From the South to Beirut, to Syria, to Jordan, and finally to Canada, my journey has been a succession of unimaginable experiences.

I never dreamed that one day I’d be forced to cross the border from Lebanon to Syria on foot. But when the car came to an abrupt stop, the road ahead obliterated by an Israeli rocket strike, the harsh truth set in—we had no other option. With the earth still trembling beneath us, we abandoned the vehicle, driven by nothing but raw survival instinct. There were no flights left to save us, no time to think or plan. It was pure desperation, a frantic race to outrun the chaos that was swallowing everything familiar.

I tried everything to calm my nerves—magnesium, melatonin, anxiety medication—but none of it worked. Sleep was a distant memory, eclipsed by the relentless tension and paralyzing fear that gripped every waking moment.

I pursued my master’s degree in Rural Community Development at AUB because I had a vision—a dream of returning to the South to cultivate our land, to root myself in the soil of my ancestors. Growing up in Saida, distant from my community, I had always carried a profound longing for connection, a yearning to rediscover a sense of belonging that had eluded me for so long.

In many ways, I know I was fortunate. For the last three years, I lived in Hamra, balancing my work as a Title IX officer at LAU with my graduate studies at AUB. I had hope, I had dreams, and my small home in Beirut was filled with warmth and joy. But that all shattered in September 2024, when the war intensified, and my home was transformed into a refuge for my entire family.

After fleeing to Syria and then Jordan, with the help of private transportation, we found ourselves waiting in Jordan for three days, hoping for a flight to Canada, where my brother had made a life. When I finally reached Canada, the enormity of everything I had endured hit me like a tidal wave. I couldn’t leave the house. I couldn’t sleep. It was as if, for the first time, I had to face the full weight of the misery I had left behind—my extended family still trapped in Lebanon, my friends, my village in the South, and the dream I once had of returning to farm there, the dream that had been the cornerstone of my master’s project.

All of it—gone.

Anxiety doesn’t end when you escape. It truly begins when you do. The secondary trauma, the guilt, the overwhelming flood of emotions from war, fear, and stress—they don’t disappear. In fact, they haunt you even more once you’ve left it all behind.

This was an anonymous submission by a graduate student at the American University of Beirut.