“You either walk inside your story and own it, or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness.” – Dr. Brene Brown
Dear Fellow Warrior,
I didn’t expect it to take this long to write to you again after my last message. However, this is difficult because I understand now why it has been hard to return to this space.
I believe it has to do with the fact that I had lost the first audience that was ever introduced to the Chronicles of the Warrior KQueen: My Facebook community.
My last message was about bidding farewell to my 20-year run on Facebook.
There is a legit grief there that I had been processing as a writer/blogger or active social media content creator. And I believe I am healing, at least in that regard. There is still a lot of other trauma to be healing from…
It is now over five months since I decided to let go of that space I had for 20 years… And as I say in the previous piece, even though it was such a difficult decision for me, I still believe I made the best decision.
A lot has happened since then, and I wish I could have been able to write more here to share, reflect, and process my journey. I have invested time and energy and vision in other platforms, but that is another conversation to save for later.
For the moment, I wanted to update you on how I feel about that decision and what that means in terms of my visibility, sense of community, belonging, authenticity, and how I intend to keep growing as a writer.
I won’t be returning to that space. When I say that space, I mean the people, the communities I deleted from my life. Because I do actually, and unfortunately, have to keep my Facebook profile there. There are way too many memories and an archive of posts from my travels, observations, political commentary, art, blogs, reflections, insights, and more, that I don’t want to lose if I don’t have to.
Some reflections have been extended here from my writing in that space. And some in other spaces, like Instagram, Twitter/X, and now Substack.
I have to keep all those posts. It will come in handy when writing the memoir. Just as it would be valuable to take my articles from this blog and reproduce them elsewhere, including the new sister Substack newsletter I started this year, Sword Dispatch: The WkQ Letters, which will be the hub that will curate all my content from this website, to draw some more traffic.
There was one time… when I first deactivated Facebook (for two weeks after I first left), and then returned, the search function on Facebook was working differently. And all my recently tagged photos in the features were gone.
This signalled that I can’t deactivate or I may lose some features. Sadly, I have to stay present there to keep all those memories, especially the special ones with my parents.
That is what I valued the most. The family memories I documented and created. I may make all my posts private, though or fix the privacy setting.
Since I left Facebook, I was excited about a new beginning, but didn’t realize how grand of a challenge it would be to lose that very visibility I had among my previous networks. I basically had to choose being hypervisible over losing visibility, when feeling misunderstood and ignored for all I was contributing in that space. Feeling misunderstood, as I have shared in other blog pieces, is a sign of authenticity, and I appreciate quoting Emerson often when he says, “To be great is to be misunderstood.” Because it’s true. Greatness has a price. Authenticity has a price.
I felt sad that maybe my efforts in blogging on social media and on all these forums haven’t led to any impact.
But sometimes change requires just a little more patience. Because you might be surprised that one day your words might help someone. And I cannot say that my words did not impact anyone at all. There was definitely an impact. But I did face some intersectional challenges, considering the challenge of being intersectional, and someone with multiple marginalized layers of identity factors.
Unfortunately, part of the reason why I had to leave was that many people in my life did not appear to have my best interests in their hearts. And the limited backing and support I was getting was just not sustainable. I have reflected on this quite a lot in other spaces now, like X and Instagram.
I have a lot to say about my time on Facebook. But that was part of the reason why I left. It was the primary outlet of my authentic expression. And I was scrutinized for it.
It revealed to me that I was right. The whole time.
What I notice is that sometimes people give you even less love than they were giving, when you name the social illness, the problem, as if to teach you a lesson for not being grateful for the crumbs of support they may show you….for telling the truth, for figuring it out, for being smart and not as incompetent as they thought you to be.
That may also be a sign that they were among those giving you the evil eye.
A lot has happened in the past few months. I started an educational crowdfunding campaign, put in a lot of work and effort for that. That experience, which I share in a few Qi Newsletter editions, and will discuss in more detail in a future edition, confirmed the loss of community.
It was astonishing to see not a single person in my academic, professional or extended family express even the tiniest show of support. Many of these people knew my hopes and dreams. Many of them knew I was struggling. Many of them knew my fight with suicidality and depression.
For a long time, I just could not believe that they couldn’t even like, share, amplify, and write encouraging words for that project. They will watch everything I do, but not show any support for it. It was so heartbreaking, even when I explained that sharing could lead to someone who is able to give…to give a donation. Even when I laid out clearly the broader impacts and how important it is to support these efforts. I am certain that none of my contacts even bothered to click on the links, because of hate, resentment and jealousy. They did not want to see me “make it.”
But that loss was already confirmed with my previous year’s fundraiser for the Polnet conference (June 2024). My FundMyTravel campaign was supported entirely by family members. This year, it was still family, but a few members from my childhood community in Wisconsin (to whom I am truly grateful). Another donation came recently, entirely from a stranger. And that helped fuel a relaunch for Giving Tuesday for the next phase of my academic journey.
