A Second Chance How I Changed My Life
[Music]
when i was approached to do this
talk um i was really surprised because i
wondered
what qualified me to do something like
this
i felt i was just a regular mum on the
other side of the phone
my struggles were not unique
[Music]
my life was very ordinary actually
i wasn’t able to perceive what was going
on on the other side of the phone
while i from my side but
um of course when you’re approached for
something like this
it’s very hard to say no um especially
when i had i felt i had so much to say
but i’m not a speaker so i wondered how
i was going to do this had my plan how
do i script this and
and i’m not someone who can be scripted
and in the end i thought
i’m going to do this the only way that i
know how and that is by simply speaking
from the heart
and being as honest as i can and
telling you a little bit about my
journey
so my name is freya jaffer
i’m british pakistani and i’ve been
living in the uae for about 12 years now
and i’m a mom so i live here with my
family so for as long as i can remember
i always felt like i
struggled internally with culture
with what society expected of me at
every phase of my life
growing up as a married woman as an
older woman as a mother their
expectations that were not natural to me
and they were not bringing out the best
of me they were not bringing me
happiness and i didn’t feel at peace or
fulfilled
in these ways but i lived that path
because i knew of nothing else
and like everyone else the struggles
were relatable i faced
bereavement i faced
heartbreak um there are money issues
betrayal so these are things most people
can identify with
but um i was always
very very sensitive and i’m the type of
person
who extracts and absorbs
energy from
whatever surrounds me people situations
so that was what eventually
brought me metaphorically to my knees i
had completely run out of steam
um and
i had nowhere actually
to go
to turn to on the outside my life looked
perfect to everybody
you know i had no reason to complain but
it was almost as if i i was this shell
and i was just
box ticking at every point
there was no me in the equation of life
it was always for someone else for some
reason
and living another way so
by talking today i hope that
there is a glimmer of hope for someone
watching
to see that if i can change it with my
limitations
if i can pull myself out of something
like this
then anyone can do it so i’m going to
start off to tell you a story about
dal now
dal is a traditional south asian food
which is
very cheap to eat to make
lentils like lentil soup so
my earliest memory
[Music]
of you could say hopelessness
is associated to this when i was a child
um like most homes everyone has ups and
downs and i remember my parents faced
a phase where it was very difficult
financially
i remember we had a period where there
was
11 days where there was only dal in the
house
there was no food there was not even an
onion
there was not milk there was nothing in
the house and i remember
you could add a cup of water to the
lentils to kind of
extend it the quantity
and i remember those 11 days till now
i think i was eight or nine at the time
when this happened
and it’s not the dal as such i remember
but it’s
the humiliation and the hopelessness
that my parents faced they were
completely
lost and it exposed me
to a world very early on where when you
have money
and you’re in a good position
everybody’s your friend but when you
lose everything there is nobody there to
help you
you really are on your own and um
and i recall being so young and
and i remember thinking that you know i
hate this feeling i
i couldn’t put into words at that age
but i
knew that i hated that feeling and i
never wanted to experience that again
and and i kind of made a vow that if i
ever get into position where i can do
anything
to help someone i will do that because
no one should feel this
and no one should see their loved ones
experience this
so that feeling that first feeling
you know being so sensitive and
absorbing the energy around me
that was one of my earliest memories of
when
humans are literally down to rock bottom
so move forward up a little bit
life happened i went to school college
got married had children you know
box ticked everything more or less
and it’s in this phase of my life where
i’m
i faced um
the most difficult times i would say
emotionally
it’s when i experienced bereavement
um deceit postnatal depression
and i was now living in a country where
i didn’t have family
so i’d completely lost my way
and i recall
um that this
was impacting me as a mother so much i
had switched off
for almost 12 months i think i
i hadn’t said a word i was just getting
up i was cooking i was cleaning
i was just functioning and when i
realized that this is
impacting me as a as a mother as a
parent
i knew things had to change so now i was
back trapped in the day days of
dal that hopelessness had come back
life had somehow come back grabbed me
and just shook
me and taking me back to that moment
in time and i realized suddenly
i have to get myself out of this from
facing
death to betrayal there was only me
who i could depend on how was i going to
do this
and i remember the exact moment
that this journey on social media
started
i had a newborn baby in my arms i had
other small children
and i had my mobile phone in my other
hand
and as a new mom you’re always sort of
feeding so you’re just sitting there
you have a huge amount of time on your
hands yet you’re extremely physically
busy
so my only window to the world was my
mobile phone
so as i would feed my my child i would
sit there scrolling through
trying to find some online support i was
ready
to get the help and
back in those days um i’m talking
sort of eight years ago now it was very
difficult
to find anything which was geared
towards abu dhabi and
google kind of failed abu dhabi in terms
of real-time information
it was very difficult to come across
accurate
um information
for daily basis and things like that so
i figured social media might have an
answer for me
so i went over to various platforms and
i ended up on facebook
now i thought there must be a group
surely
for something like this based in the
capital of abu dhabi and
there wasn’t there wasn’t anything like
