My Story

From the beginning of my journey, I always wondered why I had decided to embark on such a tumultuous path. I wondered what the purpose was- if there even was a purpose. What I have discovered, is that the answer isn’t always so simple. What I have discovered, is that it is such a multi layered and multi dimensional process, that it is more often than not hard to put into actual words. However, I decided to give it a shot and do my best, because the world deserves to hear it. Because you deserve to know that you, too, CAN get to the other side, and you can continue to grow and transform into a better version of yourself. 

I always knew that one day I would share my story with the world, in one way or another. I knew that the words would have to come out of me one day, but I had no idea how or why that would happen. I only knew it to be true. It is the only thing I knew, deep within my heart and soul.

… even when my heart and soul felt completely covered in darkness and pain. 

I’d love to start at the beginning except, I don’t really know what the beginning is. There are constantly beginnings and endings, flowing in and out of each other, throughout our entire lives. Our life is one big beginning and one big ending.I grew up believing there was nothing more to this life than us. That we’ll just go to sleep and that’s the end. But if there is anything I have learned through this journey, it’s that life and creation aren’t that simple. Not that simple at all. 

If anything, that big “end” might just be an even bigger beginning.

Coming to the United States as a refugee

I moved to the United States with my family as an excited, 10 year old girl full of life, dreams and hopes. What I didn’t know at the time, was that that was just the very “beginning” of my journey. It was that moving from one place to another wouldn’t just fix my life or fix the traumas and the past I had left behind.

At ten years old, you don’t realize that. You just know that you are moving across the world, and you don’t even realize how big the world is at the time. You don’t realize what or who you are leaving behind. You don’t realize that you may not ever see some of your family members, ever again. Or that you may never see your home again. Or at least, what was left of it after the war.

Yet, we didn’t really have a choice. We had to leave. After the war in Yugoslavia had ravaged our hometown and country and we were left with nothing, we had to take the risk of moving across the world to try to have a better life elsewhere. I remember the day we landed in Chicago, and drove to Naperville, IL, to our first apartment. I was looking out the car window, my eyes wide. The grass was truly greener here, not just metaphorically. It was beautifully cut and green, and looked perfect to me.

I didn’t understand anything at the time- why we were leaving our family and friends, why we had to move so far, and I certainly didn’t understand what had happened during my childhood. I’m not sure I still do, to this day, but I have definitely learned a lot about life in general throughout my journey, and that’s where this piece of writing comes in.

That’s where my need to express my experiences in some sort of meaningful way comes in.

Surrounded by darkness

My life has been filled with darkness and light to the brim and I never knew how to express it any of it. After all, I was only 2 years old when the first shelling on my hometown of Sarajevo happened. I didn’t understand any of it. I was still in my developmental stages of childhood- you know, the ones that every psychologist says are most important (from age 2-6). I don’t remember much of it, so I’ll try not to bore you with too many of the details, but what I do know is that I got to see and experience some of the biggest “evils” at a young age, and it impacted the rest of my life, up until this very moment. 

By the time I was 4 years old, I had weighed the weight of a newborn baby at about 9 lbs. We had escaped to Croatia, and all the rest of the kids in Bosnia were being “weaned off” of food in the meantime. So when we came back to Bosnia, the drastic change from eating normally to eating practically nothing at all took a toll on my tiny, developing body. I imagine that’s when my brain entirely changed, too. I spent a month or so in the hospital, screaming out my for my mother every night to try to get the nurses to let her come sleep with me. I had formed a very severe attachment to her during that time.

I don’t remember what I was thinking at the time, or how I understood the situation, but I do know that I was terrified – all the time. My mother used to say that young children like myself at that age don’t experience fear, but I think that’s just something she told herself to feel better about my experiences growing up. Don’t get me wrong, she was (and is) a wonderful mother, but I think it is easier to deny some things than to accept that it changed your child’s entire life already at such a young age. 

My parents did everything in their power to ensure that my brother and I had a better chance at a life after that. We picked up our entire life in a suitcase and moved across the world when I was ten years old. Somehow, I think I thought things would just magically align and everything would be put in place, but that is far from what happened. What followed next, changed my life even more and still affects me continually to this day. 

