14 | Family

But underneath the tranquil exterior of my childhood lurked inherited behaviors that would eventually bring about my emotional collapse. While I learned what it meant to put others before yourself, I never learned how to express my feelings, and as an extension of that, reach out for help when I needed it.

Mehran Nazir
Sep 5, 2018 · 6 min read

(to the lone reed who stands tall in the gentrified sands of New Austin)

I had what most would consider an idyllic childhood. I grew up in a two-story household that was located on a cul-de-sac in suburban southern California. My father brought in a livable middle-class income and my mother established a robust foundation of morals and manners. I had a diverse group of friends with which I had the freedom to do the dumb things that high schoolers do with very few restrictions imposed by my parental units. By all accounts and measures, my upbringing was uneventful and mundane, but it was stable and happy.

When I started reflecting as a result of my emotional plight, I looked to my childhood to see if there were clues to my current state. If you wanted to take a Freudian lens to look for signs of my emotional duress in my childhood, you would be hard pressed to find anything. I did not experience any physical abuse at the hands of my parents, I was not subjected to the horror of sexual abuse from surrounding elders, and I did not face racial prejudice on school playgrounds. Even though the seeds of many adult traumas are sown in their childhoods, I could not find mine, if there were any.

I was loved by my parents, and that love was unambiguously demonstrated through acts of service. Through elementary school, my mother would faithfully deliver a hot meal to me and my sister, reaching over the fence that separated our outdoor cafeteria and the parking lot every day promptly at noon. Whenever I finished dinner not sufficiently satiated, my father would be the first to volunteer the remaining portion of his meal to me, no questions asked. They embodied generosity and humility that was subsequently baked into my own DNA. My story is not unique — most children of immigrant parents can share similar anecdotes. My parents are part of a selfless immigrant generation that raised their children to selfishly pursue their individual dreams with no expectation of recompense. They are amongst the greatest blessings bestowed upon me.

But underneath the tranquil exterior of my childhood lurked inherited behaviors that would eventually bring about my emotional collapse. While I learned what it meant to put others before yourself, I never learned how to express my feelings, and as an extension of that, reach out for help when I needed it. I grew up in a loud and boisterous household, but when it came to sharing our emotions, there was a culture of silence. When things were not going my way, I never felt entitled to sentimental support. My parents did not deliberately create this emotional repression, but their own behaviors and gestures cultivated a norm in our household that I am still trying to unlearn. There could be many reasons for why this was the case, and I will not explore those in this piece. But the simple fact of the matter was that my reclusiveness was not a mere accident — it was a learned trait.

When I was entering my adolescent years, a close family member fell under a spell of depression. For weeks and months, I saw him toil with anguish and restlessness. This was the first time in my thirteen years of life that I had seen a man reduced to powerlessness, and thus, I had questions about his condition. But instead of a forthright explanation, my mother shielded me away from this man’s hardship, assuring me that things would right themselves and that I didn’t need to be concerned. My mother did this with the best of intentions — which loving parent doesn’t want to safeguard their children from the woes of the world? But in doing so, she deprived me of one of life’s most important lessons: that it’s okay to experience emotional pain, and you needn’t feel like it is something that is to be hidden from view. This is how I was conditioned to hide in plain sight when I was going through my most difficult struggles.

I cannot lament the way the way that I was raised or the emotional norms that had been established over eighteen blessed years of living at home. But I can’t help imagining what my emerging adulthood would have been had I been raised to believe that feelings are not meant to be repressed, and that if you express them from a place of self-worth, you could emerge stronger and more secure. While there is nothing that I can do to change my childhood, I think about these things as I march closer to starting my own family one day. And it is dawning on me that the antidote to many of these anti-patterns lie in the shadows of a three-word phrase.

“I love you.”

It’s quite extraordinary to behold how powerful a three word declaration can have. Three words that are sparse in syllables but prodigious in meaning. Words that are easy to sound out phonetically but feel impossibly difficult to utter with intention and sincerity. It wasn’t a phrase that was proclaimed in our household very frequently, although the love was undeniably present and felt. To borrow from Gary Chapman’s five love languages framework, my parents expressed love through acts of service, but were lacking in words of affirmation. There is no right way to express love, but the absence of verbal expression has a chilling effect on any other dialogue associated with emotion. Its omission trapped troubled feelings in the darkest corners of my mind, and implanted a firm belief that nothing productive would happen if I were to release them. It’s confounding to think that three monosyllabic words can unlock the chambers of the mind and deepen the relationships that we are most likely to take for granted.

Since December of 2014, I’ve made a conscious effort to say “love you” to my mother every time we conclude a phone call. It’s had a transformational impact on the candor of our conversation. I’ve experienced similar changes in other personal relationships where I have concertedly made this effort, although there are very few relationships that apply. But this responsibility is indeed one that is easier said than done. There are some people in my life with whom it feels inordinately difficult to sound out these words, although the declaration of the sentiment seems like it would be a given. It should come as no surprise that one of those people is my father. It’s incredible to grasp the number of behavioral similarities that we share given how few words we exchange, but despite the emotional distance, the bond between us is unbreakable. In the past eighteen months, my relationship has turned upside down with him through the course of various adversities that our family has been dealing with. During a moment of acute difficulty but imminent hope, I felt a strong rush of emotion towards my father, but I did not know how to express it out loud. Instead, I jotted them down in a note in my phone:

Three days later, my father suffered a traumatic brain injury.*

Don’t wait to say I love you to those that are the nearest to your heart. There is no reason to delay walking through the gateway to expressive freedom.

P.S. — I would be remiss to acknowledge that my experience is personal, and not applicable to many people that suffer from similar (or worse) mental ailments. For some that struggle from depression & other behavioral disorders, the core issue is their family. It could be unbearable expectations, an abusive relationship, etc. For those people, asking you to say “I love you” sounds naive, foolish, and misguided. Even though this essay is a reflection of my own life, I want to express empathy with those whose suffering is borne of their family ties.

* For those that are concerned, my father is on his way to a full recovery, insh’Allah. Thank you for your concern.


The Semicolon Series is motivated by my NYC Marathon campaign to raise money for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Please consider donating here.

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