INTRODUCTION

by Kathy Dobson

In this special issue, we present a collection of deeply personal essays that share the common theme of self-discovery and empowerment amidst challenging circumstances. In these four articles, we learn about the transformative journeys of four students who grappled with some of life’s biggest challenges, including their own insecurities, fears, and the disruptive impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Each essay delves into the unique experiences of these individuals as they navigated their way through adversity, including bigotry, ultimately finding resilience, strength, and renewed purpose.

Despite the diverse topics covered in each article, a powerful and unified theme emerges: empowerment through adversity. Each narrative showcases how these young individuals grappled with personal challenges and external circumstances, ultimately finding the strength to confront their fears, embrace their true selves, and cultivate resilience. The stories serve as a testament to the human spirit’s ability to thrive and grow even in the most challenging of times.

As readers embark on this captivating journey through the essays, we hope that the profound experiences shared by these individuals will inspire empathy, understanding, and introspection. May this special journal issue serve as a reminder that even during the darkest of days, the light of self-discovery and empowerment can lead us towards a brighter and more resilient future.

The first article, My Hijab, My Choice by Mauhiba Mollah, revolves around a young woman’s poignant exploration of the stigma and bigotry felt by many Muslim women for their choice to wear the hijab. This introspective account touches upon the societal pressures and misconceptions Mauhiba encountered while staying true to her beliefs and cultural heritage. Through her narrative, we witness her courage, self-confidence and personal convictions as she triumphs over prejudice, breaking free from the shackles of judgment, and embracing her true identity.

The next article, A Completely Unremarkable Essay by Sadie Louri Weise, delves into the journey of a young woman who grapples with the detrimental habit of comparing herself to others and shares her resentment around having been labelled “a pleasure to have in class” as a young student. As she unravels her inner struggles, we accompany her on a voyage of self-discovery, where she learns to appreciate her unique strengths and talents. Amidst the sea of societal pressures and unrealistic standards, she finds the courage to embrace her individuality, realizing that her worth is not defined by external validation, and comes to recognize how truly remarkable she, in fact, is.

In One of the “lucky” ones: The silent struggle faced by the graduating class of 2023, Emma Cole writes about her feelings of guilt around feeling sad about having missed out on so many university experiences because of the pandemic, and how being constantly reminded that “it could be worse,” despite her real struggles to cope with some of the harsh realities that included being confined to home for nearly two years, only compounded those feelings of guilt. Her article shifts our focus to the unprecedented challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically within a university setting. We delve into the impact on this student’s experiences as she grappled with prolonged periods of isolation, limited social interactions, and a lack of the typical ‘student life’ she had envisioned. Through this lens, we gain insight into the resilience of the student community as they adapted, finding alternative means of connection and support.

The fourth article, I was always an anxious person but being locked inside all day sleeping made my anxiety skyrocket by Jack Drummond, adds a unique perspective to the pandemic narrative, focusing on an individual who found unexpected liberation from social anxiety amidst the restrictions. Forced to confront their fear of socializing, Jack embarked on a transformative journey of self-awareness and, as they recognized the detrimental effects of excessive isolation, learned to navigate towards healthier coping mechanisms, eventually embracing social connections as a means of growth and healing.

The post [Post/Millennials’ Voices] Issue 10: Empowerment through Adversity: Journeys of Self-Discovery in Challenging Times appeared first on ALiGN: Alternative Global Network Media Lab.

By Sadie Lourie Weise

I resent being a pleasure to have in class.

In elementary school, parent-teacher interviews were plagued with this saying. But I always believed it was a sickly sweet, flowery way to say completely unremarkable. For the first ten years of my education, I resided in the blind spots of my teachers. I was too anxiously well-behaved to be reprimanded, yet I did not excel enough to receive their praise. Instead, my good behaviour produced a flare, blinding teachers from my struggles with math and my interest in the arts. This lack of support led my young self to conclude that I was too dumb to deserve validation from authority figures.

Therefore, I looked to my peers to gauge my worth.

