Maybe I’ll start by saying something about the photo I chose. That little laughing girl is me — right after I cut my long blonde hair with crimping scissors for kids. Every time I look at that smiling, happy face, I feel a little more hope, because I know she’s still inside me.

I’m about three or four years old, and it’s right around this time that mental health struggles began to enter my life, trying to steal away all my innocence and the joy of being a child.

At first, panic attacks started. It’s heartbreaking that these are my clearest memories from childhood. Sleepless nights for me and my parents. Difficulty breathing, overwhelming fear of dying, insomnia filled with tears. No one knew how to help me. The tension inside me slowly turned into aggression and emotional shut-down. I would explode with rage for no clear reason. I didn’t want closeness. I pulled away from the people I loved. No one could hold me. No one could kiss me.

Doctors said it was just my difficult personality.

As the years passed, my outbursts slowly gave way to depression

I stopped looking for support. I tried to deal with the panic attacks and the thoughts spinning in my head all by myself.

When I was 16, everything started to feel too overwhelming.

In my family, there was no trust in therapy or psychiatry — my father had become addicted to medication prescribed by a doctor. He went through a very difficult withdrawal, and my parents wanted to protect me from meds in every possible way.

And I understand them. They were so young. I came into their lives when they were only 20 years old.

I reached out to a therapist on my own. After just one session, she told me I needed an urgent psychiatric consultation.

I still remember how hard my mother cried when I told her. I ended up seeing the only psychiatrist in my town. Unfortunately, the medication didn’t have the desired effect. It was changed every three or four weeks, without any tapering or breaks in between. I felt really awful. I experienced many side effects. Eventually, the doctor admitted she couldn’t help me.

When I was 18, I was sent to a clinic in another city. There, I met a doctor who cared for me for the next nine years.

She gave me a wonderful medication that finally brought me the relief I had been desperately seeking: benzodiazepines.

It was the same medication my father had gone through hell with. But I was an adult, and I wanted to trust the doctor who assured me it was safe.

At first, I took it sporadically, only when I really needed it. Years passed, and more medications were added to my antidepressants — anxiolytics, antipsychotics, and sleeping pills. Very slowly, the medications started taking everything away from me — my creativity, passions, ambitions. I dropped out of one university after another and took more and more benzodiazepines.

I was so scared of addiction.

The visits to the doctor became something I needed — every time she told me I wasn’t addicted and that I could keep taking the meds.

Over the past few years, alongside depression, I was diagnosed with ADHD, bulimia, and generalized anxiety disorder. And with that came even more medications.

The only thing that kept me going were the animals.

I threw myself into helping those in need. For years, I was a foster home for the most hurt ones. I adopted two very difficult dogs with heavy pasts. I took in more and more wounded, old, sick creatures under my roof. It gave me a sense of purpose — so much that I lost myself completely in it. I didn’t even notice when my home turned into a shelter — two dogs and eighteen cats.

By that time, benzodiazepines had been a part of my daily life for a long time.

At 27, I was on eight different medications. On top of that, two additional sleeping pills and, of course, benzodiazepines.

I don’t even know when I stopped being myself. I turned into an indifferent, resigned person. Numbed by the medications, I couldn’t get up from the couch. I stopped taking care of myself and my home. Suicidal thoughts appeared.

And then, I was left by someone I loved with all my heart.

That was the last straw, the breaking point that had been building up for so many years.

I no longer saw any meaning in life. I took a pack of Xanax, a pack of paroxetine, and a bottle of whiskey.

I lay down next to my dog, hugged her tightly, and then swallowed the pills.

It was the last day of December 2023.

I woke up to see my family standing over me. They were crying. The police were already in the house. I didn’t understand what was happening. A policeman held my hand and told me not to fall asleep.

The ambulance arrived. The only sentence I remember the doctor saying was, “You think I don’t have anything better to do on New Year’s Eve than drive to a girl who swallowed some pills?”

I spent a month in a psychiatric hospital. On the very first day, they abruptly stopped all my medications. I went through intense physical and emotional withdrawal. I never thought a human being could survive that kind of pain.

It felt like my brain was on fire. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t stop shaking. Every second felt like a lifetime. I cried, screamed, begged for it to stop — but it didn’t. I was left alone with years of suppressed trauma, raw fear, and the terrifying realization of how far I had fallen.

My family came to visit me every single day — even though the hospital was over an hour away from home. But I couldn’t even look them in the eyes.

Because they were hurting just as much as I was.

