Finding My Way: A Memoir

One spring night, Yousafzai abandoned her essay writing to join her friends at their usual hangout. They were smoking marijuana, and at first she declined to participate, but her friends convinced her to join in. Walking home with a friend, Yousafzai was alarmed when she felt heavy and weak. As she passed out, she began to have distressing flashbacks to her shooting. When she woke up, she felt trapped in the images of her shooting, suddenly remembering being on the bus with the gunman and being treated in the hospital. Crying and vomiting, Yousafzai felt panicked and wanted to go to the hospital. The next day, she still felt ill, and she asked her assistant Maria to come over. Maria felt that Yousafzai had recovered from her high, and was now feeling sick from something else.

Yousafzai reeled from her unexpected memories of her attack. Terrified of re-experiencing these flashbacks, she avoided sleeping, but this led to other problems. Exhausted and disoriented, she fell behind on her schoolwork yet again. This left her ashamed and prone to panic attacks. She leaned on her friends during this hard time, and they took shifts sleeping on the floor of her room because she was afraid to sleep alone. She reached out to Asser to ask for advice, and he told her to see a doctor. Yousafzai was too shy to mention her experience with marijuana and her traumatic flashbacks, telling her doctor only about her insomnia and panic attacks. Her doctor concluded that she was anemic, and Yousafzai began taking iron supplements. She now felt mentally and physically fragile and did not have the same zest for life that she had enjoyed before. She prayed for healing.

By summer, Yousafzai wanted to get a fresh start, and she was looking forward to seeing Asser again. They had been talking regularly and sharing more intimately about their lives. They agreed that they were in the early phases of dating long-distance. Yousafzai’s youth and inexperience meant that she sometimes felt she was catching up to Asser, who is seven years her senior, in terms of maturity.

When Asser returned to England, he and Yousafzai became closer than ever, though she constantly worried about her relationship being reported in the press. She reluctantly told her parents about dating Asser, knowing that they would be upset. Dating was strictly forbidden, and Asser was not from her Pashtun ethnic group—another broken rule. Yousafzai was disappointed when her mother was furious, while her father began talking of engagements and marriage. Feeling overwhelmed, she wished she had never told her parents about Asser. Privately, she had not considered a long-term plan for her and Asser, and she balked at the idea of marriage. She felt that in her culture women lost their freedom and individuality upon becoming wives, and she did not want to lose control over her life. At the same time, she was continuing to grow and change as a person, and her desires were growing and changing, too. Asser’s first meeting with her parents was awkward, but he gamely tried to impress them and got to know her younger brothers. As he drove off, Yousafzai wished she could leave with him.

Yousafzai’s parents discouraged her relationship, telling her that it could cause a scandal and ruin her reputation. They told her to stop seeing Asser. She refused, but she hated the tension this created between her and her parents, especially her father. The three of them travelled to Boston, where Yousafzai was going to have another facial surgery to repair the nerves on the left side of her face. She was scared of the operation, but everything went to plan. Unfortunately, her prescribed painkillers had the same effect as the marijuana: She was suddenly lost in terrible flashbacks. She decided to endure the pain without medication to avoid the traumatic memories.

When she returned to England, she saw Asser again, and the two discussed their relationship. While Asser wanted to be Yousafzai’s official, public boyfriend, she insisted they keep their relationship a secret, acknowledging that she was not sure what she really wanted. They agreed to carry on long-distance until the next summer.

Yousafzai hoped that her final year at Oxford would be her best yet and that she would be able to balance her academics with her social life. The year got off to a stressful start, as she and her friends began renting a cramped apartment together. Under intense pressure, she and her friends bickered. Yousafzai felt nervous at the thought of graduating and did not know what she should do next. To make matters worse, Yousafzai was struggling to take care of herself and felt that her physical and mental health were both slipping away. She experienced strange moods and physical symptoms that frightened her. She recalls a particularly bad incident that made her feel like she was dying from a heart attack.

Yousafzai worried about what was wrong with her, as she felt more stressed and disconnected than ever before. Her friend Sofia told her to talk to a therapist, but Yousafzai was reluctant to open up. One day soon after, she suddenly felt a terrible sense of dread. The sight of a knife in her sink made her think violent thoughts, and she was consumed with fear. When this episode ended, she knew she needed help.

In Pakistani culture, discussing mental health struggles remains taboo, and Yousafzai had never heard of therapy or mental health before she moved to England. Problems like depression or mental disorders tend to be interpreted as spiritual problems that only God could fix. While the hospital had offered Yousafzai counselling as a 15-year-old, she was recovering from numerous physical problems at the time and found the process unhelpful.

Yousafzai was nervous for her first therapy session. She told her therapist about all her troubles since the previous spring, and her therapist suggested that she likely had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which was exacerbated by anxiety. Yousafzai felt daunted by the therapeutic process but was hopeful that it would help.

Yousafzai’s therapist helped her understand her physical and mental reactions to different experiences. She became more aware of her own thoughts and learned to evaluate them without judgment. She began different practices, such as breathing techniques, when she felt panic attacks coming on. Feeling distant from her friends, Yousafzai was more honest about what she was going through. While many choices and uncertainties remained, she realized that there would always be different options and that all she could do was make a firm choice and hope for the best.