Salam Alaykum and welcome to Tea and Talk. I'm your host Abir Safa. With
me today is Fatemah Khoja. She's gone through a whirlwind of experiences. This
is her story of lost discouragement and success.
Salaam Alaykum. Wa Alaykum salaam sister. Thank you for joining us I know that you
commuted such a long way to get here and be present here for the interview.
Like I just mentioned right now you've gone through so many different
experiences can you just tell us a little bit about you and your experience
with being diagnosed with epilepsy and how that affected you in your health? I
was diagnosed with epilepsy when I was very young in the infancy and
it is something that goes in runs in the family. My epilepsy right now is under
control. Earlier when I was younger, I used to
have a lot of big fits and it means that you kind of black out and you stop
what you're doing and you're not aware what you're doing. So this used to happen
to me many times when I was younger earlier on.
Did they ever tell you what it was caused from or was it just because it ran in
the family. well it's because it ran in the family. My dad was affected (before)
both my sisters were and then there's my uncle so it's something that runs in the family. Were
they able to diagnose you right away and give you medicine to help control it or
was it something that they didn't know what it was and it was kind of a
struggle to know? They knew it before and they gave the medicine and it
helped eventually and alhamdullilah it's all under control now.
You mentioned that both of your two sisters had it
Shazia and Sumayya correct? Yes. Unfortunately they did pass away
can you just describe how they passed away and how much that affected you?
because I'm sure it must have. Shazia was very young.
Well both my sisters passed away at a very young age. Shazia she was four years
old when she passed away of meningitis and she died within 12 hours.
Of being diagnosed? Yes so it was quite sudden and then Sumayya
she had many problems from beforehand and she died 19 days after her second
birthday and we knew she wouldn't live long because she had many problems like
she had a very weak neck and head. You to be careful when you hold it
extra because her brain was full of fluid and it made her head more heavier like
because of that and she was tube fed, she was blind in one eye and she had a
lot of problems from before and I've only heard her smile or cry so I never
got to hear her say anything. So how was your relationship
with them? With Shazia and Sumayya I both shared a very good relationship.
Shazia and me used to do things together like we used to
play together, we would wear the same similar clothes I because I was very
young when she passed away as well yes and she died many years ago
you're talking 1993 so we used to do things together like that and I hear she
was very protective of me as well. So there's only so much I can remember
but from what I do we were very close. From what you're describing now it seems
like you just said that you had a very
close relationship and a really special and unique bond. How was it
because you were so young how was it when you lost her and going through that
was it something that you were able to comprehend? At that time it wasn't
something that much I was able to comprehend because I was still very
young but I remember I was very upset still at that time then when I lost
Sumayya later on I was even more upset because I was it was like at that time
my initial reaction I was angry why is the second sister taken
away from me as well at that time. So over the years as
you know the years have passed were you able to cope with it differently and
understand maybe why that had happened? I guess I understand why it
happened do you feel that because of your understanding of it, that shaped you
to become who you are? Yes I mean there was times before when I used to think
that all my cousins have all got sisters and brothers and I'm the
only one who hasn't. It used to be like that but that is okay I guess
it makes me special. I'm glad that you look at it in that way. You mentioned
and you had written an article and you plan to eventually publish a book about
your life. Correct? In the article, I was honored to read it thank you for
sharing it with me. In the article you said that you did have anxiety every now
and then do you feel that maybe experiencing such a serious loss and so
many losses at such a young age maybe that was what sparked your anxiety? Yes
It is that I think as well but also many people have anxiety just
like that. I think it's also a part of me. But yes there's many other things that
also started to happen after I lost Sumayya as well in terms of my
health. Can you elaborate a bit more about
that? Like I started to get double vision. So for someone who doesn't know
what double vision is.. can you explain what it is? It is
when you see two of everything. Did you end up getting surgery to remove
it? How did you take care of that I mean? Yes I had one surgery to remove it and
Alhamdullillah it went good so now I don't have the
double vision like I used to. I only get double vision if I'm
very very tense. So it's not gone completely but only comes if I'm
extremely worried. So when you're extremely worried extremely tense and
when you're kind of experiencing a huge wave of anxiety. A lot of
people unfortunately think that mental health generally is not as important as
physical health for example so for someone who doesn't have
anxiety and has never experienced what it is like to have anxiety, how would you
describe that to them? I think it's something which we can control. We have
to try and change the way that we think. I try and change my
thinking to positive by saying I can do this I can do that.