After returning from the APSA conference in Vancouver, I realized I cannot have anyone in my orbit carrying negative vibes towards me… anyone at all who has even an ounce of jealousy, envy, resentment for whatever reasons.
If they have beef with me, and do not want to communicate and talk about it, there is nothing you can do. The reason why they don’t communicate is because of their own limitations, triggers, and insecurities, which then translate into how they engage or don’t engage with you online. There are also many unsupportive friends and family who hang around only to know what I am doing and not to genuinely support me.
Reflecting on this, I have a stronger feeling more than ever, and sufficient evidence that I did suffer from stigma, the evil eye, and more… something I have discussed here many times before.
And I find this to be such a tragic part of my story. It is true that the people you surround yourself with will make or break you. It is so important to let go of those who don’t see your soul. I want to go into detail and bring more of an academic lens to this, but this particular blog piece has to be for my catharsis at this time.
Because this was what the Chronicles of a Warrior KQueen was supposed to be, all these years… Almost 10 years now. A home for my catharsis, for my authentic expression of all in the heart that I originally started on Facebook.
It was supposed to be my safe place for authenticity, belonging, healing and self-empowerment and more. And to connect with others who appreciate that and understand the courage, effort, and energy it takes to pour your heart out in writing…. especially when your voice is silenced elsewhere.
To this day, as I reflect on my journey here, I cannot comprehend why I couldn’t find other women in my life who weren’t intimidated and threatened by this space. By the Warrior KQueen. That felt connected to my message in some way. I tried so hard.
I still believe there is a sisterhood out there. I refuse to allow the challenges I face to shape how I feel about the potential, promise, and dream of sisterhood.
But I could feel it. You know when women are triggered negatively by other women attempting to take up space and ultimately create space for others. And that will always intrigue me.
It hurt… so much. And I am allowed to feel hurt. This pain is valid. As long as I don’t let it paralyze me.
Sometimes it feels like they want you to hurt. For punishment of standing in the light, standing in your power and agency, for having the courage to walk into spaces as your whole self, something that so many others struggle with. Instead of being inspired, they chose to be resentful of you.
In the end, they chose to burn that bridge with you. They ended the friendship, the sisterhood, the moment they chose jealousy over support and inspiration.
Losing that outlet of expression on Facebook and trying to live without that “Facebook Update,” and move on with my life, was very, very difficult. I don’t think anyone truly understood that, unless they made the effort I made with over 17,000 posts, many hundreds of which may have been essay-long posts.
I was fighting a numbness from the withdrawal. And even five months without Facebook is still too early, given the 20-year run (I was part of the first cohort in college). I dont have to be hard myself. I have still gone there to check a few things, and it will always be there. Just not having the community I once valued… a community that I thought valued me… can feel tough…
And honestly, I didn’t think this through clearly, because I know there were some people there who did value me.
But even the silent, positive onlookers contributed to my invisibility there. And that is still not okay.
When I think about where it started, I realise how awful it was. How myopic I was for staying connected to people with fixed mindsets about me. Nothing changed. They were not growing with me as I was growing. They were resenting me for trying to fight for my dreams, for trying to be someone, for fighting to change my stars, for proving over and over again that I deserved better. They were punishing me with invisibility for choosing authenticity.
As we talked about before, authentic people are often disliked. Even if they have a kind soul. But you know me to be a complex person, don’t you?
Some people literally invisibilized me in college and high school, and I stayed connected to them anyway. The others were fellow Pakistanis and Muslims, many who were definitely stigmatizing everything I was sharing, especially about mental health.
I felt the connection dissipate over time, but the fact that we were still “friends” on Facebook, connected in some way through that forum, would give me hope that at least there was some connection during a period of transition in my life. That maybe they might change. Now that hope is gone. When you walk away, you must walk away for good.
I also knew, but only came to full realization, that I would never connect with most people on Facebook in any other space. As I said, I am slowly removing past contacts from Instagram as well.
I even gave people so many other ways to stay connected with me, to follow my work as an indie creator, and few people took interest in staying connected or following my work. Months being off Facebook, I can confirm that my hunch was true the whole time. They didn’t value me, nor my voice. At all. And I was wasting my energy being hypervisibilized and scrutinized in that space.
This does not mean anything about my worth. How your community treats you is not a measure of your worth at all. At least in the negative sense. Just because one small community of people don’t see your value, doesn’t mean that others won’t either.
There will be people out there who will value you and appreciate you for exactly who you are. You don’t have to lose your soul, you don’t have to lose yourself trying to appease people and win their approval. They are not worth your integrity and dignity.
I walked away, not to teach them a lesson, but because I had self-respect. I knew I deserved better.
In any case, as I have said many times in the past, and especially in recent years, we can always rewrite our story, however many times we want.
I am in my early forties now. Life has not gone the way that I had hoped and aspired. But it is still moving, even if it is a little slower than expected.
I started my Substack newsletter, Sword Dispatch: The WkQ letters, as another way to try to find the “Fellow Warrior Kings and Queens” out there, as originally envisioned for this blog on mental health and intersectionality.
