My Story

In 1987, a world bestseller was published: Not Without My Daughter by Betty Mahmoody. I see the book very clearly in front of me: paperback, white, the title in purple block letters, the black and white shot of a veiled woman looking directly into the camera. 1987 is the first year I spend without my mother. Many should follow. My mother didn’t die, she’s not sick either, nothing keeps her away from me and my little sister. My mother left voluntarily when I was five years old. We took her to the airport early in the morning. My father, me and my two-year-old sister, not knowing that she was not even planning to return from her autumn vacation.

Years later, I am now 18 years old, I stand in an airy kitchen on a Greek island. Glued to the kitchen cupboard, testimonies of a happy family: a timetable, children’s drawings, photos of family celebrations. In between a loose laugh and sparkling eyes under a straw sun hat. My mother on the beach of Krioneri. Unfortunately, I could not find the fun-loving woman in this picture permanently. I searched for a long time, was often in Greece. Looking for childhood memories, for signs of something that connects us.

My mother still claims that I knew she wouldn’t be coming back.

Back then, at the airport. My eyes would have clearly told her that I had seen through her and her plans. This is, of course, nonsense. And if not, I had a much better intuition at the age of five than for most of my life. I have often found myself in situations where all the alarm bells would have sounded for a healthy, uninjured woman. Should have been shrill – loud and penetrating. To run away urgently. Nothing was shrill with me. And running away was something for my mother.

I would like to tell you that my mother has become happy with her new life in the south. That she at least got a kind of feminist victory. That the sea gave her the freedom she probably hoped for when she set out to start over. Still young enough and free again. Without me. With a new man. A new job. A new language.

The truth is: None of us came out of the matter unscathed: Not my mother, and not my father. Not my sister. Not my grandmother, who lived with us in the house and had no words to tell me that mom is not coming back. That she’s not dead, but she doesn’t want us to come visit her either. I knew exactly where she was. I learned to swim in the sea that my mother looks at every morning when she drinks her first coffee of the day. She is often on her feet before the first ray of sunshine. To feed the dogs, the kittens and walk across the street later to greet the day with a jump in the water. Before she throws herself into her uniform to receive a new group of tourists at the airport.

Of course, I assumed it was all my fault.

Just like children do. However, I thought I understood something else: if only I had fit better into my mother’s new life, she would certainly have taken me with her. I was a burden. I was difficult. I was five. I could work on that. I could get better. Adult. Uncomplicated. Independent. Invisible. Hand luggage. Somewhere between not without my daughter and I don’t even want a right of access it gave me a task. A task that made my new living conditions considerably more difficult. And my grandmother, my safe place, was slowly becoming demented, a non-place.

The grief comes with a delay of 33 years.

I’m in a clinic for psychosomatics. Inquiring gray eyes ask how I’m doing. I just arrived, not even half an hour here. And suddenly it breaks out of me. The gray eyes push a box of individually removable handkerchiefs over the table. I take out a defiant handful of cloths and try to stifle the stream of tears. Try not to be complicated. No burden. Adult. I’m staying six weeks. At the end. A new beginning.

My body had wanted to talk me out of making it invisible early on. When I was 16, I got claustrophobia. Panic attacks and at the same time being invisible, uncomplicated, unaffected – unfortunately, this is completely mutually exclusive. I felt betrayed by myself. I had to get even better. I didn’t understand the language of my body. And so we went our separate ways. Me and my head continued. Everything. Nevertheless. I did my high school diploma, later, but still. I had unhealthy relationships, anyway. I was boundless, patient and forweare, nevertheless. I studied, sat in the full lecture hall, anyway. I drove the train, anyway. I smiled, anyway. I struggled, with myself. Dragged my psychosomatics with me wherever I went. That was more than exhausting. I didn’t know anything about trauma consequences and attachment injuries. Nothing about the nervous system and the wisdom of the body. I only knew that there was an undeveloped area in me, not mapped, not signposted – and that I certainly did not have what it took to develop this area.

A woman with a straw sun hat slowly wanders through my garden.

Her hands are full of earth, she has just planted Brussels sprouts. The face looks confusingly similar to the one in the picture at the kitchen cabinet in Greece. It’s my face. I haven’t found the woman in the picture to this day. But I found the truth: My body had long since measured the landscape. The panic attacks, the headaches, the insomnia, the work rage, the perfectionism, the hardness against myself, the uncryed tears, the fear of taking up space – all this in the end led to me finally being able to feel what I did not want to feel. It made my heart break, finally. So that I could finally mourn. Could be angry. The unattainable dream could let go. Gradually, I could stop getting better and better. I could stop being a motherless daughter.

That was almost seven years ago.

Find and be found…

And then, after I was finally able to loosen the grip on my heart, I began to find myself again. At first through things that made me happy as a little girl. Painting, for example. Dance. Be in the forest. And: Stories. Mythology. Writing.

I started writing down my own story. To radically take my own perspective. Taking my own feelings seriously. I realized: the more I write, the more my body can let go. The more I dance, the more emotions can move. The more I paint, the more I see.

And so I began to heal. Not fast. But so slowly that I could really perceive the change and trust it. It became easier to make coherent decisions for me. To surround myself with people who do me good. Among them are wonderful teachers, from whom I learned many scientific explanations and theory, which not only explain my (attachment) trauma, but also open up ways to integration and embodiment. For individuals, small groups and entire societies; at some point. To them I owe inspiration and techniques, but also the encouragement to take up my work today.

But above all, I found one thing: a meaning in my story.

Suffering is pain without meaning.

I don’t know exactly who said that. I think it was C.G. Jung. But whoever it was, there’s a true core in it. I would even add: suffering is pain without witnesses. That’s what makes us lonely. That we believe we have to hide our pain, our fears, our insecurities in order to be loved and belong. In my eyes, this is the greatest human tragedy of all.

That’s why I decided to open my clearing and create a room for seekers. For You. For when you’re ready to make your way back to you.

You’re welcome here.