Beyond the Book: Trading Activism for Isolation to Save My Own Life

Post published:October 24, 2025
Post category:Qatar Qatar Academy
Reading time:8 mins read

In addition to inflicting emotional, mental, and intellectual pain and suffering, traumatic experiences change and transform you, whether you want it or not. Consequently, you live and view life in ways that you didn't in the past and in ways others around you don't. Initially, you may not even be aware of it. Coming to terms with and reconciling this change takes deliberate steps and actions.

I made it through a period of years of emotional and intellectual turmoil following a traumatic experience because I recognized and understood a lot of it, and, more crucially, I knew the steps to take.

I share the details in this blog post with the hope that it might help someone else.

September 18, 2021: On the Path To Recovery Finally…After Eight Years

Post published:April 30, 2024
Post category:My Personal Stories Qatar Academy
Reading time:5 mins read

Eleven years since the most harrowing and traumatic twelve-day experience of my life in Doha, Qatar, for allegedly insulting Islam, I can say I have finally recovered.

However, it wasn't until after eight years of struggles with the fallout that experience, in September 2021, that I realized I was finally on the road to recovery. and shared that fact on social media. This is a reproduction of that post including some additional information.

A Ghost of Qatar

Post published:March 3, 2019
Post category:Qatar Academy My Personal Stories Qatar
Reading time:7 mins read

Following a traffic accident, when the other party, unable to get their way, though they were at fault, lodged a "case" against me with the police. When I was told that, I was scared. I didn't know that the trauma of incarceration in Qatar had also engendered another feeling: fear of police cases and the the police.

Qatar…From Afar: What Others Saw vs. What I Was Going Though

Post published:October 23, 2018
Post category:Qatar Qatar Academy
Reading time:13 mins read

The first month and a half back in Nepal following my ordeal in Qatar, I discovered a lot of people, both on social media and outside, who were interested in what I had to say and did. The attention, while flattering, made me quite uncomfortable, and at times embarrassed. But while on social media I gave the impression of doing decent enough job of moving on with my life, internally and also in my daily life, I was struggling greatly. With hardly any emotional and social support, I was having to deal with that on my own, by myself.