{"id":5052,"date":"2026-05-01T18:09:03","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T15:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malathinitiative.org\/?p=5052"},"modified":"2026-06-03T00:01:41","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T21:01:41","slug":"sh-09","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malathinitiative.org\/en\/sh-09\/","title":{"rendered":"When Anxiety Calms Down a Little"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFree Voice\u00ab<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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This<\/span>\u00a0is a true story \u2014 a brief episode in time, profound in its aftermath \u2014 about a family forced to pass through Damascus under harsh circumstances.\nThrough a passing visit, the story reveals how fear settles into children\u2019s behavior, and how something as simple as a short outing in the city can open a temporary window toward reassurance.<\/span><\/p>\n

The story dwells on the small details of everyday life: silence, hesitation, attachment, and quiet attempts at adaptation \u2014 without exaggeration or dramatization \u2014 offering an intimate human portrait of how violence and prolonged anxiety seep into ordinary existence.\nAt the same time, it reveals the fragile power of simple moments to restore a measure of balance, however fleetingly.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is not the story of a grand event, but of a feeling that forms quietly \u2014 revealing how fear can seep into the smallest details of everyday life, and how safety, even if only for a fleeting moment, can redefine an entire place.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Her only hope was that, one day, they might forget what fear looks like when it settles inside the smallest details. \u00a0<\/span>
\u2014 Hind Youssef<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\u00a0Perhaps it was the strangest visit my house had ever known \u2014 a house accustomed to noise, faces, and stories.\nYet something about this visit felt different from the very first moment.\nPerhaps because my husband and I belong to two different sects, and for years we had tried to live beyond the weight of inherited constraints, content with the unavoidable duties imposed by our small family.<\/span><\/p>\n

That day, my husband received a call from a relative of his whose name I had never heard before. I had never met her.\nShe told him she was in Damascus, that she had nowhere else to go, and that she needed to come with her three children and spend the night at our home.<\/span><\/p>\n

She arrived in the evening.\nWe welcomed her sincerely, but anxiety entered the house before she did \u2014 visible in her features, etched into the eyes of her children.\nThey had come from Sweida.
\nFrom a home that no longer existed.
\nFrom memories that had burned.
\nFrom a life that had shattered without warning, forcing them to seek refuge with relatives in the city.<\/span><\/p>\n

She had just returned from an exhausting trip to Lebanon for a family reunification interview at the German embassy \u2014 a journey carried equally by fatigue and hope.<\/span>
<\/span> But everything had unraveled there.\nShe had been treated harshly; her passport was damaged under the pretext that the photograph was unclear. She had no choice but to rush back to Damascus to obtain a replacement document, instead of returning to Sweida as planned.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite our attempts to reassure her, tension remained firmly lodged within her \u2014 and within her children.
\nTheir behavior was striking: complete silence, excessive politeness, an almost total retreat into the room we had prepared for them, as though they had taken shelter there from a world they no longer trusted.<\/span><\/p>\n

The next morning, she left with my husband to complete the passport procedures, insisting that she could not face the city alone.\nThe children stayed with me.\nI tried making them breakfast, tried gently drawing them into conversation or play.\nThey emerged briefly, took a few hurried bites, then retreated immediately to their room, shutting the door behind them as though the outside world were a lurking danger.<\/span><\/p>\n

Later, as I watered the plants on the balcony, I called them to help \u2014 hoping the small task might distract them.\nOnly the youngest responded.\nAn eight-year-old boy opened the door with hesitant steps.\nThen his sister\u2019s voice called him back.\nHe returned at once, closed the door tightly.\nFear inhabited them in a way that required no explanation.<\/span><\/p>\n

The following day, their mother returned more relieved.\nHer paperwork had gone far more smoothly than expected.\nYet nothing changed in the children\u2019s behavior.\nThe entire day passed behind the closed door, despite all my efforts to lure them gently back toward life outside that room.<\/span><\/p>\n

That evening, I suggested we go out for a little while \u2014 just to let the children breathe.\nShe hesitated for a long time.\nShe agreed only after repeated insistence and after a chain of phone calls with her husband and family, who checked on her almost every hour.<\/span><\/p>\n

