This blog is part of a series of reflective essays by participants of the Voices to End FGM/C workshops run by Sahiyo and StoryCenter. Through residential and online workshops on digital storytelling, Voices to End FGM/C enables those who have been affected by female genital mutilation/cutting to tell their stories through their own perspectives, in their own words.

By Maryum Saifee

Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains in the heart of Appalachia, I began to unravel. In a story circle with female genital mutilation (FGM) survivors and allies, I began telling a story that by now, I had committed to memory: “I was seven years old…my aunt led me down to her basement clinic… she bribed me with a Toblerone chocolate bar.” I had told the story so often that I stopped crying during the sad parts. And it had become this mantra, much like when I was a kid memorizing parts of the Quran. Yet, unlike Quranic recitation which I found soothing, this mechanized mantra was leaving me numb. On the last day of the retreat, I found myself feeling sick to my stomach, as if everything inside of me was being purged, both physically and metaphorically.   

My physical reaction to the stress illustrated the costs and emotional labor of storytelling. On the one hand, it can be cathartic to liberate personal trauma into public spaces: the flood of support and encouragement from everyone from close family to acquaintances. But there is also the dark side – the backlash and ambivalence, sometimes from unexpected places. Over time, the iterative process can be taxing and reductive. As survivors leveraging our stories to push advocacy agendas, your story can evolve into a personal brand, even when you push back against the pigeonholing. At the retreat, I felt this pressure to produce a story that would compel more people from inaction to action. I asked a friend’s daughter – close to the same age I was cut – to hold a Toblerone bar in her small hands so that I could insert the image into my video. I thought the more graphic, the more visual, the more visceral – the more possibilities for mobilizing a mass audience.  

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