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Suzanne Gaber: How are you feeling in this moment?

Rania Mustafa: I just had a lot of guilt. It's hard to focus on day-to-day things because I just feel I'm so consumed by what's happening in Palestine, especially in Gaza.

Speaker 2: The heart will broken. Even sometimes I can't breathe and sometimes wallahi, when I watch the TV, I can't take any breath and I open the windows, open the doors because I can't take it anymore.

Speaker 3: I don't want to do the same things that I used to do.

Speaker 4: Doing even the simplest homework assignments I cannot focus because in the back of my mind, all I think about is how they're struggling and what they're going through. It's honestly very, very painful.

Rania Mustafa: As a person, dealing with this stuff, I've never felt more subhuman than I have in these last few weeks.

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Kai Wright: It's Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright. Welcome to the show. We're going to talk this week about mental health and how we in the United States are processing the horrific reality of war from afar. To get us started in that conversation, I'm joined by one of our producers, Suzanne Gaber. Hey, Suzanne.

Suzanne Gaber: Hey, Kai.

Kai Wright: Can I ask you the same question you put to the people we just heard? How are you feeling?

Suzanne Gaber: Honestly not great. I'm Egyptian-American and I feel I've constantly been on the verge of tears for the past two weeks. I've really not been clear on what to do with my emotions as I'm watching people die.

Kai Wright: Is that because you don't feel you have people to talk to about it, or is it something else?

Suzanne Gaber: No, I feel I have a lot of people to talk to, but we're all stuck in these conversations of feeling a lot of anger and helplessness and it often feels like we don't really know what to do with our emotions. Kai, I was in second grade when 9/11 happened and I was living in a really White environment. There were only a couple Arab-American families in my community. It was really isolating and I've been thinking a lot about that experience and how similar this moment feels. I went searching and I found something in Clifton, New Jersey that I hadn't really seen in my life as an Arab-American. It was an Arab community that was actively centering their mental health right now.

Kai Wright: I should say that Clifton, New Jersey, and neighboring Paterson together. This is a place with a large Palestinian-American community. People there actually referred to it as little Ramallah. What did you encounter there?

Suzanne Gaber: Well, I visited the Palestinian-American Community Center there and I met the executive director, Rania Mustafa, who explained to me why this feels like such a special place as an Arab-American.

Rania Mustafa: You hear a lot of Arabic language being spoken. When you walk into a store, you're not expected to speak in English, you're expected to speak in Arabic. We also have some signs now that say, "Welcome to Palestine Way." It's just that idea of really feeling of belonging. I think that's important. When I walk there, I don't feel otherized, I don't feel different. I feel I'm among the same people that care about the same struggles and the same things as I do. It feels like home a little bit, and I think a lot of us, for example, have grew up with this sometimes take it for granted because of the fact that we grew up with it. It's like, what do we know? We don't know anything different, but when I'm able to walk and get seeds like bizir or if I'm able to go and get a quick shawarma sandwich or I'm able to go and just strike up a conversation with Ammo. It's something that I think a lot of people don't have and I think that's helped a lot of us shape our identities and what it means to be Palestinian-American.

Suzanne Gaber: Totally. As somebody who grew up not in that part, I'm so jealous. [laughter] That's amazing. One of the things when I was looking at PAC is that you guys do so many different types of programs and I think from the beginning it seems like you've had a lot of mental health resources. Why was that so important to you to have even before in the last two weeks?

Rania Mustafa: I've always been really passionate about psychology and mental health. In an alternate world, I would've been a psychologist. That's where I wanted to head and that's where I wanted to be. I've always known the importance of mental health and understanding of who you are and what you can contribute to society. I knew that if this part of who you are, the mental health component is not attended to or cared for, nothing else matters and you'll be struggling with everything else.I saw that first and foremost with the community that I grew up in, with the people I interacted with, with myself. I wanted to be able to work with our community to be able to get that out in the open. Let's talk about these mental health issues, let's really try to address them. Through that, each person will emerge as a stronger, healthier, more empowered individual, and that's really what we've been doing since day one.

Kai Wright: Wow. Rania and her colleagues have been working on mental health since way before the past few weeks and you said, Suzanne, you hadn't seen this before. Is that because as with many communities of color, mental health resources are generally scarce in Arab-American communities?