Going in with that mentality of yes you can do it, how was it like when you know
you were in school you were taking your GCSEs and your teacher told you that you
weren't allowed to take them because they didn't want someone to score a
very low score. So how did that affect you and how did you overcome that? See
what happened is when I was very young I I was very confident person and when I
grew up, I was in this school which was very nice and
friendly school but I didn't have friends.
I mean socializing is something I had very well of trouble doing so this is
why I changed to a different school in the new private school that I
went to, they were not nice there. They didn't want to have people who
didn't do good in their grades. I was very good at Art and Maths as well but
still they didn't want to let me do the Maths or any GCSE.
Sumayya's death made my Maths go a bit down. I was in year nine when she
passed away.Then what happened is I remember when I was told by them
that we can't let you do the higher grade anymore and I was crying and
it was very upsetting but somehow we managed to persuade them to let me do my higher
GCSEs and I got the good enough grade for it. How did you manage to persuade
them because they seemed to be very stubborn and not letting you be able to
take them? You know, I think it was my parents. They were the ones who
persuaded them and the fact that I was crying. At least you were able to
take them eventually and score eventually get into college. Speaking
about college in your article, you had mentioned that you kept switching from
different colleges why did you do that? I only went to two colleges. The
first college was one where I did the NVQ of cake baking and confectionery and
I did that because it was more of practical course rather than so much
written and there it was good but I didn't have much confidence in me there.
I remember I used to shake to ask the teacher any question but
luckily there was one older student in the class. She was a much more mature
student so whenever I wanted to ask something, I would ask her instead of the teacher
because I was too scared to ask.. but because I enjoyed being creative so
and I always knew that I would want to do something creative in my life.
What was the second college that you ended up transferring to? After that
there was a special needs College called Queen Alexandra College. It was for
people with visual impairment and special needs. I went there and
there I did my equivalent of GCSE and A-levels
by doing the BTEC National in Art and Design and BTEC First Diploma in Art
and Design over there. That place, the friendliness of it changed everything
for me. When I started there, there were
around only 12 people in my class and they were very small small classes
over there due to the special needs students there and the treatment was like
one to four tutoring support so over there there was I found the
environment there good. Their friendliness made it such that I got all
my confidence back that I lost so when I started I would shake in front of the
whole class just putting my hand up in front of 12 people. By the time
I left, I could speak in front of a massive crowd. What made gain that
confidence because you had mentioned that you didn't have that
confidence earlier, so what kind of sparked that confidence? I think it was
the friendliness of the people. Also when I was very young like in my
childhood days, I was a very confident person then as well but
over the years I had lost that confidence. So what made you lose that
confidence? I think maybe the lack of friends in the unfriendly environment.
That and I just became isolated a lot. So when you finished college, and you
know you had to switch a couple colleges before you found the right one, and when
you finished your a-levels and your college, how did you manage to decide
what you wanted to study in the university? Well my dad had given me a CD.
Actually one of his cousin had made him try up the CD. It was a software
of MicroMedia flash and he had given it to me to try. At first I refused that,
then I tried it out and I enjoyed using it so I taught myself the software.
I experimented with it and I liked it and then I thought
this animation thing, I like it so let me see if I can apply to different
universities. So I applied and what is strange is I remember thinking so
many times that all my cousins' are going to university before me you know.
t was really annoyed thinking like why am I going later on? But then Allah is
the best of planners.It turns out that had I gone to university any earlier, the
course that I did end up doing, which is a degree in Animation in Birmingham,
would not have existed. So I got myself an unconditional offer in Birmingham
University. There I did three years of the
degree over there. Strangely, a few years later in 2014 they stopped doing that so
it was like planned out for me. Like you said Allah is truly the most of
planners. You mentioned in your article that
when you were studying at your university, your first-year teacher
wasn't supportive. Can you just explain and
touch upon that a bit? I found he wasn't very encouraging because
there were many times when I would feel that "am I doing this right" and that and
he wasn't very convincing me enough that I'm doing okay and and then
there came a time I remember when I wrote down a few questions on a piece of paper
and gave it to him to answer. I wanted to see am I on the right course. One of the
questions was do you think I'm on the right course.. and he answered
I've thought about this a lot I think I don't think you're on the right one.
