Accessing a space of care
Telling us this story is Gabriella, a psychologist with the Wasi project in Milan since 2023, who has been following S. in English. The woman’s name has been changed to protect her privacy.
When I met S., 21, originally from Iran, I was confronted with a girl who was very young, but with a look already marked by fatigue far beyond her age. In the first few interviews she spoke very little, with extreme caution, as if every word had to be checked first.
The opportunity to work in a language that she herself masters well (English, although not her native language) was immediately crucial not only as a matter of comprehension, but because it allowed her to finally feel that she was in a space where she did not have to hold back or fear being misunderstood. Slowly, a very complex personal and family history emerged. S. recounted that she had been abused by a cousin during her adolescence, an experience that remained for years without real acknowledgement or protection from adults of reference. He spoke of this episode with great difficulty, mixing shame, anger and a sense of guilt that he had come to internalize over time.
The current family context is also very burdensome. The mother, who is highly emotionally dependent, tends to lean on her constantly, looking to S. for an emotional support figure rather than offering maternal containment. The father has a significant disability and requires constant attention. There are also three younger siblings in the house, whom S. takes care of on a daily basis. In fact, rather than living her own role as a 21-year-old girl, she has long found herself acting as a “big girl,” holding up parts of family life that should not be on her shoulders.
In an interview, trying to explain this feeling, he said a phrase that has stuck with me, “I feel like Cinderella.” It was a simple image, but very accurate. There was in it the sense of being useful to everyone and seen by no one, the experience of injustice, the constant sacrifice, the feeling of being cast aside while being indispensable.
Clinically, S. presents marked difficulty in managing emotions. Moments of apparent control and lucidity are alternated with sudden breakdowns, with crying, anger directed at himself, experiences of emptiness and a strong self-evaluation. At times along the way, episodes of self-harm have also emerged, not so much as a gesture with a clear suicidal intent, but as an attempt to discharge an internal suffering that she herself describes as “too strong.” Therapeutic work has been and still is geared primarily toward the possibility of naming what she is feeling, recognizing the signs that precede breakdown, and gradually building less destructive ways to stay within her emotions.
Even school and now university, which could be a space for growth and integration, are often places of struggle for her. The language barrier, the sense of foreignness, the cultural differences and the burden she carries home make it difficult to really feel part of the context. Yet despite all this, S. is a very intelligent girl. She has quick, deep thinking, great sensitivity and uncommon powers of observation. When she can feel safe, important resources emerge, along with a very genuine desire to build a different life for herself.
The journey is still a work in progress, but some changes can already be seen. S. today is more often able to ask for help before she breaks down, recognizes some emotional states better, and is beginning to distinguish her own needs from those of her family. Her case makes it very clear how psychological support carried out by professionals in a foreign language is not a secondary element, but a concrete condition for these young women to truly access a space of care.
Without this possibility, stories like S.’s risk remaining submerged, silent and invisible.