Suzanne Gaber: Yes, that's one of the things that Rania told me. She also said there was a lot of hesitation around addressing mental health directly.

Rania Mustafa: We always try to include it in different ways. There's a lot of taboo around this topic and when you tell people to come talk about mental health, they'll tell you no, but then you say, "Hey, let's talk about something else, and let's have brunch together." They'll be like, "Yes, sure, let's come." Then you slowly get them to start opening up and that's really something that we try to do with everything. Even with our youth programming, indirectly we try to bring in mental health.

Suzanne Gaber: She spent 10 years working to expand that access in New Jersey and even for her, it's been hard to separate herself from the violence happening in Palestine.

Rania Mustafa: I think these last few weeks, a lot of people don't realize what a lot of Palestinians have been going through. One of them is that we feel sometimes we're in it but we're not in it. I've woken up a few times these last few days screaming from nightmares, and the nightmare was that my son was shot or that we're caught in the middle of an airstrike or caught in the middle of a missile, or even here being attacked here in a different way, or being in a protest. I've been having constant nightmares in different capacities. I'm feeling completely helpless and not knowing what to do and so I wake up screaming.

Then the other thing is also I felt sometimes when I emerge from I guess the world or when I go out and I'm surprised that everything is normal, in my head I'm like, "Look, where's the chaos and where's the air strikes and where's this?" I was telling you earlier that one time I was driving back and I heard a sound and in my head, I was like, "Is that a missile?"

Suzanne Gaber: I have to tell you, I've heard a lot of this from my Palestinian friends, when your family's abroad, so is part of your heart and it feels like you're experiencing it with them even if you're nowhere near. People are really looking for some kind of connection.

Rania Mustafa: People are able to realize a little bit more of like, "Wait, I need community right now. I need a sense of healing. I'm crying every single day. I'm not able to get off my phone. I'm not sleeping right. I don't have any desire to go to work. I don't have any desire to go out." That's also something that is very important to note. People have been canceling vacations, people have not been going to work because either they don't feel safe or they just don't have the motivation to do it. People have canceled engagement parties. There's a collective grieving that's happening in our community and I think everybody feels wrong about doing anything frivolous or just enjoying life. There's a lot of guilt that's associated with that.

Suzanne Gaber: People are trying to relieve some of that stress and Rania's Community Center held Zoom listening sessions for people around the country, not just in New Jersey. Then they hosted an in-person event to bring everyone together to heal in a bunch of different ways and really just being in the same space together to finally exhale.

Rania Mustafa: I walked into an event and honestly I was in tears because it was the first time in two weeks I felt peace in my heart. It was bustling and people were moving, hustling and bustling. It was beautiful. Everyone was around, everyone was moving and we had resources over here and then kids were selling things for Palestine here. Then we had three support groups upstairs, then we had art therapy.

Then we had a story time and people were just walking around, people were hugging, some people were crying and it was just such a beautiful feeling where everyone was just together. When you hugged the other person, the other person knew exactly how you feel and exactly where you are. That hug was not a hug of pity. It was more a hug of we got this and we're going to get through it together. I think that was something so, so beautiful and I think every person who left that day walked away feeling a little lighter.

[background conversation]

Suzanne Gaber: This is a super basic question. Why were you crying almost every day? Where were those feelings coming from?

Rania Mustafa: I think it's fear, guilt, a little bit of survivor's guilt. Because my parents left, I wasn't born in Palestine. Because of different choices, my family had that-- we didn't end up being in that same situation. I think a lot of us sat with that for a little bit as being here in America and thinking that easily could have been us. That guilt that comes with that. The second part of the guilt is that coming to terms, again, with that American identity, that our tax dollars are paying for this. Even thinking about it is making me want to cry, but just thinking, how do you face your community and say that our money is what is killing us? The question is, how do you grapple with that?

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Kai Wright: War is a terrible thing. As Americans, most of us have for a very long time been granted the privilege of keeping it at a distance. It has become an abstraction, at best, a political concept. For others of us, that has not been so easy, certainly since 9/11 and the wars that the US has waged in its wake. Many Arab Americans and Muslim Americans have found themselves unable to avoid questions like the ones Rania is asking.

