, and, well… I fell in love with it.
That same night, I was out when I got the idea for my first piece.
I wrote it.
Then I turned to AI for editing.
First, I gave it the text I had written in my own language and asked it to edit the writing. I’m not a professional writer, and I wanted to see what it thought of my piece and how it would organize it.
Then came the English translation.
I tried to do it myself, but, well, let’s face the truth: maybe when it comes to listening and reading, having English as your third language isn’t that much of a challenge.
But writing?
Trust me, it feels like an eight-year-old girl is trying to write a 32-year-old woman’s essay using words.
Anyway, AI translated the piece for me.
And I, happily realizing how many opportunities there are now, read my piece over and over again.
I compared the words and sentence structures with the original version in my own language, and once I was sure that the essence of what I had written was still completely there, I published it.
After publishing, I wandered around Substack, followed people, subscribed, and started reading.
I was happy that I was here too.
The truth is, I’m happy just knowing that I can put my thoughts into words and leave them somewhere.
I’m not expecting readers either :)
And then, when I was reading my piece for probably the hundredth time, I noticed an interesting little option next to it:
Scan for AI
Guess what I saw?
36% human
AI-assisted 0%
AI 64%
And I just stared at the result, mouth open, completely stunned.
How is it possible that a piece I wrote ended up being labeled as AI?
Is it because I sometimes use metaphors, and the sentence that carries that metaphor in my own language has a different structure in English, so the translation somehow makes it stop sounding like mine?
Should I stop being active on Substack for now and work on practicing English writing instead?
For a few months?
And even after that, will I no longer need editing?
Of course I will!
So should I just make peace with it and tell myself that, because I know these are my words, it shouldn’t matter to me?
Then why does it matter so much?
Why does it create these scenes in my head?
I’m cooking. I’m marinating chicken, and some of the sauce spills onto my clothes.
And my thought is:
“Seriously, how am I supposed to be on Substack without AI?”
I’m driving. I turn left onto a street, and the car behind me honks.
And my thought is:
“What does everyone else use for editing?”
My laptop is open. My training video is playing.
The instructor is explaining the meaning of Price Action.
And my thought is:
“Do I need to use a human translator?”
I’m sitting across from my therapist. We’re talking, and I’m holding a damp tissue in my hand.
And my thought is:
“Substack…”
And well, this became my second piece :)
An attempt to ask for help from anyone out there who happens to be reading me.
Do you know what I’m supposed to do?
Can you help me?
Oh my God…
I don’t even want to run the AI scan on this one.

Almost Awake

Almost Awake — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 22:34:45 GMT

We were sitting somewhere in a corner, surrounded by trees; somewhere in the middle of a cycling path. It was dark, and the leaves were slowly moving with the wind.
We were talking about the memories we have from the big spaces we’ve lived in throughout our lives. This huge park took me back to my undergraduate years and the dorm; and it took him back to his time in the army. Those big spaces where, at some point, we had spent years of our lives, just like this park full of trees.
He said, “Do you ever feel that whenever you grow older, the years that pass, the things you’ve done, and the person you used to be…”
That was when I leaned my head back and looked up, and I completely lost track of the rest of what he said for the next ten minutes.
My own thoughts got lost in the sky, in the moon above me, in the leaves of the trees slowly moving against the background of the clouds…
Yes, I understand my own growth. I truly understand it.
Because every time I have grown, it has happened after a cycle of my life has come to an end. And every time, at every age, the ending of a cycle — no matter how deep it was — shook this “self” inside me so much that now I completely understand what you mean…
You know, I’m only recently realizing that these cycles even exist. Before this, life was just a straight line moving me forward. And then, after I went through the hardest period I had experienced up until that point, I finally started to notice the periods before it.
Isn’t that interesting?
You go through a difficult period, and you don’t even realize that it was meant to change something inside you; until, in the hardest way that you could possibly experience it, it finally taps you on the shoulder and says:
“Learn me. I am on your side.”
That’s how it was for me. When it finally said, “I am on your side,” that was the moment I understood that these cycles actually exist.
I stopped seeing it as an obstacle, bad luck, or something I needed to escape from. I didn’t fight it. I didn’t want it to end sooner. I stayed inside it, I let myself sink into it, and I saw its true self — what it was trying to tell me.
Step out of the idea of a linear life.
Look around you. Look at people, patterns, and finally, yourself.
Maybe that’s the whole point.
Recently, I lifted my head again and looked back at the path I’ve walked so far; at where I am standing right now.
And I wonder if…
I can, just once, truly see “myself.”
Without editing myself. Without fear. Without constantly watching and judging myself.
Maybe then I can finally say:
“This was also a kind of growing up.”
So, for the very first time, I feel like I’m finally almost awake.