08/03/2026
Were they really stronger…
or were they just silent?
“In our days, no one was depressed,”
my aunt Janet used to say…
The same one who cried in silence
behind a closed door,
then came back smiling
as if nothing had happened.
“In our days, no one committed suicide,”
my grandfather Jack used to say…
The one who learned to call silence
“courage,”
and to carry everything
all alone.
“In our days, people were stronger.
Today they can’t handle anything,”
my uncle Mansour used to say…
The same one who takes a sleeping pill
every night
just to be able to sleep.
“In our days, nobody went to therapy,”
my aunt Sara used to say…
The one who called her husband’s anger
“just his personality,”
and said it was normal…
even though deep inside
it terrified her.
“In our days, anxiety didn’t exist.
People today are weak,”
my grandfather Ghassan used to say…
The one who blamed coffee
for the heaviness in his chest
that woke him up
every single night.
The problem wasn’t that pain didn’t exist…
The problem was that
no one was allowed to talk about it.
Human suffering isn’t new…
What’s new
is that we finally dare
to call it by its name.
And you,
what is the sentence
you always hear from your family?
💬🧠