I compared every aspect of myself to see how I measured. When I felt my peers were better than me, I pursued validation through other means. I fell into the role of the dumb, funny friend. My peers’ laughter, sometimes at my own expense, was a conciliation for my self-perceived deficiencies. I gradually stopped applying myself as I realized the futility of trying when it would never be sufficient.

With few exceptions, my teachers ranged from unhelpful to harmful. But the teacher that unintentionally damaged my self-confidence the most was my grade 8 teacher. The year commenced with the introduction of a reward-based system called Brain Power. Throughout the year, students who proved their intelligence would receive a point that went towards an end-of-year raffle. Points were tracked on a list hung up on the side of the room. As the year progressed, and I failed to earn any points, the list served as an obnoxious neon sign that constantly reminded me of my incompetence.

However, I had never felt so low as at my grade 8 graduation.

An event meant to celebrate achievement was a brutal reminder of how much better my peers were than me. I vividly remember the shame I felt as I watched my peers proudly walk up the stage to accept their honour roll award. I envied my classmates, who flaunted their pieces of paper, painfully aware of the few people around me who were seated. The aching feeling of my parents seated behind me. How disappointed they should be. How much they deserved a daughter up there with a stupid piece of paper. But instead, I sat. Feeling completely unremarkable.

High school approached, and it was time for students to emerge from their decade-old cocoons and become beautiful butterflies. But when it was my turn, I realized that my wings had been clipped during metamorphosis. So, I was left watching the flutter of my classmates, woefully mesmerized by the beauty of their wings.

While my parents often told me how smart and talented I was, dismissing their claims as just parental love was easy. Especially when none of the other authority figures in my life echoed their praise.

High school gave me whiplash. My teachers offered me long-awaited validation. They complimented my work ethic and skills. They saw the potential that my parents did. For the first time in a long time, I did not feel dumb. Instead, I thought that maybe my wings simply needed to be in the right conditions to grow. Maybe all hope was not lost.

Each teacher was amazing.

They gave specific praise and encouragement, challenged me, and offered support for my difficult subjects. My proudest accomplishment throughout my high school career was my journey with math. I went from struggling through the academic level of math as the tremendous gaps from elementary school compounded. But my teachers encouraged me, and I received help through tutoring and summer programs. When I gained a comprehensive understanding of math, my confidence skyrocketed. I finally knew I was not dumb. At worst, I was average after years of thinking lower of myself. I was content. I achieved honour roll for almost all semesters of my high school experience. My expectations ballooned as I thrived off the validation from my teachers and the understanding that I was smarter than I believed.

I am eternally grateful to my high school teachers. While they may not know it, they had a massive influence on my confidence. I know I would not have the wings I have today without them.

I entered university with an entrance scholarship and significantly lower expectations. I knew I entered a garden populated by the brightest butterflies. Instead, I felt like an impostor, and my achievements paled in comparison to those around me.

I knew it was common for students’ grades to drop in university. So, when I got my first essay back, I didn’t flip it over immediately. Instead, I was stuck in an internal tug-of-war between my hopes and my expectations. When I finally gathered the courage to look, I had not been so ecstatic to see a 78% since elementary school.

But my pride grew as more assignments were returned with increasing grades. Not only did my grades not drop during the university transition, but they improved. However, despite professors and teaching assistants complimenting my writing, doubt persists. Despite maintaining my entrance scholarship throughout the university, I still felt like an impostor. There were students much smarter and more hardworking than me. I would dismiss good grades as getting lucky or having a lenient marker.

I continue to grapple with the thought that I am a good writer. While I want to believe it, the doubt and relentless urge to compare myself to others plague any positive feedback. I have always wanted to do something creative with my life, but the looming cynicism prevents me from believing in my potential for success.

I know I am slowly banishing that doubt as I realize comparisons bring little more than harm. I want nothing more than to tell my younger self how intelligent she was. How much she should feel proud.

However, all I can do now is believe in myself for her.

To not give up on my dreams. To continue to banish doubt. That little girl deserves it.

We are both completely remarkable.

Author’s bio:

I am a fifth-year student in Communications and Media Studies at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University. This topic is important to me because of my continuous journey with self-confidence. I have a passion for the arts and storytelling and aspire to one day write a book.