Maybe the word wasn’t catchy, maybe my personal networks were too triggered negatively again to support it, but I am going to keep thinking about how I can continue balancing creative, raw, and authentic, vulnerable expression online, without a support network and community.
I recognize now, that upon leaving Facebook, I lost even the little community I had. Sometimes people roll with whether you are socially validated by others or not. It’s a shallow world. People don’t take the time to understand. Sometimes it is the haters who sabotage our lives and bring us down. But we have to remember that they will never stop trying to throw you off your game. They will always hate.
You will always have critics if you put yourself out there. Especially if you name the injustices, name the social illnesses, and confront issues that people are uncomfortable talking about.
In my case, there may have been one too many haters in my personal networks. It was toxic and unhealthy for many reasons. And I know there are spaces out there that are safer.
Many people would read this piece and assume that there was something wrong with me. I know. It’s always my fault.
It’s always the woman of color, the woman with multiple marginalized identity layers that is the problem. We are the broken ones, not the system and the culture itself.
There must be absolutely nothing wrong with a culture that stigmatizes women for following unconventional paths, for being authentic, for walking in their truth, for speaking their truth, for not getting married, for not having children, for demanding to be treated with respect, for dreaming big, for trying to take initiative, for thinking outside the box, for doing revolutionary things… yeah we have no historic precedence at all that substantiates anything wrong with culture, systems, norms, and the people that follow that culture, systems, and norms blindly.
People still don’t understand how authenticity works, and how marginalized people experience further marginalization when making those injustices more visible and public.
The reason why someone with integrity and honesty continues to share their story despite the risk of being marginalized or othered is that they know they have to … the universe has recruited them to become “Qurbani ka Bakaras” for changing these harmful norms and practices.
It is okay to grieve.
To grieve the loss and feel the pain of losing community is to be human. Is to care. But perhaps I should never have cared. I stayed way too long in spaces and places where I was not valued. I always believed, as I have stated before, that it is important to show up, even if you are unwanted. But I was also that frog in boiling water. In some spaces, it is just not worth it.
Wow. It has been a long time since I have written here.
As I stated before, the Chronicles of the Warrior KQueen is still the space where I feel most at home, with my raw, unfiltered, unpolished writing. And it makes sense that this space grew out of the raw and unfiltered blogging on Facebook all those years.
Is it okay to wonder sometimes… if they ever think about me, or miss me at all in that space? Anyone? So many people would tell me they valued my posts, many stopped engaging, many wouldn’t publicly engage.
Ultimately, I have been channelling that one statement I’ve heard in the past few years on social media, that if they never valued you in your presence, they wouldn’t value you in your absence.
Dear fellow warrior, I feel the bitterness, the anger, the grief, evaporating. I am healing. Slowly. My healing comes from writing, but also with the excitement that there is so much more out there for me… I do have a future. And I am just starting…
Sometimes I find myself relapsing, but I am still healing. It’s remarkable. It’s truly breathtaking. When you take a step back and see how your healing and growing is going. No one will appreciate this progress more than you. You have to let those people go.
Let them. And let them go. It’s time. Go. Go live your life.
I will continue to heal from this inshaAllah.
As in previous posts, Allah has to be sufficient. Allah is sufficient. And I am only beginning to master this extremely difficult concept, as a warrior woman who loves humanity, aspires for community, and yearns for belonging.
I learned recently that in Jannah, no one will have any bitterness in their hearts towards one another. There will be no jealousy, hate, envy, indignation, or resentment. And though there will be so much more, that is more than enough for me to fight for a spot there.
Before the end of the year, I want to reflect on what a grand transformational year this has been for me, both here and on the new connected newsletter, Sword Dispatch.
When I was finishing up this piece, I received a notice of a generous pledge made by a truly generous fellow reader, for Sword Dispatch. Someone who supported my other work recently as well. I was blown away. And I honestly cannot express how much that means to me.
I have been writing on this Warrior KQueen blog without monetization for more than 9 years now. It felt like I was finally being seen… it felt like it was possible. And all of the effort made in the past 230+ blog pieces, the courage, the heart, the energy it took to write, was all worth it.
All this time fighting writer’s block, imposter syndrome, perfectionism, and self-doubt. Pushing through all of that was worth it. And it will continue to be worth it.
Thank you, my dear fellow warrior, for reading me, unfiltered, raw, and authentic and unpolished, here in my safe space. Thanks for giving my voice a chance. And I am excited to continue the journey, here in this space, in Sword Dispatch, in the Qualitative Inquisition, and anywhere else, not as an aspiring writer, but a real writer that deserves to be read, heard, and seen… and that doesn’t have to go hungry in pursuit of their dreams…
Like I closed the last piece, I will write it again… “The evil eye did not silence me. I broke away to find another way.” And I will continue doing just that…
Solidarity, Peace, Warmth, and Blessings,
Your Sister,
Dr. Elsa, Warrior KQueen
“She wasn’t Looking for a Knight. She was Looking for a Sword.” – Atticus
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