this and
i remember i sat there and i thought i’m
going to make
a vehicle of support for myself
where i can solve my issues ask my
questions
pour my heart out and find a network
where i can help myself where i can
bring myself back
so i formed a facebook group and i
called it abu dhabi q
a and i added 70 people from my friends
list
and they were people living here in abu
dhabi
and it was useful in the beginning there
were questions and there were answers
that was the whole idea you post a
question
and the members reply to the answers
and um i wasn’t sure um
when i was going to add my personal
questions and then how i was going to do
it because
so many these are my friends and 50 60
70 of them
so when the group crossed i think it’s
about 500 people which is
pretty quick that was when i dropped the
first dozen
bombshells of anonymous posts and they
were all mine
and i remember just
[Music]
writing away under an anonymous person
banner
pouring my heart out telling my story
dividing my story up into multiple posts
and i did this over the course of
a month or two and um
it was so liberating it was so
liberating just to
to say whatever i could to
because these are the things i couldn’t
say to family to friends
i felt humiliation again i felt shame i
um i felt ungrateful for what people
perceived i had
but i was struggling so this just
completely liberated me
and what i found was that people who
were answering
those posts and advising and offering
support some of them were my friends
only they didn’t know it was me so um
i remember just their replies
um extremely heartwarming they reduced
me to tears and and i
and i felt instantly better i felt
connected to them i wish i could have
said you know it’s me
but i didn’t so then what happened was
this this effect of the anonymous post
just grew
people couldn’t believe there was
someone in abu dhabi
who felt like this and who they could
relate to
these are all the struggles that no one
could talk to
it was hard it was easier to talk to a
stranger than it was to someone you knew
so somehow
by seeking help for myself
others came forward and now the roles
reversed
i was now helping other people and
my suddenly i had this purpose in my
day i thought okay what is going on in
the community i’m going to deal with
this
um and i became
almost militant for three years where
the phone was
attached to my body literally anyone who
knew me at the time will know i was just
on my phone i had four small children
who were now growing up but i was neck
deep
in community issues from employment to
mental health
to people feeling lonely not having food
on their table
it was just people were opening up with
all sorts of stories of heartbreak
and um they had completely absorbed me
into their lives telling me their
stories
and i connected i knew because because
of these feelings
going back to the story of when i was
younger and knowing what that feels like
you know absorbing this energy and i and
i didn’t want other people to feel like
that and i felt if i could help
just by listening or giving them my time
that’s what i’m going to do because
that’s all i really had
so my healing process started
i suddenly felt that i was enjoying this
it gave me direction in my own little
world this is what i’m going to do
my problems were still it there but i
now had somewhere else to look
i had to do direction and i was
distracted for a little while from the
reality
so while i was distracted for a little
while
the worldly veneer was slipping i was
now
becoming myself everything i was online
i am online is is me
and i was finding purpose i was finding
happiness
and the voice that i kept hearing the
last few years that kept telling me that
everything i was everything about my
character that would carry no value in
the world
would make you know you can’t survive in
the world with these skills i was
suddenly
relying on those skills and i was making
a small difference i
i got to know myself by helping others
by being involved in the community i
suddenly knew my strengths i knew what i
was capable of
i started dreaming and i felt like i
could change things
and as the social media
was a byproduct of the community work i
went along with it and
i decided to shift the focus on myself
and now i was seen i was hurt i wasn’t
supposed to be culturally but now i was
everywhere
because i wanted to carve out my own
life and
in the process i had to risk being
misunderstood
for the short term where you know i
faced again
situations of deceit of being used but
i had to keep focused and that was to
help myself
to change my life help other people
change their lives make a difference in
the world
have a purpose in my life i could not
take my eyes off the ball
even if that meant removing people from
the equation of that journey
because i couldn’t let go of what i set
out to do what i’d poured
the last seven years into so for the
short term
it’s a risk that sometimes you have to
take to find your purpose
to prioritize yourself
so i
i had a little bit more work to do and i
i finally found the strength and the
courage
to to try and carve out my own life
where now
i can become independent
financially independent be an example to
my children that
you don’t have to settle for second best
you you just need your strength you have
you have to get to know yourself first
once you know yourself and you know your
capabilities
there’s nothing that can stop you and
with all my limitations
and without any money starting from
scratch
and just going on my character
and staying true to my word being
sincere and loyal i managed to lift
myself
out of that quagmire that i felt i would
just be in forever
and and i i i hope
that you take away a lesson where
you know that it’s nothing extraordinary
it’s the ordinary
it was the ordinary moments in the day
that i wanted to fix
and that those were my stepping stones
and now
i’m i’m in the third phase of my journey
where i have
taken the decision to become independent
and
i still have a long way to go so
i i just want to end on saying that
whatever your dreams are don’t forget
them
and keep hold of them and
get to know yourself get to know
yourself because
we can do so many things
and i wish you all the best in that