Aug 27, 2026 · 13 min · 9 segments
In this special Q&A episode of *The Shadow Sessions*, Hiba Balfaqih answers listener questions covering a wide range of topics. Rather than offering quick answers, Hiba approaches each question with…
For someone who was punished by the system instead of helped by it, what does healing even look like when the world already labeled them broken?
Sometimes the first step is realizing maybe the system needed you to believe you were broken, because then nobody has to examine what happened to you.
We love asking this question: Why is she angry? Why is he addicted? Why does she keep running away? Why can't they just behave normally? But we rarely ask what happened that made this behavior necessary.
And underneath that judgment is another invisible rule; healthy people behave in socially accepted ways.
Sometimes anger was protection, hypervigilance was protection, distrust was protection, shutting down was protection.
Those behaviors may eventually become destructive, but they didn't necessarily begin as a dysfunction.
Healing isn't saying, "This is just who I am" It's saying, "This once kept me alive.
For someone who was punished by the system instead of helped by it, what does healing even look like when the world already labeled them broken?
Sometimes the first step is realizing maybe the system needed you to believe you were broken, because then nobody has to examine what happened to you.
We love asking this question: Why is she angry? Why is he addicted? Why does she keep running away? Why can't they just behave normally? But we rarely ask what happened that made this behavior necessary.
And underneath that judgment is another invisible rule; healthy people behave in socially accepted ways.
Sometimes anger was protection, hypervigilance was protection, distrust was protection, shutting down was protection.
Those behaviors may eventually become destructive, but they didn't necessarily begin as a dysfunction.
Healing isn't saying, "This is just who I am" It's saying, "This once kept me alive.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.