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By Emma Cole

The whole thing feels sort of like a dream now. What were once freshly laid floor stickers measured exactly six feet apart are now nothing but scraps of sticky residue, the words “STAY APART” no longer legible. Every once in a while, I’ll see a blue surgical mask abandoned on the side of the road, something that was once a safety precaution, ticket inside, and even a political statement is now just there. Toilet paper is no longer a rare find at the supermarket. A few weeks back, my doctor asked how many doses of the vaccine I had received, and I realized I’ve actually forgotten.

As someone who graduated from high school in 2019 and is on track to graduate from university this year, I can’t help but become overwhelmed with a weird sense of guilt when reflecting on my experience with the pandemic. I got to go to prom when Corona was just a brand of beer, and I’ll get to walk across the stage at Convocation without my smile being hidden beneath a mask. When COVID-19 was on the rise, empathy for students was reserved for the class of 2020. This was understandable, as they were robbed of experiencing some of life’s biggest rites of passage. As a student who so narrowly missed this from being my own reality, I became overwhelmed with a sense of guilt for being sad about missing out on university. I thought: “Of all people, how could I complain?” Now that my student experience is ending, I think this is the right time to reflect on an alternative perspective of the pandemic, one that wasn’t heavily discussed in the media.

It feels almost shameful to be airing out my thoughts on how the pandemic impacted me because I am lucky for so many reasons. I never had a positive test result, lost no one due to the virus, and again, no major life events were altered because of it. I am fully aware that in the grand scheme of things, any negative experience I had as a result of the pandemic is nothing compared to the trauma and loss that others faced. But in this personal reflection I can’t speak on anyone else’s experience aside from my own. I’ll admit, simultaneously having my university experience shattered while also being told that “it could be worse” made me feel like I wasn’t allowed to be upset. I soon found out that regardless of how other people felt about it, I couldn’t control my feelings.

I was 18 at the start of the pandemic, now I’m just three months away from turning 22. Even though I live in Ottawa, given the isolation I felt from ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´, I might as well have been on the other side of the world. Instead of running into friends on campus, I stared at black rectangles on my laptop screen. Everything I did was within the four walls of my room. My classes, first internship, and even cheerleading practice all existed inside my laptop. I clung onto the hope that things would soon return to normal, trying to hide the sadness that I was really feeling. After months went by with no end to isolation in sight, I realized that pretending to wear this “it could be worse” attitude wasn’t making things better.

Over time, I realized that my reality of doing physically okay could coexist with me mourning for the post-secondary experience I never had. The only thing I was working towards was my undergraduate degree, which, considering the entire university was confined to my bedroom, even that started to seem intangible. Without the obvious markers of closure after each term like handing in an exam at the Fieldhouse at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´, my university experience started to feel like a blurry stream of time with no obvious beginning or end, one where I forgot what it was like to walk into a store without a mask and couldn’t picture a future without it. Pretending like it was okay didn’t actually result in me being okay, and I had to stop insisting that this was the case. Confiding in my friends who also graduated high school in 2019 turned out to be extremely helpful, as it opened up a space where we could bond over both feeling guilty when reflecting on our emotions towards the pandemic while also acknowledging that it’s normal to feel this way. During this time though, there was no one I needed to be more honest with than myself.

Looking back, the answers to coping with the pandemic were right in front of me. Confined to my home for nearly two years, the only place to look was in the mirror. I had to be honest with the girl staring back at me. Instead of just swallowing my feelings, I digested them. Yes, I got to graduate high school before the nightmare of 2020 hit, but I still lived through 2020. This June, I’ll proudly walk across the stage at Convocation with no precautions in sight, but I spent hours in online classes to get there, relying on nothing but my own motivation to make sure work was completed and handed in on time. I could’ve had it worse, but this doesn’t take away from the fact that it was still hard.

There is no competition to be won where the top prize goes to whichever group of students faced the biggest hardship during the pandemic. The truth is, all of us should be proud of our ability to persevere through our studies despite all the lingering uncertainty about the future weighing us down. So, while we weren’t the group of students who missed out on high school graduation ceremonies and prom dresses, we did miss out on a lot of experiences while working towards our undergraduate degrees. Rather than trying to forget this reality, we should instead be giving ourselves extra credit for facing (and I hope this is the last time anyone has to read these words) the unprecedented times brought forth by COVID-19.