We finally left.\nThe ice cream shop was nearby; the plan was for nothing more than a short outing.\nBut I suggested we continue to Old Damascus.\nShe was frightened by the idea \u2014 by the road, by taxis, by the possibility of kidnapping.\nEven public transportation felt risky to her.\nStill, reluctantly, she agreed.<\/span><\/p>\n

When we reached Bab Touma, the children stepped out and clung to their mother as though they were extensions of her body.\nTheir eyes moved anxiously across unfamiliar faces.\nThey whispered to her in fear:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMama\u2026 could they know we\u2019re from Sweida and kill us?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The question alone said everything that words usually fail to carry.<\/span><\/p>\n

She wrapped her arms around them, terror unmistakable on her face.\nWe walked through the old alleys.\nIt was their first visit to Damascus.\nI tried to offer them another way of seeing the place.\nI invented a story about the filming locations of Bab Al-Hara \u2014 their favorite television series.\nI pointed here and there:\n\u201cThis is Abu \u0639\u0635\u0627\u0645\u2019s house\u2026 here is Abu \u0628\u062f\u0631\u2019s shop\u2026 and over there is Mu\u2018taz\u2019s store.\u201d\nI bought them \u201cMu\u2018taz\u2019s stick.\u201d
\nAnd slowly, something began to shift.<\/span><\/p>\n

Little by little, they loosened their grip on their mother.\nThey moved closer to me.\nWonder widened in their eyes.\nQuestions began tumbling out:\nWhere is the police station?\nWhere is the midwife\u2019s house?\nThe place had begun to resemble a story they knew \u2014 not a city they feared.<\/span><\/p>\n

And when we reached the courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque, the surprise was even greater.\nThe square overflowed with people, children, vendors, laughter.\nOrdinary to us.\nTo them, another universe entirely.<\/span><\/p>\n

Children playing at night?<\/span>
<\/span> Lights that did not go out?<\/span>
<\/span> Young men and women walking and laughing without fear?<\/span><\/p>\n

We stayed there for a long time.\nThen they blended into the scene.\nThey played.
\nRan.
\nLaughed.
\nBought balloons and juice.
\nI took photographs of them \u2014 smiles clear and unguarded, as though they had never carried so much pain.<\/span><\/p>\n

For a moment\u2026\njust one moment\u2026\nit seemed as though fear had stepped aside.<\/span><\/p>\n

But when it was time to leave, silence returned exactly as before.\nThey wished they could stay longer, stretch that moment a little further \u2014 as though they already knew how difficult it would be for such a moment to return.<\/span><\/p>\n

That night, the children fell asleep quickly.\nI remained awake with their mother.<\/span><\/p>\n

And only then did the real door open.<\/span><\/p>\n

She spoke for a long time:\nabout massacres,\nabout homes that no longer stood,\nabout children who no longer stepped outside,\nabout vanished schools,\nabout nights when the city sealed itself shut before dark,\nabout fear becoming not a passing condition, but a way of life.<\/span><\/p>\n

She said her children lived inside a single room and rarely left it.\nGatherings were no longer gatherings.\nThey had become recitations of the absent \u2014 a revisiting of faces no longer there.<\/span><\/p>\n

And her only hope was Germany.\nHer husband.\nPerhaps there, she could save what remained of her children\u2019s childhood.\nPerhaps she could restore to them some fragment of the safety that had been lost.\nAnd perhaps, one day,\nthey might forget what fear looks like when it settles inside the smallest details.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\tWritten by:<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\tHind Yusuf<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u0647\u0630\u0647 \u0642\u0635\u0629 \u062d\u0642\u064a\u0642\u064a\u0629\u060c \u062a\u0633\u0631\u062f \u062a\u062c\u0631\u0628\u0629 \u0642\u0635\u064a\u0631\u0629 \u0641\u064a \u0627\u0644\u0632\u0645\u0646\u060c \u0639\u0645\u064a\u0642\u0629 \u0641\u064a \u0623\u062b\u0631\u0647\u0627…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5107,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personal-experience"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malathinitiative.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malathinitiative.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malathinitiative.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malathinitiative.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malathinitiative.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5052"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/malathinitiative.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7490,"href":"https:\/\/malathinitiative.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5052\/revisions\/7490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malathinitiative.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malathinitiative.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malathinitiative.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malathinitiative.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}