My Name is Mahtob by Mahtob Mahmoody

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

my-name-is-mahtob

Many years ago, I watched a movie called Not Without My Daughter, with Sally Field.  Have you seen it?

It was a true story about an American woman married to an Iranian man and together they had a 5 year old daughter named Mahtob.  They lived in Michigan and were happily married, until he suggested they take a 2-week vacation to visit his relatives in Iran.  This was just after the Iranian revolution during which the Ayatolah Khomeini overthrew the Shah.  Once they were in Iran, it became clear that Sayyed, the father, had no intention of taking his family back to America.  He embraced the law of the land, which claimed that women and children were the property of the man of the family, and he held them hostage, watching their every move and threatening them with their lives if they disobeyed him.  They lived like this for almost 18 months, until Betty, Mahtob’s mother, was able to earn his trust enough to be allowed to go shopping in the market and make secret contact with an underground network of people who were able to help her and Mahtob finally and miraculously escape.

I remember having had nightmares about this movie for months after seeing it.  And now here is the epilogue…

This is the story from Mahtob, the daughter, herself.  She recounts her story, as the daughter of these two very different parents.  She shares her early memories of America, in a very loving home, with tender memories of her father at the start.  She recalls a subtle shift in his attitude toward his culture and religion just before their leaving for Iran.  But the change in his attitude was like a tidal wave once they landed in Iran, and the loving father that she knew essentially disappeared, replaced by a monster, in her eyes – one who beat up her beloved mother, who threatened her mother, and who separated Mahtob from her mother for days at a time.  And that’s when she learned to hate.

What I did not realized was that the story did not end with their escape from Iran.  This mother and child had to endure years of terror, fearing a kidnapping by her father – or worse! – their whole lives.  And the impact spread to everyone around them.

Betty Mahmoody coped by using their experience  to advocate for others in this situation.  She fought for federal laws that protected children against international parental kidnapping, which President Clinton passed.  And she travelled around the country and around the world, personally supporting  many families who were in the same situation that she had been in.

This is a very, very hard book to read emotionally but it is an important one, I believe.  It serves as a portrait of the convergence of mental illness and religious fanaticism, which is a  terrifying combination.

It  brought it all back for me, but it also brought closure as well.  It seemed to have done so for Mahtob herself.

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

turtles all the way downc

Here we have another intriguing novel by John Green, who seems to really get young adults at their very core.  He introduces Aza, a teenage girl with crippling OCD, still mourning the death of her father years prior, who learns that the father of her camp crush from years ago has gone missing.  Why is her best friend, Daisy obsessed with this?  Because there is a huge $$ reward and they are both trying to save for college.  So as they set out together to dig in for clues, they find more than they bargain for in the deal.

There is a lot to unpack about this book.  First of all, Green gives us a window into the mind of someone with true OCD and it is scary and debilitating.  Poor Aza cannot even kiss her young, hapless boyfriend because she is overwhelmed by fears of what germs she might contract by the exposure.  Her “invasive” thoughts bombard her brain and throw her into downward spirals of obsessions that last for hours, and she has no control over this.  She questions whether she is even her own self or whether she is just a product of the organisms that are inside of her and of the forces that act upon her rather than her own agency.  Aza is also called out by her best friend for her self absorption, for which she hates herself.  Again, she feels she cannot control this because she cannot control her thoughts – she feels they control her.  Through Aza, Green succeeds in giving the reader insight into how this lack of control actually feels.

It is interesting how Aza’s psychiatrist is depicted, which for most of the story, is fairly useless.  Although Aza is not exactly forthcoming with answers to the psychiatrist’s questions, she does answer truthfully for the most part and yet the psychiatrist does not give much in the way of concrete advice.  I would imagine that there are distraction techniques (she does use some breathing) that are incorporated into treatment that might have been used.  The point is likely that treatment is often difficult and feels futile.

Even the parts involving Aza’s new boyfriend are sweet and endearing, even as painful as many of the scenes are.  And the story line about the missing father keeps a mysterious thread running through the story to tie it together, giving it a purpose.

I actually think this is a beautiful, extremely readable, somewhat depressing but realistic novel that would appeal to adults every bit as much as teens.  I also think it’s extremely important for all to read as much as possible to increase our awareness and understanding of all types of mental illness, including OCD.