Seeing them suffer, seeing the pain and fear in their faces, was unbearable. I felt like I had failed them. Like I had become the very thing they were always trying to protect me from.

After I was discharged from the hospital, my family took me into their home.

But I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I spent entire nights wide awake in a dark room — exhausted, swollen from crying, unable to find even a moment of peace.

I tore off all my nails. I ripped out clumps of my hair. I laid on the floor, screaming, begging my mother to help me die.

I will never forget the moment she, sobbing, forced a calming pill into my mouth — trying to save me from myself.

And then — because of the sudden withdrawal — the seizures began. My parents called an ambulance. The same paramedics showed up.

The same doctor who came to our house on New Year’s Eve. He looked at me and said I was just high. He took my blood pressure and left me there — seizing, broken, barely breathing.

I don’t remember falling asleep. But I remember waking up — to another wave of convulsions. Stronger this time. Another call to emergency services. This time, they took me into the ambulance.

They pulled at me. Yelled at me.

The doctor called me a junkie.

Said I was terrorizing my own family.

I couldn’t even speak. My body was shaking violently, but my mind was fully awake.

I felt everything. Every scream inside my body.

And the only thing I could do was cry.

At the hospital, they didn’t even examine me. They just showed me to another doctor in the hallway. Together, they decided I should just go back to the psych ward.

Like I was a problem, not a person.

They told my parents to drive me there. Even though my body was still convulsing.

It was a one-hour ride.

My mom sat in the backseat with me, holding my body down as the seizures got worse. My dad was behind the wheel, crying — speeding down the highway.

And then I started screaming from the pain.

When we finally arrived, they rushed me to the emergency room.

The same doctor who admitted me on New Year’s Eve — she saw me. Burst into tears and walked out of the room. My heart rate was over 200. I had no neurological reflexes. A whole team of doctors tried to stabilize me.

And then everything blurred into white. The doctor who cried — she was back.

Whispering: “Not yet. Not now.”

I stood on the edge. They resuscitated me.

And I came back.

Eventually, they managed to give me something to stop the seizures. I spent a week in the ICU. Hooked up to machines. Catheterized. I couldn’t talk. Couldn’t walk. My face twitched uncontrollably.

They transferred me to a neurology unit in a different hospital. Dozens of tests. Physiotherapy.

Trying to walk again. Trying to speak.

These are my arms — bruised and punctured from countless hospital IVs. Every mark tells the story of a fight I never wanted, but had to survive.

That’s when a man I’d met two years earlier at a concert messaged me. He asked if I wanted to go to a festival. We started talking. Just like that.

I had no idea back then that he would be the one to make me smile again — for the first time since everything collapsed. That he would help me stand back up.

That a year and a half later, I’d say yes to him. And we’d be planning a wedding.

Together.

I want to get back on my feet completely, but we're barely making ends meet.

We managed to find homes for the animals in need, but we still have our own eight cats and two dogs who need care — and we spend most of our resources on them.

I went through ketamine therapy, which cost us nearly 8,000 EUR.

We're paying off loans, covering bills, and trying to save money for therapy, psychiatrists, and medication. Often, we simply don't have enough for basic needs.

Two months ago, I lost my job because the company collapsed. My fiancé leaves the house for work at 5 AM and comes back in the evening.

My family helps us a lot, but I can’t ask them for more. They’re having financial problems too — and although I know they would give me everything they have, I just can’t ask them.

They've been through just as much as I have.

Today, I’m not only fighting for myself but also for others. I work as a peer supporter, helping people who are struggling with crises and benzodiazepine addiction. I talk to people from all over the world, and I feel an incredible sense of purpose knowing that my story can be a guide for someone else. Being able to support others gives me strength and shows me that recovery is possible.

I decided to take legal action against the doctor who ignored my condition and treated me in a way that stripped me of any dignity. I’m doing it so that no one else in crisis has to go through something like that.

My fiancé has been through hell with me. The hell of trauma, the hell of PTSD, the hell of benzodiazepine withdrawal. I dream of easing this difficult everyday life — for him and for myself. Because despite all the obstacles and hardships, we’re happy. For the first time in a very long time, I have hope.

But hope alone is not enough. I need your help to keep fighting — for the specialized therapy, the safe medical care, the medicines that can help me heal without destroying me. Every contribution, no matter how small, brings me closer to recovery and a chance at a life free from fear and pain.

If you believe in second chances, in love that endures, and in the power of hope — please support my journey. Together, we can turn this nightmare into a story of survival and healing.

Thank you for being part of my fight.