Certainly for people with family in Gaza right now, the ugly realities of war are inescapable. As these horrible headlines come out of the region after a weekend in which there was a communications blackout in Gaza, and in which monitors a warning of a rapidly escalating humanitarian crisis, we are making space for mental health. We're going to start by focusing particularly on Palestinian Americans and people with family ties in Gaza.

We'll broaden from there as time permits. I'll be joined by Lena Derhally, a licensed psychotherapist, author, and public speaker. We want to hear from you, again, starting with listeners who have loved ones in Gaza. What are you feeling in this time? Were you cut off from your family this weekend? Try and name the emotions that are coming up. Give us a call or text message and let us know how Lena Derhally may be able to help. We'll meet Lena after a break.

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Kai Wright: It's Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright. This week as the death toll mounts in Gaza amid an unprecedented stretch of bombing, and as Israel's campaign to cripple Hamas generates a rapidly escalating humanitarian crisis. We're talking with Palestinian American and Arab American communities about the emotional toll of war, particularly those with family and loved ones in Gaza right now. I'm joined by Lena Derhally, a licensed psychotherapist, author, and public speaker who has worked closely with the community's most affected. Hi, Lena. Thanks for joining us.

Lena Derhally: Hi, Kai. Thanks for having me and making space for this topic.

Kai Wright: We can take your calls and text messages. We want to start again by talking with Palestinian American and Arab American listeners, particularly those with family in Gaza right now. What are you feeling in this time and how might Lena offer some help in confronting it? Lena, in our previous segment, our producer visited a community center in Clifton, New Jersey which serves a Palestinian-American community. We heard the director say of herself, "I need community right now. I need a sense of healing." You are a relationship therapist. I just want to start there with how just that comment resonates with you.

Lena Derhally: Oh, it resonates more than you know. I was thinking about this a lot just in my own grief as a Palestinian American in the USA and just thinking about this mental health connection and that I believe that community and being in relationship with safe people who care is actually the most important thing that we can do right now for our mental health. It really, really resonates.

Kai Wright: As you said, this is both personal and professional conversation for you. How have you been the past few weeks?

Lena Derhally: Not good. I keep thinking that I may choke up, I may cry in this conversation. I think that that's okay. I think that being able to express our emotions about what's going on is absolutely critical right now. I have no shame about the emotion that comes up for me as it will happen. No, this has been the most devastating choking up now a few weeks of my life. It's been the most devastating collective grief in our community than we've ever seen. You can hear in my voice, it's just immense pain.

Kai Wright: I'm sorry. Did you grow up feeling connected to your Palestinian heritage? You grew up here in the US, right? Did you grow up feeling-

Lena Derhally: I did, yes.

Kai Wright: -connected to the community?

Lena Derhally: Oh, 100%. My father came to the US from Bethlehem, Palestine when he was about 15 years old. He's the oldest of five kids. He has the immigrant American dream experience, but my Palestinian grandparents, I grew up about an hour's drive from them, and so I was really immersed in my Palestinian identity. My mother's American, but she actually adopted the culture as well.

I say she's probably one of the best cooks of Arabic food that I've ever met. We also say, too, when you marry into an Arab American family, you adopt that culture as well. My father was always very, I think, intentional about letting me know about where I came from and what that meant. I have a rich family history. I'm Christian, and I bring that up because I think a lot of people don't realize that there are Palestinian Christians.

My great-grandfather was actually the mayor of Bethlehem. My great-great-grandfather was a Greek Orthodox priest in the Church of Nativity. I actually have a picture on my refrigerator right now of some of my cousins sitting at a table with Muhammad Ali. I also don't think people know very well that Muhammad Ali was a really big activist and proponent of Palestinian liberation and freedom.

My father was also a founding board member of a peace organization called Seeds of Peace, which brought Palestinian and Israeli teenagers to a camp every summer in Maine with the hopes of coexistence and seeing the other side of human as human. I actually attended that camp myself as a tween. It's just been a huge part of my life and my identity. I'm very proud and unapologetically Palestinian.

Kai Wright: Was that always the case though? Even as a kid, was there any complexity to that/ it sounds like you just had all the resources you needed to be proud, but you're also growing up in the United States. Was there any complexity to that?

