I Became a Stranger to Stay Alive

I never imagined I’d wake up one day and not recognize the person staring back at me in the mirror. The eyes were mine. The scars were mine. But the soul? That was someone else’s—someone I had to become just to make it through.

Before everything changed, I was a teacher. A mother. A wife. A friend. I had a loud laugh and an open door. People said I made a home feel like safety. But when the war came, when the air itself turned to ash and fear, I learned that love and laughter weren’t enough. Not when survival demanded silence. Not when the walls had ears, and names on paper could mean death.

We lived in Syria—Aleppo—once beautiful, ancient, breathing history in every street. I used to take my daughter Mariam to the citadel on weekends, feeding the pigeons, telling her stories of queens and warriors. Then came the bombings. The checkpoints. The disappearances.

The first time I truly felt like a stranger to myself was the night my husband didn’t come home.

He had gone out to find bread.

Just bread.

Hours passed. Then days. The phone never rang. The door never opened. That’s when I knew. And something inside me began to die—not just the hope of seeing him again, but the woman who believed life still made sense.

Soon, the threats came. They said I was teaching “the wrong history.” They said my name was on a list. I had two choices: stay and die as the woman I was—or disappear and live as someone else.

So I chose life. Or at least, a version of it.

I left everything behind. My clothes, my books, even my name. I dressed in garments I never wore before, wrapped my identity in layers of silence. Mariam stopped calling me “Mama” in public. I stopped speaking to strangers. I stopped laughing.

We fled north, then west. Walking. Hiding. Running. At night, I whispered old lullabies to her, my voice cracking with fear. She was only six, but she carried the weight of survival on her tiny shoulders better than I ever could.

We reached Turkey. A refugee camp. A different world.

There, I met a woman named Amal. She gave me her extra scarf. Shared her bread. She had also lost a husband. Also had a daughter. We cried in silence the first time we sat together. We didn't need words. We were mirrors.

In the camp, I taught again—under a makeshift tent, with paper scraps and chalk pieces. The children called me "teacher," but I didn’t feel like one. I didn’t feel like anything. Just a ghost in borrowed skin.

Then one day, a little boy in class asked, “Teacher, what was your name before the war?”

I froze.

Before the war.

It felt like a lifetime ago. I almost said it—my real name. The one my mother gave me. The one my husband whispered in love. But I caught myself. That name belonged to a life I had buried.

“I don’t remember,” I lied, forcing a smile.

That night, I cried harder than I had in months. Not because of the lie—but because it was starting to feel true.

But here’s the strange thing: even in that emptiness, life grew. I became stronger. Sharper. I learned how to navigate embassies. How to protect my daughter. How to advocate for others. I became a woman who knew how to disappear—and yet be seen.

Eventually, we made it to Europe. A resettlement program. A new apartment with white walls and locked windows. Mariam started school. I found work cleaning offices at night and translating during the day. I was nobody. And yet, I was everything my daughter needed.

A year later, during a citizenship interview, the officer asked me, “Do you feel you’ve adapted to your new life?”

Adapted.

I smiled politely and nodded. But inside, I thought: No, I haven’t adapted. I’ve transformed. I’ve become someone else entirely.

And yet, the strangest thing? This stranger I became—this quiet, resilient, invisible woman—I learned to love her.

Because she kept my daughter alive.
Because she buried the past and built a future.
Because she endured.

I don’t know if I’ll ever return to Syria. I don’t know if the old me still exists. But I’ve made peace with my reflection now. With the stranger in the mirror.

Sometimes, to survive, you have to let go of who you were.
Sometimes, the only way to stay alive… is to become someone else entirely.