From war to chronic illness

That same year, I had developed a rash under my armpit and my mom took me to urgent care. They told me it was eczema, or atopic dermatitis, and prescribed me my first steroid cream, something that would alter my life and change me from the inside out more than I ever could have imagined. I used the creams as prescribed by the doctors, of course, and the rash would subside. But it wasn’t long until it would come back, stronger than ever, and before I knew it, I was in and out of doctors offices and hospitals nearly every other day.

Each time, with a worsening issues. Each time, a new and even scarier problem. I lived my life “normally” for quite some time. I went through your typical pre-teen and teen problems. I met a boy. Except the boy I met, already wore an ankle bracelet and was heavily involved in criminal activities from the time we met. I must have been only 13, and he was 15. But he drew me in, and at the time, I had no idea he would make such permanent, everlasting changes in my life. I guess I fell in love with him, except I had no idea what love even was. I didn’t realize that I was acting out of all the trauma I had been through in my life and putting it out into this relationship. I didn’t realize how insecure and broken I truly was.

It started out fun- just like any relationship, with the honeymoon phase. We were in love and we were young. We did stupid things and we had fun every day. We couldn’t stand to be apart from each other, or at least, I couldn’t stand to be apart from him. He was always in my mind, and little did I know that he would always stay in my heart in some ways to this day, too. He was my first everything. I smoked my first cigarette with him, I tried my first drug with him, and of course he was my first intimate partner. But I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I was young and foolish, and I thought we would be together forever. I thought I would marry the guy, but I didn’t realize at the time that life had so many other plans for me. I was naive and didn’t realize how much of my life would truly change in the years to follow. 

At seventeen years old, I suddenly lost all of my hair. I remember going to the doctor with my mother and them telling me that I had alopecia areata, and the cause was completely unknown. By then, I was already using topical steroids for seven years. I was referred to a therapist as it was such a major change and trauma in my life. Even that, I didn’t realize would alter my life in such a way for years to come. I watched my hair fall out in clumps- in the shower, when I was brushing it. No matter what I did, it was falling out. I was put on heavy doses of oral steroids and immunosuppressants for the first time, but my body reacted strongly with a life threatening infection, and I had to get off of them. 

I decided to shave my head instead, and hope that it would grow out again. I was working full time at the time, going to school, and was in a relationship. How could this be happening to me? It wasn’t fair. I was so angry and lost.

At that point, I was referred to a psychiatrist and was put on anti depressants and other psychiatric drugs that would also alter the course of my life permanently. 

Road to self expression and healing

I never really knew how to be myself in a world that constantly tries to tell you to be someone else. I never knew how to express myself because, at a very young age, I saw what happened to people that did. Not only did I dislike (and maybe even hate) my true nature most of my life growing up, but I feared it, in many ways. I feared my own potential and my talents.

I feared expressing myself could get me hurt, or even killed.

I learned to be quiet and keep it inside rather than directing it outwards. That included my sadness, anger, disappointments, and the good emotions, too. I feared that I laughed too loud, talked too loud. Or sometimes not enough. It has always been in extremes.

I never developed the ability or skills to deal with my emotions in healthy ways. I learned to be afraid of them and dislike confronting them. And that’s the worst thing you can do- push them away. They beg to be expressed, whether its good or bad. That’s the thing about expression and creativity- it needs to be expressed. Otherwise, it stays within and turns into something much worse, and continues to pile on until your body and brain can no longer handle it. Until it seeps out onto your skin, for whole world sees it.

Sometimes I fear that I will die without expressing all of the depth that’s within my heart and soul. Sometimes I fear that the world will never get to truly hear my story- the real, true story. Of heartbreak, resilience, strength, and healing. Overcoming. I fear that all of it will stay within and just eat me up from the inside out, instead of serving its purpose. And that, at the end of the day, is the point of starting this writing journey – to face those fears, and begin to shamelessly share my story with the world.

So if nothing else, cheers to that.