u/NourBlowsBubblegum

It always felt like the media was reinforcing the idea that picky eating or ARFID is just an attitude problem or ”stubbornness” that can be fixed with a single bite. 

Because then the kid tries it, magically loves it, and the episode ends with "see? You were just being stubborn!"

That trope set such an annoying precedent for how real life adults treated me whenever I struggled to eat foods. It made people think forced exposure was a cure. Because one bite of broccoli has definitely cured my entire sensory system every single time. /s (Bonus points if the episode ends with the kid suddenly making it their favorite food.)

I wish we got cartoons showing that it’s completely okay to genuinely dislike a food, or better yet, actual ARFID representation where a kid’s food boundaries are respected instead of treated as a phase to fix. Why can't media show a character saying "I tried it, I still hate it, and that's fine"? Not every food is for everyone, and enforcing the idea that "you'll love it if you just try it" makes it harder to set normal boundaries around food.

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It drives me crazy when someone posts pictures of a certain type of vibe, and people in the comments start slapping arbitrary "-core" onto random words to make up a brand new "aesthetic" on the spot.

I literally saw someone post a rare type of emo aesthetic and asked what it was, and I kid you not, someone commented “Wannabe emo but still a girly girl in the 2000s”

When everything gets given a made up label, it makes it impossible for people who are genuinely interested in aesthetics to learn anything meaningful. If you don’t know it, don’t comment.

We are very similar to each other, we are both Arabs and we are both indigenous levantines. We were born to be friends, not enemies. I think we can’t start building friendship together.

hello I am Nour

My mom is a Palestinian Christian from Jaffa, my biological dad is an Israeli Jew also from Jaffa.

They actually knew each other growing up. My mom never liked him romantically, but apparently he didn’t exactly take the hint. He was always flirting with her, even though she wasn’t interested.

One night he raped her and she got pregnant with me

Once my dad found out, he distanced himself from my mom and married a Jewish woman and started a separate family.

but because Jaffa is a tight and a bit of a gossipy place, he couldn't just ignore my existence. People knew who my mother was, they knew who my father was, and eventually people knew about me too.

To avoid a massive scandal and keep the Israeli authorities or religious courts out of our life, they made an informal agreement without it. Every other Friday afternoon, my father would pick me up. I’d spend Friday and Saturday nights at his house and he would take me back to my mom on Sunday evening. However this wasn’t really consistent from what I remember because I would sometimes stay with him shorter or longer.

My mom’s brother, my uncle, was extremely supportive of her. He was there for her during the pregnancy and afterward, and he eventually offered to help raise me in a fatherlike role. He lived in the same house as us, helped take care of me, took me places, helped around the house, and was basically the adult male figure I saw every day.

I have a LOT of memories of him.

As far as little kid me was aware, he was my father. The funny thing is that I also had this completely childish idea that parents were supposed to look alike. I always called my uncle “Baba”. Meanwhile my biological father was “Abba“ but I didn’t really understand what that meant. I knew he was a man I visited every couple of weeks, but I didn’t have the emotional understanding to realize that he was my biological father.

Some things I remember about my biological dad is that he was sometimes mean to me, he would refuse to make me other meals when I didnt like the food he served, so I often starved with him. But other times, he wasn’t necessarily cruel to me. That almost made things more confusing. Sometimes he’d bring me sweets or a little toy, and sometimes we’d watch television together. He’d ask about school and remember certain things I liked. But there was always this distance between us.

I also remember hearing adults talk quietly whenever they thought I wasn’t listening. They’d mention my mother, my father, and things like “illegitimate” I didn’t understand all of it, but I knew there was something wrong about my existence.

After a specific event when I was with him, at age 7. I didn’t want to see him anymore. My mom didn’t force me. After that, the visits simply stopped. My father called a few times afterward, but the relationship never really recovered. after that my biological dad became less and less relevant to my everyday life.

For years, I honestly thought my uncle was my father. As I got older, things started not making sense. I eventually started suspecting that there was some family secret I wasn’t being told. I wasn’t particularly shocked by the possibility that my uncle wasn’t my biological father because, honestly, by that point the family relationships already seemed complicated. I just didn’t know what the actual story was.

Then, when I was 18, my mom and my uncle finally sat me down and explained everything. They told me that my uncle really was only my uncle, that my biological father was the man I’d visited as a child, and that my mom had become pregnant with me after he sexually assaulted her.

They also explained why I’d been allowed to believe my uncle was my father for so long. He hadn’t actually been trying to replace my biological dad. He had stepped up because my mom needed support and because I needed someone to fill that parental role.

My reaction was basically:

“Hmm. Okay.”

I think part of it was that I had already spent years suspecting something wasn’t right. So it wasn’t like they suddenly dropped a completely impossible fact on me. And I’m autistic, which probably affects how I process things like this.

I have complicated feelings about having my biological dad’s blood. Sometimes I’m curious about him. Sometimes I’m angry. Sometimes I honestly don’t care.

I live in the West Bank now, and my life here feels much more like my own life. I live in a Muslim town and practice Christianity freely.

Ask me anything.

why can’t we just lowkey come together and play with the cats in my neighborhood? We have similar culture and similar origins of indigenous levantines. 🇵🇸🇱🇧✨