Here is a set of letters written by teenagers (1)
I don’t really know if what I’m about to write will be of interest to anyone, but it’s something close to my heart and that I would like to share, with the aim, perhaps, of allowing some people to recognize each other, to feel less alone.
I was born into a very caring family, my parents always went out of their way for my sisters and me. When I was little, we didn’t have a lot of money. My mother did several odd jobs and my father, I don’t remember exactly if he worked.
I don’t have a lot of positive memories of my parents and I sometimes blame myself for that because they did their best. My mother has been depressed since she was 13, I don’t think she’s really come out of her depression yet. She has always been out of step with others. She had my big sister at 21 with a man I don’t know. Then she had me at 27, then my little sister, a year and a half later.
My father had a difficult childhood. He did not know his father and he left home at 16. He fell into drugs and scarification. My father has borderline disorder.
Now that I have set the scene, I would like to talk about the role I had in my family. When my sister was born, we were barely a year and a half apart and I quickly became attached to her. The more we grew up, the more inseparable we became. We were, however, complete opposites: my sister had a strong character and always had a lot of anger in her. She often threw tantrums. Me, I was more of a discreet, calm little girl, about whom no one worried. I was often told that I was too sensitive.
When I was 7, my parents divorced. Shortly before that, my mother had changed jobs and therefore had to leave quite early and come home quite late. From there, I became the responsible parent of my little sister. We had to wake up on our own and go to school. I was the tallest, so I had to feed my sister, check that the doors were closed, turn off the lights, etc. All these tasks did not bother me, I was the only one who could do it. But my sister started having more and more temper tantrums. She was unleashing on me. What was at the beginning of little girl crises turned into beatings, into violence. I was far too small to handle a child.
But I didn’t want to cause any trouble, I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to bother them because they were tired. Eventually I got used to my sister’s outbursts and started to withdraw into myself. I was no longer sociable, without making real friends. It was when I started secondary school that my life got complicated. I continued to take care of my sister without knowing who I myself was. I just wanted to be invisible.
My sister had a friend. They made fun of me, my appearance, my clothes, while continuing to throw tantrums. She could, from one moment to another, completely change her face, have a real rage, hit me, then forget.
I would like to say to all the children who, like me, have had to take a place that is not theirs: you are legitimate. You have the right not to take on these parental responsibilities, you have the right to say that you have too much to bear. You don’t have to be the parents, that’s not your role.
Susan, 16 years old
We are at the beginning of the holidays and in a few days we are going to Morocco.
To accompany me during this journey, I decided to buy a book that a friend told me about: Sufi my love, by Elif Shafak. I wanted to make this trip a spiritual trip. I was in full religious questioning and I needed answers. I was born Muslim or, more precisely, my close entourage made this religion mine when I was born. I followed her as my family followed her.
As I grew older, I became aware of something. Something related to the rules that I applied without really questioning them, and I had a hard time with the idea. I found it hard to tell myself that this belief, the one that punctuates my life, was a bit like a biological trait that I inherited and over which I have no control. Hence the beginning of a questioning of what partly built me.
I wondered what my place really was in the birth of what had been my own spirituality.
It’s D-Day.
With the car loaded beyond reason, here we are on the roads that lead to the country of my ancestors. After a few hours, I open the book, I read the first page and I’m carried away. I read with passion the true story of Shams of Tabriz and Jalâl ad-Dîn Rûmî in the 13th century in Iran. One is a Sufi mystic, the other is a poet, ulema (so “man of religion” in Arabic), writer and philosopher.
Their predestined meeting will upset their beings. Transcended by Sufism, they will live a strong and indescribable story of friendship and love.
When I closed the book, my questions found their answers: “I want to become a Sufi”. Sufism is a more spiritual branch of Islam.
His philosophy can be summed up in one word: love. The love that God has for us, the love that we have for God. The love that binds man to man, man to the world, man to humanity.
In this ideology, we must learn to unload the weight of the rules, the weight of religious guilt, to question what is prohibited and/or authorized. Find real meaning in the principles we adopt, and get rid of the image of a punishing god, absolute master of our lives. All this in order to hatch a sincere and desired faith. Benevolence, warmth, gentleness emerge from this current that I fell in love with. It matched who I was. This Islam is universal, because through religion, it makes the other exist, regardless of their belief.
In their time, these people had a gaze that went beyond what is perceptible. Let’s learn from them. I will end this reading with one of the forty rules of love written by Shams of Tabriz:
“A life without love does not count, do not ask yourself what kind of love you will have to seek. Spiritual or material, divine or earthly.”
Eastern or Western, love has no label or definition. It is what it is, pure and simple. Love is brandy and a loved one is a fiery soul. The universe spins differently when fire loves water.
Fati, 24 years old
After all, what is a body? For some people, it is a work tool, for others, a means of transport. Still others will tell you it is their soul house. But for me, it is synonymous with pain.
My body hurts me, I hurt it and our relationship has always been conflicted. We often argue, but we agree on one thing: the outside world is more toxic than our relationship.
In reality, our cohabitation was difficult because of the outside world. I liked it when we played football together, when we climbed trees. Then it evolved and I was told that I could no longer do what I loved because my body had chosen another future.
That’s when we started not listening to each other. I let it waste away because I no longer wanted to take care of it. In revenge, he made me suffer while evolving. Meanwhile, the rest of the world was also attacking us, pitting us against each other.
The more the years passed, the more I developed a hatred towards my body. Then one day he gave up. This day made me realize that we needed each other, despite our differences. I couldn’t live without him, and he was useless without me.
This episode made me realize that we were both suffering. Even if the cohabitation is complicated, we form a whole for two. We were insulted, hit, touched, just as we were cuddled, complimented and loved together.
I’m still not in agreement with him, with what he is, what he does, but I understood that it was not his fault. Our relationship is not the most healthy and serene, but it is ours.
Alex, 16 years old
I let a void build
deep as a well without water.
In the center of the village, this sterile well,
stripped of its primary function, is easily noticed.
Long as days without bread, animal necks bend
but the earth below does not reflect their smiling faces, their soft eyelashes.
“There’s nothing left here”, I want to tell them, but I’m too thirsty
Thirsty to find my friends, my family, a green planet.
On this arid land only germinate Desolation and Distress.
These two accomplices rubbed their hands when the last drop of the well was drunk.
Now they count the grains of sand like I counted my gold coins.
It is impossible for me to drink in the sun.
I am drying up like a mummy in the hollow of the desert.
Elise Zurstrassen
(1) The letters published in this page (except that of Elise Zurstrassen) were sent by Scan-R. Scan-R is an association that organizes writing workshops and supports young people aged 12 to 25 to help them express themselves in writing. The purpose of this project is to allow young people to talk about subjects in which they are actors or witnesses. “Our idea, can we read on the association’s website, is that giving the pen, the Bic, the pen, the pencil or even the keyboard to young people – and in particular to the most excluded and excluded – is is better than giving pebbles… When the pebble breaks, destroys, damages or hurts, writing, and the process it requires, makes it possible to tell stories, to confide, to imagine and draw new paths that do not are not new dreams but a new reality.” Scan-R offers workshops to structures bringing together young people (youth centres, prisons, psychiatric hospitals, etc.). The workshops take place with a facilitator associated with a journalist. Info: