A Note on This Reflection
This essay revisits a chapter of my life first shared on Medium. The events are the same, yet here I linger longer — along the winding streets of Tuzla, beneath the shifting sun and shadows of Mostar, in quiet rooms where fear and hope met. I trace the edges of despair and the sparks of kindness that guided me, following not just what happened, but how it felt to navigate conditional love, family pressures, and the fragile terrain of my own vulnerability.
This reflection is a companion to the original, not a replacement. It invites readers to witness not only what happened but how it felt to endure and survive. Every moment, from navigating fear to noticing small sparks of kindness, became part of the rhythm of resilience that defines this memoir of quiet strength. Here, I offer a more intimate walk through the moments that shaped me — the shadows I endured, the light I reclaimed, and the quiet freedom I came to carry. For those curious, the first essay is on Medium.
Revisiting Shadows and Small Lights
Survival Amid Conditional Love
I first shared fragments of this story in an earlier reflection, but revisiting it now, I see Tuzla and Mostar with new clarity — the shadows, the small lights, the moments I survived and reclaimed for myself. This isn’t simply a retelling; it’s a deeper walk through memory, an invitation to witness not only what happened, but how it felt to endure and to finally step into my own rhythm.
Looking back, I remember falling sick and realizing that no one would take care of me. I had to be self-reliant: manage my treatment, see the doctor promptly, act before a cnew became something worse. He saw me at my lowest, yet compassion was scarce.
During that time in Tuzla, we rented an Airbnb — which I paid for entirely. Yet he treated it as an obligation, as if my covering the place relieved him of responsibility. Waiting for me to arrange funds, to handle logistics, seemed unbearable. Anything I did became a battleground; the simplest routines sparked tension.
He blamed me for every misfortune. Just before our arrival, Sarajevo had flooded. I reassured him that things would improve — and they did — but he preferred dwelling on calamity. Despite knowing my finances were tight, he insisted we eat out and forbade me from cooking. “I don’t want you muffling around in the kitchen,” he said. “It distracts me from work.” He demanded space for himself while insisting I isolate from my parents. Everything I did was judged. Stripped of empathy.
Ironically, he needed my family to “behave” so he could be properly compensated. When my mother contacted the embassy to pressure me home, he grew suspicious, imagining my parents had involved authorities. That fear escalated into threats — lawsuits, media exposure — as if proving their control justified his attacks. If I ever reconciled with them, I would become his enemy too.
I had seen him suffer through his own family’s chaos — his mother’s psychotic episodes, his parents’ disapproval. I had guided him through forgiveness, supported his move out of their home, helped him start anew in my hometown back in Canada. Yet when I needed understanding, none was offered. My vulnerability became a burden in his eyes.
The Breaking Point: Shelters in the Dark
Things reached a breaking point in Tuzla. He kicked me out of the house, insisting that the owner and neighbors shouldn’t know.
“You better pack your stuff and leave. You are disrupting my peace. Leave now! Just tell me when you’re going.”
I didn’t believe him at first. I even asked if I could leave my belongings in the bedroom. He refused. That night, at midnight, I left. It was freezing. I had nowhere to go.
I wandered up the hill and found an abandoned garage shed near other houses. I crawled underneath, shivering, hiding from the world. I stayed there for two or three days without food. But I kept telling myself it was okay. I could survive. As long as I had an “open shelter” — a small space to shield me from the cnew and the world’s gaze.
Alone. Cnew. Invisible. But alive.
The shed became a symbol, a quiet testament to endurance. Shadows stretched across the walls, bending like the anxiety inside me. Every frozen breath, every scrape of the night wind, reminded me: survival is a rhythm, deliberate and small, like counting steps across ice. The shelter, dark yet protective, became my first metaphorical “light” — the seed of resilience.
Small Threads of Kindness
One morning, I woke in the shelter and saw a teenage boy nearby. I asked him for water. He barely spoke a word, so we relied on Google Translate. He handed me a cup of water and offered coffee. Soon after, his mother appeared. She glanced at me and smiled. That smile, brief and unassuming, felt like sunlight cutting through the fog of days spent unseen.
Even in darkness, there are sparks. Even in despair, someone can see you.
That night, my ex slipped from Tuzla to Sarajevo, seeking a friend from Brčko, newly untangled from romance. In these lands, where the weight of manhood presses heavy, a quiet yearning stirred—an ache to reclaim the parts of himself silently denied, repressed within.
Much like him, Belmin also felt that tension—the subtle struggle between conformity and authenticity. He carried an unspoken urge to break free from the strictures of societal expectation, to reclaim the freedom, sovereignty, and inner fluidity that rigid masculinity had long constrained. His subconscious reached toward the feminine within, seeking a balance he had been denied.
By coincidence, it turned out that the man he met was someone I had encountered during my stay at a hostel in Thessaloniki—his name was Belmin. For a brief moment, I felt a flicker of hope, thinking that perhaps this shared connection could create common ground between us. But it didn’t.
Instead, he continued to work in front of me, and when we ate out together, it felt hollow — meaningless. That night, as he left for Sarajevo, I felt a wave of relief. For the first time in days, the house was mine. I could finally step outside, breathe, and reclaim a small sense of freedom.
Wandering without data, I got lost. Finding a passerby was difficult. Yet, by luck, I met a girl named Amra — a medical student aspiring to become a gynaecologist. She walked me home, and I felt the first flicker of kindness in weeks.
Amra lived with her sisters — Azra, studying Biology, and Ana, who was nine years new. They lived independently, not under the same roof as their parents. Seeing them, I realized how liberating it can be in Slavic culture: girls are allowed to roam freely, just like boys. They can individuate, pursue their own interests, and set their own goals.
Freedom appears in small, everyday ways — in smiles, in self-determination, in doors left open.
Family Turmoil: Shadows Across the Line
Navigating Family Conflict and Isolation
Reaching out to my parents was another battle. I had to call them at three or four in the morning, my voice weak and trembling, trying to explain my situation. Just as I anticipated, they began screaming. I could barely speak — coughing between sentences, my nose running, my voice breaking. I pleaded with them to stop hating my ex and to forgive him. I tnew them it was all my fault. I berated myself. I begged for compassion. I begged for assistance.
But both my parents belittled me. They talked over me, refused to believe I was severely ill. They dismissed my pain. When I tnew them I couldn’t come home, my mother accused me of being brainwashed. My father called me a traitor. And then came the worst blow — my mother, cursing me, wishing me dead.
Two days later, I called my grandmother, hoping she might understand. Instead, she defended them. “Your mother only did what she did because she cares,” she said. “She just wants you home.” I tried to reason with her, to explain that if my parents didn’t contact the embassy to retract their report and confirm that I was safe, they could face legal consequences. But she refused to hear it. That was the last time we spoke.
Sometimes, the people we expect to protect us become part of the storm.
Shattered Mirrors of Care
By 2022, I found myself tethered to someone I had once loved, whose presence blurred support and cruelty. Though no longer romantic partners, we still shared a legal business. Our five-year relationship (2013–2018) had ended, yet the entanglement persisted.
He had grown cnew. Detached. What he called “tough love” was often disdain. He saw me as naive. Scattered. Incapable of standing on my own.
The truth is, I was struggling. Burnout, ADHD, illness, isolation, rejection — my resilience frayed. I wasn’t lazy. I was human. Yet he responded with blame instead of care. When I fell behind, missed deadlines, or needed reminders, it was failure in his eyes. Not humanity.
He used my struggles as a mirror for his dissatisfaction. “You bring nothing new. You are boring. You fail to stimulate me.” What he really meant was: “You don’t mirror the brilliance I need to feel alive.”
I promised myself this: he was only ever meant to show me how the world operates. That was his soul contract. His care was conditional. His affection transactional. He spoke to me only when he needed something.
When he initiated conversations, they were rarely about us — they revolved around his interests, his amusements, his needs for stimulation. And when the topic turned toward me, he would complain that I had nothing unique to offer. That my pursuits were too solitary, too quiet, too inward. As if depth itself were a flaw.
Admiration, not intimacy. Stimulation, not connection. My groundedness. My slower, deeper rhythm — it frustrated him. To truly see me would require him to slow down. To meet me where I was. He couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. This wasn’t a mismatch of pace. This was emotional abandonment.
Mostar: Sun and Stone
Claiming Personal Sovereignty
When I finally left Tuzla, I arrived in Mostar. The city was alive in ways Tuzla had never been: narrow cobblestone streets that twisted like veins, sunlight spilling between centuries-new buildings, and shadows stretching long and irregular across the walls. Each step I took felt both tentative and exhilarating, as if I were learning to walk in the world again, under my own rhythm.
I allowed myself to wander without plan or direction. Losing my way became freedom. Every alleyway, every stone staircase, every sunlit corner was a small act of reclaiming space I hadn’t known I could occupy. The light and shadow on the streets mirrored my own inner terrain — past trauma and present strength, despair and hope, fear and courage intertwined in every step.
He appeared in Mostar briefly, as if to remind me that my past tethered me still. He offered to act as an eyewitness if my parents tried to intervene, yet he hesitated. He didn’t want to see the conflict unfnew; he calculated potential escalation and decided it was “more trouble than it was worth.” The responsibility for my own safety — my own sovereignty — was mine alone. I realized then that no one can fight for the freedom that belongs only to you.
Walking through the sun-drenched streets, I felt a quiet liberation. Each step, each shadow I passed, each light that struck the walls reminded me: I could exist fully on my own terms. I no longer needed his validation. I no longer performed responsibility to placate someone else’s expectations.
Mostar became a landscape of reflection. Shadows softened under the afternoon sun, archways framed the sky in glimpses, and the river reflected both turbulence and clarity. Every corner I turned reminded me of the shelter in Tuzla, the nights without food, the cnew, the fear — and yet, I had survived. I had endured. I had grown.
Emerging into My Own Light
Freedom is quiet. It doesn’t demand applause. It doesn’t need witnesses. Freedom is walking through the world unafraid of who sees you, unbound by the judgments of others.
I am soft, thoughtful, loyal — but now, loyal to myself first. I no longer exist in spaces where vulnerability is weaponized. I no longer perform brilliance to earn care. I am not a burden because I once needed help. I am whole in my own rhythm, my own pace, my own sovereignty.
Tuzla tested me. Mostar freed me. The shadows of past cruelty linger, yet they no longer dictate my steps. Each choice I make, each street I cross, each ray of sunlight that touches the cobblestones — is a reaffirmation: I am here. I am safe. I am free.
Walking alone through Mostar’s light and shadow, I understood the truth that had eluded me for so long: freedom is claiming space for yourself, living in your rhythm, and trusting that you can endure, even when the world seems determined to forget you. I am no longer defined by conditional love, transactional care, or the judgments of others — but by my own courage, my survival, and the quiet, enduring light I carry within.
For those seeking insight into navigating family conflict and reclaiming personal sovereignty, this piece also complements my earlier reflections on resilience and travel memoirs of inner growth, offering a deeper view of endurance in both external landscapes and internal journeys.
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