Author’s bio:

Emma Cole has recently graduated from the Communication and Media Studies program with a minor in News Media and Information from ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University. Upon graduating, she was awarded the Senate Medal for Outstanding Academic Achievement for being in the top 3% of students in her program.

As one of her final assignments, Emma wanted to reflect on how her undergraduate experience was impacted by the pandemic. Despite the challenges it presented, Emma is leaving ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ feeling proud of what she’s accomplished and excited for what’s to come as she enters the professional world.

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By Jack Drummond

Depending on what student you ask you may hear that COVID-19 was a benefit to them and their studies while others may claim it was a negative through and through. I sit somewhere in the middle of this spectrum and assume most other students do as well. COVID impacted everyone in their own personal ways, so while my story is only a unique fraction of those experiences, I still hope that everyone may find some common ground within it.

With time now to reflect I can see that my loss of order and routine has been the hardest on me. Back in high school I began to sleep extraordinarily long hours and eventually I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. It took a long time for me to learn how to schedule and routine myself with the disorder because of just how easy it was to fall into its lethargic ways. I spent a majority of my high school years sleeping all day and playing video games all night, every high school boy’s dream. The problem was that I was missing out on all the social aspects of life. I was always an anxious person but being locked inside all day sleeping made my anxiety skyrocket. I had missed out on some of my most formative years because in that moment it was easier and more fun to spend my days sleeping and gaming.

After realizing all I had missed out on I wanted to make sure my future would not be the same. I spent years getting more comfortable with a routine and living life normally. I started picking up more shifts at work, I began forcing myself out of the house to spend time with friends every night. I began intermittent fasting along with running every night, finding it helped with keeping a routine. I even went on a trip across Europe with some friends in 2019. All of this is to say that I spent a lot of time crafting a routine that worked for me and allowed me to live the life I wanted. I finally started my degree at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ in the fall of 2019 and was ready to make up for the lost opportunities of high school.

I was thriving compared to where I had been in high school. I was seeing friends every night while working and going to school every day. When COVID hit I was ecstatic to have a break. However, I quickly began to fall back into my old ways, thinking that I had no other choice. After all, what was I to do when the whole world was shut down? This was great for a while but as me and my friends began to get burnt out from video games and our money started to run short things were turning more negative. It would take until my fourth year at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ for things to go back to mostly normal, however this time around it was not me getting into a routine but rather the world.

I think a lot of people can relate to the feeling of being left behind in COVID. The world has moved on but on an individual scale many parts of people are still left behind. In some ways this benefited me and in some it was detrimental. When it comes to being a student it has had an extremely positive impact on my grades. I found online school easier to work with and I no longer had a job allowing for more time to focus on school. My grades continued to rise, and I even made the honour roll in my third year.

However, I lost out on some of my most formative years yet again. My anxiety grew stronger than ever due to COVID and again I chose the easy path. I continued to choose mostly online classes telling myself they were better for my style of learning while knowing it was really because I could avoid encountering people. I put my head down and focused on school while avoiding the fact that I would have to face the real world again one day.

When I finally put my head up and looked at what was around me, I saw that the world did not wait for me. Most people have moved on back into a life of normalcy. For myself I feel far behind. I actively chose to make my only experience school, yet I still feel void of this experience due to how I approached it. I look around me and see my friends and other students all seemingly thriving well on their way towards the future while I face the reality that I am about to be thrust into the real world incredibly unprepared. But then I remember a piece of them has likely been left behind too. No one person’s experiences will be the same, but everyone lost something to the pandemic no matter how big or small.

If I could offer any piece of advice, it would be to remember that while these moments may feel big, they are only a small fraction of the life you will live. I will always regret falling back into my old ways and losing the experience I had worked so hard to be able to give myself. It sucks to lose out on the moments that I did but it will only help me learn to adapt myself for the future ahead where I can finally move on with the rest of the world. Mistakes and missed opportunities are what make us the people that we are. My mistakes in high school got me to the place I am at today and the mistakes I have made with COVID will only get me to where I am supposed to be in the future. It can be okay to fall into old ways sometimes so long as you remember not to get left behind.

