No Advocate for Areej

Mentorship is often spoken of like sunlight—

inevitable, nourishing, natural.

But some of us grew in the dark.

Bent toward fragmented warmth:

a teacher who almost believed,

an email sent too late,

a brief compliment with no follow-through.

I moved without an advocate.

No one stayed long enough to shape a bridge

between how I thought

and how they expected me to sound.

Not one who translated my wonder or my rage

into “potential.”

My questions, my intensity—

they read as noise, not signal.

In schools and in workplaces,

my neurodivergence was interpreted

through lenses of control.

My curiosity—mistranslated.

My difference—politicized.

Woman. Muslim. Arab.

In both Western and Arab systems,

I am always translated—never read directly.

Always an annotation to someone else’s main text.

So yes, I’ve made it this far.

Without steady support.

And no—there will be no reward.

No badge. No applause.

Even what feels monumental to me

may register as small or misaligned within the system.

That is the agreed-upon narrative.

That’s reality.

I’m not telling this for effect.

I’m naming it—

because not naming it has a cost.

And if you’ve been navigating systems alone too—

I see it.

That’s all this is.

You don’t need to speak.

But if you do—this space can hold the sentence, the pause, or the sigh.

No spotlight.

No lesson.

Just the shape of your experience, left intact.

That’s enough.

How advocacy feels: tipped over, stepped around, and swept into a corner. Spotted in Riyadh.