Lena Derhally: That's a good question. This unapologetic Palestinian identity that I have now is not how it always has been because I did grow up in the US and there is a sentiment that is expressed to us as Palestinian children. Even just the other day, I was talking to my parents and my dad said to me, be careful. There's always this warning that don't reveal too much about who you are. Sometimes you shouldn't say who you are. You might not get a job. This world doesn't look favorably upon Palestinians. Your existence is political. Your existence is not always valued.

It took me a while to get to the point where I can wear my keffiyeh in different places and feel or not fear about that anymore. Although it's hard to say that there's no fear at all because I think that complexity that you mentioned is always just a little bit there just because it's just been embedded in us that we're not really safe in the US.

Kai Wright: You mentioned earlier that this moment feels like the most, I don't remember what word you used, but the most challenging that you've experienced as a Palestinian American in the United States. Maybe it's an obvious question, but why is this distinct from other times?

Lena Derhally: I think it's important to mention that this is not new for us, this type of grief. They say that if a child is 15 years old in Palestine now and in Gaza right now, that this will be the fifth bombing that they have experienced. Many of our parents and grandparents have been through the Nakba where our families were expelled from Palestine. Many of us are refugees as well. I should mention my husband is also Palestinian, and he was living in Kuwait. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, he couldn't go back to his home.

There's also all these different levels of just displacement with Palestinians over

the years. This is something that's been with us for a long time but you asked about this particular incident, and I just don't think we have ever witnessed this type of, I'm going to use the word depravity, cruelty. I hear people, and not just Palestinians and Arabs, I just keep hearing people say, this is the most inhumane thing that they've ever witnessed. We're watching it play out in real time. Thanks to social media which I think we might get into a bit later, but we are experiencing in real time this cruelty, this collective punishment that I think even that non Arabs and non-Palestinians are actually feeling a lot of this too.

Kai Wright: We will get into social media a little later, but I want to revisit the conversation we had earlier in the show again at that community center in Clifton, New Jersey. I want to play something that the director, Rania Mustafa said to our producer. Take a listen to this.

Rania Mustafa: Right now what we're going through-- As a mom, I feel like I've been doing the bare minimum with my kids, and all I keep thinking is, they're alive, they're well, they're safe. That's all that matters. I think before all this was happening, obviously like being in the society and having the privilege and the comfort that I had, I was always trying to like, "Okay, how can I do extra? Let's take a breath, emotional and social wellbeing and all this different stuff." This forced us to reflect on our parents and how they were in a survival mode.

They've grown up in wars and they've grown up in all these different inhumane situations. When they looked at us, it was like, they're fed, they're okay, they're safe, that's all that matters. It's interesting to think about the generational trauma, because I think with us emerging in this society where a lot of our immediate needs are attended to or taken care of, we're now doing the extra stuff. Now in these last three weeks, I feel like we're in a "war time" or "war zone" that we're not taking care of other needs. We're taking care of the immediate needs, like my kids ate, my kids slept, my kids are okay.

Kai Wright: There's a few things I want to ask you about in those comments, Lena. One is just parenting in general. Has this come up in your work or in your personal life, how parents are feeling right now in Palestinian American communities in particular, and what would you say to someone like Rania?

Lena Derhally: I can definitely speak to that myself. I'm a parent and I think that I've only been able to do what I call the bare minimum. I think a lot of the joy of parenting has been removed during these few weeks. Just I think what she had mentioned is the inability to focus. It's doing the basic tasks. It's like you're just getting through the day. Did I get my kids to school? Did I feed them? Did they go to bed on time? You feel like a zombie that you're just going through the motions. I don't feel very present with my children.

I'm going to be, again, very brutally honest about my experience and how, because I think what this is emblematic of is trauma, what we're talking about. She mentioned generational trauma there as well. This not being new, and this is the trauma of our ancestors and the trauma of our grandparents and parents. It's really hard to just go about your daily life when you know what is happening to other people. I would say, even if I wasn't Palestinian, because I know many other people now who are not Palestinian, who are not Arab, who are having the same trouble, who are having trouble focusing.