Jack Drummond is a recent graduate of the Political Science and Communication and Media Studies programs at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University with a passion for film, video games and education. Like countless other students Jack had to complete most of his university degree while the COVID-19 pandemic was at its peak. This is a short piece on his experiences during that time.

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by Mauhiba Mollah

Every morning, I stand in front of my closet. I open my dresser drawer. My eyes are met with garments of all manner of colours and fabrics – rectangle clothes of forest green jersey, black satin, teal-blue cotton, and cream chiffon. Each day, I carefully choose one to wrap around my head and wear for the day. I am a Muslim woman. And each day I go out into the world, I choose to don my hijab.

My hijab means many things. My hijab is the way that I practice my faith. It is an everyday reminder for me to stay conscious of God. It is a way that I present and orient myself to others. Through it, I can identify with other Muslims and feel a sense of community and belonging. My hijab is also a statement and an exhilarating experience of freedom from dominant societal pressures. We live in a world where women face immense pressures to dress and look a certain way and conform to societal beauty standards. Young women are being sent subtle media messaging that implies their value is based on appearance.

And in some cases, based on their sexual appeal, evident through the objectification and hyper-sexualization of young women so transparent in mainstream entertainment. In a world where such intense pressures on women exist, the hijab allows me to free myself from the expectations of others and combat problematic normalizations of female beauty. And in doing so, I feel a sense of control.

My hijab is not just a cloth wrapped around my head. It is part of my identity. An identity which I reassert every day when I stand in front of the mirror and wrap my hijab. My identity as a woman wearing a hijab is multifaceted. Yet, some would reduce me to a label. There are those who see my hijab and see a strange and foreign Islam. They take my hijab as a sign of my apparent oppression or lack of freedom and control over my body. They see my refusal to conform to the norm as a danger to Western values and culture. They see an unruly immigrant who refuses to assimilate and “become” a Canadian, even though I was born and raised in this country. In other words, they do not truly see me. I am marginalized. I am reduced to a foreign “other.”

Women from other parts of the world echo my experience. In 2004, , in the name of secularism and neutrality, bans women from wearing the hijab in government buildings and schools. And more recently, in France, the government attempted to pass an amendment that and another that would . Though the latter two have not become law, it is more evidence of islamophobia and a desire to marginalize an already vulnerable minority group. Forcing women to remove their hijab is equivalent to stripping them of a crucial part of their identity.

Anti-hijab laws are an example of state-sanctioned regulation of the female body. The slogan “My body, my choice” is sung loudly in the streets and across social media. We see it all the time, including proponents who support the ban on hijab. The regulation of one’s own body is considered a fundamental right. But yet, when it comes to Muslim women, for the France government and others, the same notion doesn’t seem to apply. “My hijab, my choice” should be a given. So, why is it something that Muslim women must fight for? It is quite clear that double standards exist.

Anti-hijab laws are not limited to France but exist in other countries across the globe as well. For one woman I have the pleasure of being acquainted with, the hijab ban in Turkey (now lifted) prevented her from completing her university education. She decided to move to Canada with her husband and two children so that she and her children could continue their education while being free to wear hijab, to practice their religion without restriction. She is one of many who have uprooted themselves from the homes they grew up in to avoid intolerance against Islam. They leave behind family, friends, their workplaces, and their homeland’s familiar and comforting scents and culture to settle in an often-foreign country where they may have to build their lives back up again from scratch. Navigating life as a new immigrant is no easy task. Yet so many Muslims leave their familiar lives behind for the right to religious freedom.

Muslim women worldwide fight for the right to wear hijab and will continue to fight for it in the future. They will never give up. Even in the presence of discrimination and intolerance, they stay faithful to their beliefs. They practice agency and free will, and their perseverance makes them beautiful.

Author’s bio:

Mauhiba is a recent Communications and Media Studies graduate of ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University. Mauhiba is deeply interested in exploring human rights for marginalized communities. She intends to pursue a bachelor’s in graphic design to complement her current studies and continue writing to give voice to marginalized Muslim women.

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