Man Incredibly soft shimmering hair.
Sarah No. 1 I think I appear to be, like, I'm a little person, I have a very expressive face and I think people don't want to hurt me so they say things to me that they feel would be comforting. Right? I mean even if it is that they're doing it for the best of intentions I think there's for me for me I feel betrayed. If I've been lied to.
No. 2 I'm afraid that we really do prefer comforting lies over truth.
Number three I'm afraid of going deaf. I have a relative who's been going deaf in the last 2, 3 years. Yeah, it's my dad and he, you know, he doesn't know when he can't hear, so you have somebody who's there sitting in front of you but they're not actually present. And it's this strange isolation that he's not even entirely aware of.
No. 4 I mean it's hard. it's one of those things. Pick a time when you said the wrong thing. That's pretty constant.
No. 5 For me leaving a religion was.... to me religion was something that wasn't true. And in the end you know there was a way that I saw the world and you know in the Muslim community leaving the faith is kind of still an unheard of thing. And ever since I've been more open about who I am, my parents have gotten the worst of it because they have not pushed me away.
No. 6 Oh yeah I clean everywhere I mean when anyone tries to, when anyone visits me. I have a mini panic attack. Because I'm like, OK, I need to.... Everything needs to be perfect. With my mom especially because she would.... She gets upset. I never had to make my own bed. I would just wake up and go to school and I would come back and my room would be perfect because my mom would just have cleaned all that because you couldn't stand that it was-- like she couldn't even wait to discipline us to get us to clean it because she was just-- you know in that moment she needed it to be neat.
Number seven the collapse of trust in institutions.
No. 8 I'm afraid of being watched by some some sort of malevolent force while sleeping. Just my luck I guess that I ended up having this fear and also getting into a kind of activism where I do have to think about my own personal safety. Like in a very literal sense. The more I advocate for others the more limited ---.
Hi.
woman you're done.
Sarah I'm done.
[on phone] I got kicked out of my head of the recording room. They said that there was somebody else who needed this space. I think we were talking about my safety in my real life and how I felt. There has been a time where I had to get the FBI involved because there was somebody who was leaking my my address online.
No. 9 I'm afraid of isolating myself. I had many Muslim friends and even when I left the faith and I but I just wasn't so vocal about it I retained a lot of those friendships and around the time I start to become more vocal. One by one you know many of those started dropping away from my life. And you know I, I remembered two sisters in particular. Like I don't know if they had blocked me or something but they had just cut off all contact quietly like ghosted me a little bit and didn't even know. And I reached --I message them and I got no responses. I assume they just you know they don't want to be in my life anymore.
No. 10 I...Have you read The Gift of Fear? That book? Have you heard of it? I'm pretty sure Oprah has been talking about this book for some time. This guy who has worked with victims of terrible crimes and he found that in his studies of women who had been victims of some terrible crimes that he could always-- there was always a time where they could say "oh you know what, I remember when I remember something was wrong here, I remember he said something or did something and it didn't smell right. And that's when I became afraid." But a lot of women didn't act on it because of politeness mostly. And I you know I read that book and I could just feel myself just being hesitant about a fearful situation and then not running away or screaming or or getting out of there if I ever need to.
My name is Sarah Haider and these are 10 things that scared me.
