Helina Blogs

I often catch myself thinking about the power of social conditioning and the myth of normalcy that society imposes on us all. The myth of normalcy tells us that we should follow a certain path and reach a certain milestone by a specific age: school, career, family, retirement, etc. I know the pressure of cultural norms intimately. Accordingly, I was supposed to have a career breakthrough during my 20s, find the perfect partner by my early 30s, settle down with kids of my own, and have financial independence for decades to follow.  But none of that happened for me.  For as long as I can remember, I challenged the conventional life that my family had wanted for me. I walked through life having my own agenda. While most of the time I was proud of my own choices, I can’t deny the fact that, at times, I wonder if I am doing life all wrong. I question whether the choices I made were right for me. I look around to see friends and family members living securely while I am struggling,...

Did you know that police officers were once called peace officers? The peace officer’s job was just what you would imagine: to keep communities peaceful. Over time, the culture of policing has shifted from keeping communities peaceful to empowering officers by the state to enforce the law, ensure the safety of citizens, and prevent crimes. From the viewpoint of communities, instead of looking at a police officer as someone they can trust, the police have now turned into someone from the government who carries a weapon and often instills fear in us.  Looking at the culture of the profession, the police force has been molded by unreasonable performance metrics. An officer’s effectiveness is measured by the number of people he or she arrests, or the number of tickets they give out. These unreasonable metrics have shifted the behavior of police officers from someone who protects, serves, and keeps the community safe to someone more like a combat soldier enlisted to shoot, arrest, and c...

How it is possible that atrocities such as the Holocaust, Al-Anfal, or Halabja could ever occur? How is it that innocent civilians can be brutalized by law enforcement? Mass displacements of refugees? The Yazidi genocide in Northern Iraq? The Rohingya genocide in Myanmar? Is it because some human beings are intrinsically evil? Many would argue that refugees are nature’s making, no different than natural disasters and not of a man-made catastrophe, such as war. However, throughout history, the majority of atrocities and suffering brought upon humans is at the hands of other humans. So perhaps the opposite of good is not necessarily evil. The opposite of good is our numbness to the pain and suffering we collectively bring upon one another. Numbness is a term described as “dissociation” by the mental health community. Trauma has the power to undermine our sense of connection to our identity, body, humanity, and life as a whole. At its core, trauma is about losing the deep human-to-human a...