I had a friend, she's Peruvian, she called out a work just the other day because she couldn't stop crying about what she was seeing. She's a parent as well. The other thing I keep hearing from parents and especially Palestinian parents or Arab community parents is that they look at their own children and they see the children in Gaza. They see a 13-year-old boy with his head bandaged and one of my cousins had mentioned that to me.

She saw the boy the same age as her son with his head wrapped up in bandages, you couldn't even see his face. He was consoling his father, telling his dad, "I'm going to be okay." She just started crying. Just that image evokes for her that could have been my son. Everybody I know they're seeing their own children in what's happening over there. It's a really, really hard pill to swallow. Again, it just comes back to this really, really dark place of, how do we do this to other human beings? How do we do this to these innocent children?

Some newborn babies talking about all these pregnant women there who have to give birth in these conditions where there's no anesthesia, the hospital corridors are littered with dead bodies. They say that the hospitals that now are just smell of decay. I think it's so hard for anybody to know what is happening and to feel anything but again, this really deep grief.

Kai Wright: Let's go to Amani in Minnesota. Amani, welcome to the show.

Amani: Hi. Thank you.

Kai Wright: Thanks for calling in, what did you want to share?

Amani: I can relate a lot to what Rania was saying, and I'm actually really emotional just hearing because that's exactly how I feel. I'm a mother also and that guilt that I'm not showing up for my children or that I find myself even being more angry or short-tempered with them because all I keep thinking about is what's happening in Palestine and now potentially Lebanon, which actually not potentially, in Lebanon. As things just spill over this constant it's gut wrenching. There's really no other words. I don't feel safe discussing it with anyone because I'm afraid of backlash. I'm afraid for the safety of my children and my family and so it's hard.

Kai Wright: Thank you for that, Amani. Lena, particularly that I don't feel safe discussing it part, what would you say to someone like Amani?

Lena Derhally: I just validate that. It makes so much sense because we don't get any messages that we are safe. Look at our government, look at the mainstream media and the messages that we receive, it's very dehumanizing. It's very invalidating. If we can't be protected and represented by our elected officials and our government and we see again, we're people who have lived through this also post 9/11 world where Arabs were really, really demonized and there were a lot of hate crimes.

We just saw a hate crime recently with the murder of a six year old Palestinian American in the Chicago suburbs. I'd say it all makes sense. I don't have too many comforting words in times like this, but I'm glad that Amani felt that she could call here, that there has to be some way to express. I guess what I would like to tell people is if you do have safe people, even if it's one person, it's so important or even if you have to find a therapist, and I know for a lot of Arab Americans it's hard to find a therapist that understands this.

It's not easy and I don't want to pretend it is easier that there's a silver lining or there's a solution to this, but if there are any safe people, even if it's one, it's so important to be able to talk about this and to receive some kind of support so you're not alone and you are not alone.

Kai Wright: You've mentioned the comparison to the time after 9/11. It's come up a few times. We have a text message someone asking how does this moment feel similar or different to after 9/11 or after Trump's Muslim ban. In the minute and a half or so we have before we have to take a break, how does that time matter to now or does it?

Lena Derhally: Oh, it matters a lot. I think, again, it's the constant dehumanization the Arab community feels, again, that sense of our safety. Post-Iraq, it was really, really bad. If you remember, there was the Freedom Fries, there was all these really pro-US anti-Arab sentiments that were happening. I think when this type of situation happens that we're seeing is that it evokes a lot of that trauma again and the villainization.

I've seen people send me, I've actually asked them to stop sending me some of these TikToks where they may have Israelis mocking the bombings that are happening now or mocking Palestinians or just that hatred in general, because I think when we consume that hatred or we experience that hatred or we

hear about a hate crime such as the Palestinian boy who I just mentioned, it triggers a strong trauma response within our bodies where we have to go into survival mode. It's a very real fear and it's very present in all of us on a day-to-day basis. I don't think it ever goes away.

Kai Wright: We need to take a break. I'm Kai Wright and I'm talking with Lena Derhally, a licensed psychotherapist, author, and public speaker about how Palestinian-American and Arab-American communities are dealing with the mental health challenges of this moment in which many are watching from afar as they worry about the safety of their loved ones in Gaza. After the break, we also want to talk about how those of us who are not Palestinian American or Arab American are dealing with this moment, what mental health challenges are coming up, and how Lena might be able to advise us in that. Stay with us.

