Introduction: The Breaking Point
In 2022, my body gave out. Not suddenly, but with the slow, grinding collapse of a machine pushed beyond its limits. Chronic pain from uterine fibroids left me bedridden for weeks. My jaw, shattered years earlier by my father’s violence, throbbed with neuropathic agony. Anxiety attacks came like clockwork, and my immune system—worn down by decades of stress—could no longer fight off even minor infections. I’d survived Egypt’s autocratic regime, a father who tried to kill me twice, and a Dutch asylum system that treated me like a burden. But by 2022, the weight of it all felt unendurable.
This is the story of how “ADHD, fibroids, queerness, a brown body, and migrant status” collided in a perfect storm of “cumulative multiplicative harm”. It’s also a scientific dissection of that harm (through the lens of neurobiology, intersectionality, and systemic feedback loops) and a testament to resilience in a world designed to erase people like me.
Event Synthesis: The Collision of Marginalized Identities
My life has always been a Venn diagram of overlapping oppressions. Born into Egypt’s patriarchal, classist, and colorist society, I was a “problem” from the start: a loud, messy, curious girl with undiagnosed ADHD, raised by a father who weaponized shame to control me. By 13, I’d internalized so much misogyny that I chose to wear the hijab, believing piety might save me from his abuse. It didn’t.
Fast-forward to 2022: I was a queer, atheist, brown migrant in the Netherlands, surviving on welfare (uitkering) while battling fibroids, complex PTSD, and a healthcare system that dismissed my pain. My body had become a palimpsest of trauma. Each identity—queer, brown, migrant, disabled—had its own scars, but together, they created a “nonlinear explosion of harm”.
Biological Cascades: Sapolsky’s Stress Model Explained Through My Body
Neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky’s work on stress biology illuminates how chronic trauma rewires the body. His research shows that prolonged exposure to cortisol—the “stress hormone”—suppresses immunity, exacerbates inflammation, and accelerates disease. Here’s how that played out in my life:
- Chronic Abuse → Cortisol Dysregulation:
My father’s abuse began in childhood, flooding my system with cortisol for decades. This didn’t just damage my mental health—it altered my neurochemistry. ADHD, undiagnosed until adulthood, worsened under constant stress, creating a loop of hyperactivity followed by paralyzing burnout.
- Immune Suppression → HS & Fibroids:
Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS), a chronic skin condition linked to stress and inflammation, emerged in my teens. By 2022, fibroids—hormone-dependent tumors—had swollen to a size that caused daily hemorrhaging. Both conditions are tied to immune dysfunction, a direct result of my body’s prolonged “fight or flight” state.
- Pain → Reduced Mobility → Social Isolation:
Severe abdominal and jaw pain made movement agonizing. I canceled plans for months, retreating into solitude. Dutch society, with its emphasis on self-reliance, pathologized this isolation as “laziness”, not recognizing it as a survival mechanism.
- Psychiatric Crisis:
Sapolsky’s model predicts this endpoint: a brain so soaked in cortisol that it can’t regulate mood. In 2023, I attempted suicide, and again less than a year later. My nervous system, trained for decades to expect danger, had no off switch.
Intersectional Amplification: When Barriers Multiply Nonlinearly
Kimberlé Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality argues that systems of oppression don’t just stack—they “amplify”. My experience proves this:
– Obesity + AZC Isolation + Dutch Racism = Immobility Trap:
In Egypt, I was fat-shamed into obesity; in the Netherlands, my weight became a barrier to care. During my time in the Asylum Seekers’ Center (AZC) in Dronten & Waginegin (racist, remote facilities), I lacked transportation to specialists. Dutch healthcare providers blamed my fibroids and pain on “poor choices,” ignoring the trauma-induced hormonal chaos in my body.
– Queerness + Migrant Status = Double Erasure:
As an LGBTQ+ asylum seeker, I faced skepticism from the Dutch Immigration Service. My father’s violence—rooted in misogyny and homophobia—was dismissed as a “family issue,” not persecution. Meanwhile, Egyptian activists online accused me of “airing dirty laundry” for criticizing Arab Spring-era homophobia.
– Brown Body + Chronic Pain = Medical Gaslighting:
Dutch doctors prescribed painkillers but refused to address the root causes. When I demanded an MRI for my jaw, a maxillofacial specialist sneered, “You’re exaggerating.” My brownness, they assumed, made me prone to “hysteria” or “Fraud”.
Systemic Feedback Loops: How Debt, Language, and Stereotypes Trap Migrants
The Dutch system is rife with cruel paradoxes. My story reveals how policies create self-perpetuating cycles of harm:
- Debt (from Gemeente Fraud) → Stress → Bruxism/Jaw Pain:
In 2023, a debt collection agency fraudulently claimed I owed €1,200. The Gemeente garnished my salary for that amount as well as the housing and welfare “loans” supplied earlier by the same Gemeente (over 4,000 €), leaving me penniless as I start a new job. Stress from this injustice reignited my bruxism, worsening my jaw pain and making speech painful—a barrier to learning Dutch or performing at my job. It felt like the Gemeente was punishing me for getting a job. That feeling of being punished for ambition is shared by many asylum status holders in the Netherlands.
- Language Barriers → Stereotyped as “Uncooperative”:
My social worker in Katwijk labeled me “lazy” when I struggled to complete integration courses. What she ignored: trauma-induced social anxiety and the fact that my Dutch classmates harassed me. My inability to speak fluently & to regularly go to class wasn’t apathy—it was the result of a nervous system too dysregulated to focus.
- Health Crisis → Inability to Work → Poverty:
After gallbladder surgery in 2023, I couldn’t work for over a month. My savings? Gone. My safety net? A welfare system that penalizes migrants for existing and especially for being too ambitious for their color.
The Art of Survival: Breaking the Cycle
Despite it all, I survived. Here’s how:
– Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET):
Working with a Dutch psychiatrist who validated my trauma helped me reframe my past. NET transformed fragmented memories into a coherent story, reducing their power over me.
– Community Building:
Joining Ex-Muslim atheist groups and LGBTQ+ networks online reminded me I wasn’t alone. These spaces became my “new AZC”—a place of refuge and radical honesty.
– Advocacy:
Writing this blog is an act of resistance. By naming the systems that harmed me—late-stage capitalism, patriarchy, medical racism—I reclaim my narrative.
Conclusion: The Body Bears the Truth
My 2022 breakdown wasn’t a personal failure. It was the logical endpoint of a life lived at the crossroads of “biological cascades, intersectional amplification, and systemic feedback loops”. Sapolsky’s science, Crenshaw’s theory, and my own story converge on one truth: Trauma isn’t just psychological—it’s physiological, social, and political.
To those still in the fight: Your pain is not a weakness. It’s evidence. And to the systems that tried to erase me: “I am still here, writing myself into existence.”