Aysha Khawaja

Dear younger self,

I know right now you feel like a whole new different person but one day you are going to use this difference, to make a big positive difference in the world by turning to MRKH advocacy. Initially, you will feel like an outcast and so different to all your female class mates, but later you will realize how MRKH can be a blessing in disguise!

At 15 you got given a new companion called MRKH, but remember this is not a new companion and you have always had this companion from birth. The reason you didn’t know about this companion of yours is because it was playing hide and seek with you and it was in a very good hiding space! The day after your diagnoses will feel like it’s a normal school day; with everything just as it normally is but you won’t feel the same anymore. Within a span of twenty four hours, you will feel like a different person. It will be as if overnight an invisible barrier had sprung up that separated you from the other girls in your class, a barrier that you can’t break down how much ever you try. The barrier was none other than MRKH that sets you apart from the other girls and makes you feel different from them.

I want you to know you are beautiful and perfect, just the way you are. There’s no normal, we are all different in different ways and that is what makes us all unique, beautiful individuals. Lacking female organs and not having periods, does not make you any less of a women! One day you will realize that, even though now you feel so incomplete, different and broken into tiny pieces, as a woman without periods. You will feel you need to be fixed by dilation to create a vagina. However, please remember Allah (God) has made all unique but perfectly and beautifully. You don’t need to be fixed in any way! You will realize your expectations from dilation were too high. Dilation can’t make you feel complete as women that can only come from within yourself.

Please do not hold your emotions in and allow yourself to feel them, It’s ok not to be ok and allow yourself to feel grief, sadness and to seek professional help if you need. It can be really beneficial and make a world of difference, to your emotional well being. Do also remember it is ok not to always like MRKH and be ok with it! I know right now you have gone super quiet and you just want to disappear or for people not to notice you, but soon you will find your voice again! You will be able to speak up and find your confidence, especially during the world pandemic you will really flourish and bloom and even present webinars for children on a large scale!

Do reach out and connect with others like yourself, as it will make the world of difference to you and to the other MRKH sisters too. Actually, you will find building MRKH friendships and having social gathering with your special sisterhood, to be the best form of therapy you could ever get! You are going to gain so much courage and strength and even turn to MRKH advocacy and gain friendship globally, from something which once crushed your world and turned it upside down and made you go on an emotional rollercoaster ride. Right now, it feels like you are riding more on the rollercoaster loops, going around and round with no going forward, but soon you be riding more on the highs than being stuck in the loop!

You will find love and you can still be a mum, if that is that you want to do! There are so many children out there who need a loving home and you have so much love to give to children. Becoming an aunt to your sister’s children, your friend’s children and your neighbourhood children will help you fill some void of not becoming a mother yourself. You will even be called mum by your nephews and niece! You will even have a nephew who resembles you! I want you to know that you can lead a very happy and successful life with or without children of your own and you don’t need a man or child to complete your life.

You will find your true deeper purpose in life as an educator, teacher and prison play worker. You will make a difference to so many more children’s live in such a beautiful positive way, that you would never have imagined. You will host webinars for children on a massive sale and touch the lives of many children this way.

It will make your faith in Allah (God) stronger and your beautiful faith will give you the strength to carry on, when you feel like you can’t anymore. It is true like the ayah in the Quran says: after hardship is ease and Allah (God) does not lay a burden greater than one can bear. It is true that MRKH will make you the strongest lady ever. You will even use that strength to work on a very unique diy project of creating your own vagina and then turn to helping your special sisterhood navigate through this difficult life journey too. Do remember you have to keep dilating or have intercourse; to keep it up and it will not remain open, just on its own. Please don’t pressure yourself to dilate, it can be done at anytime you want or you don’t even have to do it and know that some choose not to dilate and dilate naturally, through intercourse. It takes a lot of mental, physical strength, patience and determination, to be successful at dilating

You will start an amazing legacy and inspire the Boston annual support group! You will also start support groups to help Arab and Asian sisters and be an amazing connecter and connect so many MRKH sisters to one another, on a global level! You will even develop sisterhood and friendship on a global level and become so close that you even exchange cards and parcels to each other!

I want you to remember there’s a light at the end of the tunnel and you will see the light one day! Actually you will be that light to shine the path, for many of your fellow MRKH sisters.

I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it (May Angelou). You certainly will not let MRKH reduce you! Do always cling on to hope! Hope can stand for:

Hang

On

Pain

Ends

Well the pain doesn’t end completely, but it will be much lesser in the future and you will learn to navigate and drive this life journey of yours much more smoothly!

Stay strong, stay smiling! Sending you lots of love, prayers and hugs! You’ve got this girl!

Aysha