Artisan Spotlight: Nadia U.

Nadia’s past emotional traumas still haunt her now, and manifest in numerous ways which are hurtful to her and to those around her.

Nadia shared that she has anger issues and struggles to manage her anger. This anger used to make her break her things, often fueled by alcohol. She has now decided to quit drinking and it has helped. At the moment, whenever she feels angry, she can be mean in the way she responds to people, and also gets bad migraines. She is hopeful that with the constant support of DuHope staff, she will be able to address her anger issues further and see progress in her ability to manage her anger. 

A few years ago, Nadia attempted suicide a number of times. Sadly, her children witnessed this and begged her to stop. At the moment, she no longer has suicidal thoughts.

Nadia was born to loving and supportive parents, but they passed away when she was at a very young age - she still struggles with this loss. Her extended family rejected her and no one was willing to look after her and her siblings. This led her to make the uncomfortable choice of beginning sex work.  She became a young single mother of 2 boys to different men who provided no support at all.

Nadia felt so overwhelmed by what was happening in her life and began passing out. Doctors told her that her brain couldn’t handle everything she went through and that’s why she passed out and couldn’t be near too much noise. Even during classes whenever there is a lesson that involves breaking things or creates a lot of noise, she normally misses class because she feels like her eardrum is about to burst.

Nadia shares that she still struggles with self-hate; she doesn’t feel like she deserves anything beautiful or good, and it’s even hard to accept something small like a compliment. Her past life never offered such things, and she is still adjusting to that kind of life.

She explained that due to being denied food when she was younger, she struggles with  lack of appetite. She recalls an incident when she was a teenager - she ate some food belonging to a woman she knew, and stated she would pay her back once she had money. The woman arranged for people to beat Nadia - Nadia felt heartbroken by this, as she thought the woman wanted to help her; she couldn’t fathom that she was beaten simply for needing food.

She still struggles with this memory - when hungry and offered some good food, she refuses or may only eat something small, because she feels guilty or it reminds her of the past incident. She understands that she needs to eat more and be healthier, for the sake of her long term health. She has found it helpful to eat lunch with the other women at DuHope and what she has learned from the healthy eating courses at DuHope.