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Rahima Nasa: Hi, everyone. My name is Rahima and I help produce the show. I want to remind you that if you have questions or comments, we'd love to hear from you. Here's how, first you can email us. The address is notes@wnyc.org. Second, you can send us a voice message. Go to notesfromamerica.org and click on the green button that says start recording. Finally, you can reach us on Twitter and Instagram. The handle for both is NotesWithKai. However you want to reach us, we'd love to hear from you and maybe use your message on the show. All right, thanks. Talk to you soon.

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Kai Wright: Welcome back. This is Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright. I'm joined by Lena Derhally, a licensed psychotherapist, author, and public speaker, and we're talking about how Palestinian American and Arab American communities are dealing with the mental and emotional health challenges of this moment. We are at the end of a particularly frightening weekend in Gaza, in which there was a communications blackout and a bombing campaign that, by all accounts, is unprecedented in the 21st century in its volume. Israel has said the bombardment is necessary to cripple Hamas' military capabilities.

Protests around the world this weekend called for a ceasefire, calling the campaign collective punishment against civilians. Whatever else is true, human rights monitors point to a rapidly escalating crisis there. We are taking calls. We've been talking to Palestinian Americans who have family in the region in particular where we can now take calls from everybody who has a question about how to handle their mental health in this moment while we are watching such horrific news unfold. Let's go to Najla, who is in Staten Island, New York. Najla, welcome to the show.

Najla: Hi, good evening. How are you?

Kai Wright: I'm well. What did you want to share, Najla?

Najla: All I wanted to say is I wanted to let every single Palestinian household to know tonight that we're all mourning in grieving the loved ones, the children of Palestine. We'll definitely overcome this. Stay strong and soon it will be over. Keep praying and be grateful. That's it. That's what I'd love to let every single person know that are grieving and mourning at this given moment.

Kai Wright: Thank you for that, Najla. Lena, I've been asking you the questions we've heard from people in the streets, but what about your clients? I imagine you see clients of all different backgrounds in a private practice. How has this topic come up in your sessions over the past few weeks?

Lena Derhally: It's come up in almost every single session, actually. It's actually surprised me that, I didn't think it necessarily would, especially for the clients. I do see a lot of Arab American clients, and I do, I see Jewish clients. I have an Israeli client, and so, of course, that's come up because it's such a profound thing in all of our lives right now. I've been surprised again about the people who are not directly impacted or do not have connections to the Middle East who have come in. Again, just to say how distraught they are. I've never seen that happen in my career. I maybe been practicing maybe 12, 13 years now.

I can't remember exactly, but in that timeframe, I don't ever remember a time where everybody was coming in wanting to talk about the same thing. Again, with these feelings of hopelessness and deep sadness and helplessness and powerlessness and all of these things, and in some ways it's actually been a bit of a comfort to me. I think back to the last caller. I believe all Palestinians, whether we're Muslim, Christian, wherever we come from, we are a family, all of us. I feel that the family love from all our Arab American brothers and sisters, but also from all our allies. We have tremendous Jewish allies, Black allies, the Black Palestinian solidarity of movement is such an inspiring thing, and White allies.

I think it's the thing that keeps me going is what I tell people. The only thing that has kept me going is to see that shared grief in all people that we do. We reject this. We reject what is happening, that it is not okay to do this to any other human beings, whether it's a child, a woman, or a man. I also want to say, because we always, there was an article in The New York Times by another Palestinian psychologist that how we have to audition for your empathy.

I find the conversation always revolves around women and children. Why do we kill innocent women and children, but we're also killing innocent Palestinian men. I think that's also part of the conversation that feels a bit dehumanizing, is that we have to show the women and children or the pregnant women in hopes that people will empathize with us when we show the most vulnerable parts of the population, but every single innocent life has so much value. We went a little off-topic, but I wanted to say that too.

Kai Wright: That's certainly resonant for many African Americans in talking about a number of issues. [laughs] You feel like you have to audition-

Lena Derhally: Yes, [crosstalk].