Indirectly telling me, discouraging me but but I didn't quit. So what made you, you
know when someone discourages you, that is not something
that anyone wants to hear. So what made you so adamant to continue and follow up
and finish and graduate from University.. even after receiving such negative
comments from your teacher? Well the fact is that if I didn't continue, then all my
efforts of the previous years would have gone to waste and he just was
another person I needed to prove wrong. I had proved my school wrong and
I just took it as another challenge to prove him wrong but every single week I
would say that I want to quit the course but I never did. Even
till one week before I graduated, I would say I want to quit. That's good you know. To
have that determination to actually finish something and actually finishing
it is amazing and very hard to find. Not only did you finish your first
degree but you also went back to do another degree. Why did you decide to
study another degree? See this is very surprising. I surprised myself by doing
it because I remember I called my university years (the first degree
university years) the three years of Terror. It's what I called it
because of my experience there they were not
good years. Even though I did complete it you know. So
what happened was my mom kept telling me Fatemah you're gonna miss the university
and I didn't believe that but then afterwards I I did start missing it
and so I looked up doing the masters but it was too hard to do that. I didn't want
to get myself into it. So I just found another course. I applied on a
few other courses and and ended up doing this video and film production degree in
Wolverhampton. Although that was not my first choice but I still went ahead and
did it but only thinking in mind that I would do it for one month. So I did that.
I've been keen on doing video editing for a long time though as well. That was
also something I liked. Why did you decide to study video production? Why
didn't you choose something else? So what kind of persuaded you into that field?
I think because when you do videos, if you are doing animation,
you can also mix it with videos together to make nice content so this is also
another thing. Plus I like doing videos as well. It's something that I've
done for long. When you were studying video production you had mentioned in
your article that one of your assignments was to make a documentary.
In that documentary you chose to make it about your grandfather's brother.
What was your relationship with him like and how was that project for you? My
relationship with him was very good he was an example to look at because
he had actually gone through a lot in his life. He had one arm. He had lost his
arm in accident with the train. He had actually been pulled by the train
for a long distance. He was working in the train station
so I did his documentary. Just looking at him, it was also
another thing that inspired me.. because look if a person who is without one arm
can do so much, then why can't I? He was doing yoga, he was driving a car,
he would go out walking, he would help in the community a lot in
Birmingham despite having one arm and that too, when he lost it much later
on in his life. So just looking at his story also made me continue more. So did
you ever end up finishing that documentary? Yes I finished the
documentary. However I do remember also thinking I'm never making a documentary
again. Unfortunately after you had finished the documentary, your
grandfather's brother had passed away. How was that? How did you take that
news? Especially after working with him for so long because of this documentary.
Yes. It was very sad news for me because he was very close to me and I
think it is something that was very hard for me to deal with. I was
very close to him and the fact that he was the second
person very close to me who had died of cancer.. It was not nice. And after
that unfortunately also your grandmother had passed away, so you know throughout
your life, you've been experiencing loss on many different levels.. your sisters,
your relatives, your grandmother. If you sum this all up in one, what
experience or what lesson through these experiences would you say is the most
important one that you've learned? I think the most important lesson that
I've learned from the life is that while many times we think why is this
happening and we don't like it, we don't realise
that everything happens for a reason and it's all for the best in the end. So
I guess the most important lesson of my life that I've learned that is
everything happens for a reason and indeed Allah is the true best of planners.
So for someone who's experienced as many losses as you have, what advice would you give
them to stay determined and stay adamant to achieve their goals? I would
advise you that keep on going ahead and you don't give up. In the end your
efforts will not go to waste. Many times we think that oh I don't know if I
can do this, but eventually if you put your mind to it, you can do it. You know
you did go to a special-needs college and university. For
someone who is special needs and you know you've graduated with two degrees,
that's amazing mashallah and it should be applauded and rewarded and may
Allah reward you always. Do you feel that within the Muslim community,
people do not treat people with special needs properly or that they look down
upon them or don't cater for them enough? Maybe that's true. Maybe. I think I have often
isolated myself from people at the mosque because I find it hard to gel in
with the people as well. So yeah this is something that I feel maybe we need
to try and work on well. You had mentioned also in your article..
beautifully written article by the way. You had mentioned in your article
that you were diagnosed with autism mild autism very early on in your
life. How has that affected you? This is also part of the
reason why I find it how to socialize and this is also..
because I have something called Aspergers syndrome which is a form of
autism mild. It is hard for me to socialize with people. Many times when there are
big gatherings, I don't like it. People usually go to marriage ceremonies and I
I don't like going there only because there's so many people in it and I
feel too much overwhelmed. And you feel bit anxious? Yes. May Allah
reward you. Thank you so much for coming onto the show you've done such an
amazing job. Thank you dear viewers for tuning in to
Tea and Talk. Tune in next week for our next episode.
I'm your host Abir Safa. Wasalaam Alaykum Warahmatullah
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