“Shame on you, shame on you” – former MP Golriz Ghahraman in first interview

John Campbell interviews former Greens MP Golriz Ghahraman.
photo: Screenshot/1News

In her first in-depth interview since her arrest for shoplifting and subsequent resignation from parliament, former Greens MP Golriz Ghahraman told 1News it was an act of “self-sabotage”.

Ghahraman is Convicted and fined today She detailed to 1News’ John Campbell how she New Interview.

When asked what happened, she told Campbell: “I’m just as confused as everybody else. I just know that feeling, which is so much shame and pain.”

“What on earth am I doing?

“I can put it in context now because I have a psychologist’s report and multiple experts’ opinions and I’ve had time to process it… but I think the bottom line for me is that it’s a shame to do something that hurts other people.”

Ghahraman earlier Pleaded guilty to four counts of shoplifting In March this year, she appeared in the Auckland District Court charged with stealing thousands of dollars worth of clothing.

“You know, people think that, as soon as this happened, it was a crisis, but I was already in a crisis,” she told Campbell.

“I was already in that state of self-loathing… where you’re so disappointed in yourself that it makes sense to hurt yourself.”

Ghahraman said she doesn’t remember everything.

“I didn’t get one bit of joy out of it, because there was no joy… I just felt shame, shame all the time,” she said.

“But like, you are the kind of person that you are… I think it’s real. I can point out that you have problems.”

The shocking resignation has put the spotlight on Ghahraman’s mental health, with some media outlets accusing her of playing the “mental health card.”

At a sentencing hearing on Monday, her lawyer, Annabel Cresswell, argued that it was a “loss-reactive burglary” – a theft that occurred as a result of a mental health crisis. New Zealand Herald Reported.

She said in a statement in January that work pressures led her to “behave in a way that is completely out of character. I am not trying to excuse my actions, but I do want to explain them.”

“The mental health professional I’ve seen has said my recent behavior is consistent with recent events that have caused an extreme stress response and are related to previously unrecognized trauma.”

When questioned by Campbell, Ghahraman said she took responsibility for her actions.

Ghahraman outside the court on Thursday.
photo: RNZ/Nick Munro

“I think it’s important to stop and continue offending, and I’ve never used that as an excuse for stealing because I admitted to it and, you know, I’ve pleaded guilty. That’s as it should be. I should, and I’ve accepted responsibility. So I’ve never said that because I’m in poor mental health, I should get away with it.

“But I also want to say that we never get away with it when we bring up mental health issues. It’s the hardest thing in the world. You know, I wish I could apologize for shoplifting, plead guilty, and not have to talk about these other very personal things that the world hasn’t been so kind to.”

Ghahraman said she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. She made history by becoming First New Zealand MP with refugee backgroundcame here with his family from Iran when he was 9 years old.

She told Campbell, “I was born during one of the most violent periods of the Islamic regime in the 1980s, and that was certainly the case… You see the groups of amputees in the footage coming out of Palestine now, we see the people coming back from the front lines… I remember it all very well, but as the report (written by a clinical psychologist) acknowledges, a lot of it is missing.”

During his time in Parliament, Ghahraman also experienced many Online abuse and threats This exacerbated her problems.

“I know now,” she told Campbell, “that I was in what’s called ‘fight or flight mode,’ which only lasted a few minutes at a time, but I did it for six years. You do numb yourself, you do kind of suppress it…but it has to come out somehow.”

Campbell asked her: “If you were a young brown woman, a young woman from your background, would you be in Parliament right now?”

She didn’t hesitate during the interview.

“No, I’m not going to do that. I think we have better things to do as a community. That’s a terrible thing to say. That’s a terrible thing to say. You know, I didn’t break the glass ceiling. It’s like, the shards are still in front of me. I’m just fighting it really hard.”

Ghahraman said her “greatest regret” will always be “that I didn’t understand my mental state well enough ahead of time to back off….

“I don’t make excuses for it at all, I don’t… I don’t think I’d feel any worse… It was just a very stupid act.”