Kai Wright: -for empathy. What about people who generally don't know how to process their feelings as they're witnessing this and who don't feel like they have a lane to speak up? To well-meaning people who don't know what to say or do the wrong thing, does that come up, and if so, or either in your practice or in your life, if so, what do you say to those folks?

Lena Derhally: Yes, and I think, are you talking more like publicly speaking, if they're going onto a social media for [crosstalk]?

Kai Wright: No, both. No, I think actually in real life. [laughs] That's the space we're in here.

Lena Derhally: Yes. I think in real life this is general for all grief because I do a lot of grief counseling, is people often don't know what to say when someone is going through a really hard time. In fact, sometimes one of the things that people do is they avoid. There may be just a variation of responses to how people are dealing with this. One of those things may be avoidance. Again, there may be some fear underlying that avoidance. Again, because this is such a controversial, it shouldn't be, but it's a controversial topic. We're seeing editors being fired from their jobs for-- there was one editor who retweeted an Onion article and was fired.

I think there's that culture of fear that's also making people avoid the topic. It's complicated. Everybody's got a different situation. I would say if you know of someone directly impacted, and I've experienced this a lot. I've experienced a lot of love and support throughout this, because again, in my adult years, I've been unapologetically Palestinian. Anyone who knows me knows that about me and knows how important the identity is to me and how connected I feel to my people. Sometimes people just say, "I just want to let you know that I'm here for you. Do you want to go for a walk? What's happening is awful."

They don't even need to say anything more than that. I think just being able to recognize the pain within yourself, because again, it's not just pain of Palestinians and Arabs right now, there are many people, maybe it's not the same pain, but there's still a lot of pain. To connect with that own pain within yourself, I think you said, Kai, in the beginning, which was very therapist of you to name the feelings. To be able to name what we're feeling is really important and to be able to vocalize that and to connect with others through that shared feeling and that shared experience, which circles back again to community and how that solace in community is being able to share

feelings together.

Kai Wright: I seek a great deal of therapy. Lena, I have to tell you. [laughs]

Lena Derhally: You can tell me. That’s good. [chuckles]

Kai Wright: In this work it is crucial. Let's go to Christine in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Christine, welcome to the show.

Christine: Hi, thanks so much for taking my call. I just want to say how much I empathize with the pain and the dehumanization that the Palestinian Arab-Americans are going through right now. I'm a Jewish-American and I feel the same way. I haven't discussed the war with anybody but a few really close friends. I don't share with people in general that I'm Jewish because I've experienced anti-Semitism, so have my kids at school. I guess I'm just wondering if there's a way where our communities can come together over a shared love of humanity in a way that we can bridge our common emotions and experiences that we're sharing because so many people are hurting. I just wish that there could be some commonality so that we can support each other.

Kai Wright: Thank you for that, Christine. Lena, what would you say to that?

Lena Derhally: I agree with everything Christine said 100%. I said, again, I love our Jewish allies or you saw Jewish Voice for Peace, this group led by Jews shut down Grand Central Station, and again, it's this shared humanity, but to Christine, I also wanted to say that just to share a little tidbit without getting into anything for confidentiality reasons.

I did mention I have an Israeli client and one of the things that he said to me was, "You're one of the only people that can understand this," and I loved that because I can still be his therapist as a Palestinian and we have this shared experience, where he has Jewish children who are not in this country. Again, for confidentiality reasons, I'm not going to say any more, but the fact that he has to tell his Jewish children to hide their identity because it doesn't feel safe right now because anti-Semitism is very, very real as is Islamophobia.

What I really appreciated about what he said to me was that, "You are the one person who understands what that's like to like that hiding your identity, especially when you're white." Your viewers can't see me, but I'm not a dark Palestinian and I have the privilege. I've always, this immense privilege of being able to hide my identity, but there is still the fear of like Christine said, that she and her children have experienced anti-Semitism. We do have, and that was what was great about coming from Seeds of Peace where we about Palestinian and Israeli children together at a camp. It's about shared humanity.

I believe that most people in this world we all want the same things. I don't believe it's really the people here that are-- the general public, that's the problem. It's the people in power. There's a megalomania going on, there's some malignant narcissism going on, there's money and power, but this doesn't represent and this is not what I've seen this time around. I've seen everybody just wants people to live with peace, security, and that's it.

Most people don't want to see this for anybody and I think that that's really important. Now how to bridge those gaps, I probably couldn't answer that today, but I think that was an important thing to share and to note that we are more alike than what is portrayed in the media.

Kai Wright: Let's go to Stacey in Morrisville, Vermont. Stacy, welcome to the show.

Stacy: Hi, thank you. I just wanted to say I am not Palestinian but I've always been very empathetic towards the people in Gaza and the West Bank and just on my part, I've been very broken about this for a while and I've just been calling my representatives in the White House and pretty much demanding that they call for a ceasefire because that really needs to happen and also to call the representatives to put forth that bill for the ceasefire. I think there was 22 people, Congress people that signed that to encourage them and thank them for doing that, so I guess it's just my little part plus saying my prayers.

Kai Wright: Thank you for that, Stacy. Lena, I want to play a voicemail we got from Noor. She is a Palestinian-American journalist based here in New York and she has concerns about the impact the news is going to have on our community and how sustainable it is for her to stay engaged. Here's what she said.

Noor: It sounds like the most productive way for me to keep sharing updates and resources with folks is to dissociate from what's happening, but there have been times that I've broken down and allowed myself to really feel everything. That just makes me want to give up, and then I feel guilty afterwards also because I know that I'm not even facing a fraction of what they're facing in Gaza. I tell myself I'm safe where I am and if the people in Gaza are still living and sharing updates and connecting with us despite everything, then I can go on too and so I feel an obligation to do that.

At the end of this, I'm just worried that if this continues to be the situation if nothing changes, I'm just worried about the impact on all of us. How can we continue this way?

Kai Wright: What do you think about that, Lena? There's a couple of things in there, but first off, the idea of dissociating in order to engage certainly, I can relate. I don’t know, what do you think about that?

Lena Derhally: Again, it's so relatable and it's something that I have heard every single Palestinian or Arab-American say, especially this thing about this guilt and this understanding that whatever we're experiencing which everybody I've spoken to who has a direct connection to this sobs all day, every day or has to take breaks where it's just uncontrollable sobbing and it doesn't feel sustainable. Then we have this, again, this understanding that whatever we're feeling is the tiniest iota of what the people on the ground are feeling in Gaza. It's really hard to think about if we're feeling like that, and what they're feeling over there I guarantee is just complete survival mode.

Because when you're in that survival mode, as somebody said to me, they don't even have the privilege to grieve. That is the gravity of the situation not having the privilege to break down and grieve. We as Palestinians wanting to honor our brothers and sisters in Palestine, we have the luxury to grieve and so we must keep going and we must do it for them. They're so strong and we don't want them to feel we're alone. I've heard a bunch of people on here too, they're calling their representatives and it can feel very fruitless. Again, these things are just not easy, they're not easy to answer, because again, there's the anxiety that everyone is feeling is that there's an unknown component that we don't know when this is going to end.

Kai Wright: I want to hope in on that point because we've only got about 30 seconds left here.

Lena Derhally: Oh.

Kai Wright: On that sustainability point, what would you say because exactly that, who knows how long it goes on? If people are sobbing all day, every day, how do you sustain yourself in this moment?

Lena Derhally: This is what I tell all people, through trauma and grief, sometimes it's one day at a time, sometimes it's one minute, sometimes it's one second, but we have to stay in the present moment right now and just go with what is we're experiencing in the present moment. If you need to disassociate for a bit, if you need to do what you need to do, do that and then come back to it that you can take a break, but you can come back to it. I would say one day at a time, one minute at a time, one second at a time.

Kai Wright: We got to leave it there. Lena Derhally is a licensed psychotherapist, author, and public speaker. Lena, thanks for taking time for this conversation. Notes From America is a production of WNYC Studios. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts and @noteswithkai on Instagram. Feed music and sound design by Jared Paul, Matthew Miranda is our live engineer. Our team also includes Regina de Heer, Karen Frillman, Suzanne Gaber, Rahima Nasa, David Norville, and Lindsay Foster Thomas. Our executive producer is André Robert Lee and I am Kai Wright. Thank you so much for joining us.

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