My stay in the safe house during the summer of 2024 truly changed my life. At the beginning of the year, I lost my independence. I was in an environment that did not support me, and now, looking back, I realise that I was searching for a way out. At a panel discussion, I heard an anonymous letter from a woman who had spent some time in a safe house during a difficult period of her life. At that moment, I recognised myself in her words, and that became the trigger that helped me reach out to the safe house.

Today, I am writing this in the hope that one day, someone will read these words and understand that there is a way out... that life is worth living. This text below is was written for myself, the day before the start of 2025.

Today is the last day of this year, and I genuinely feel the need to write about it. For days now, I’ve been preparing to sit down with a coffee and put into words what this year has brought and taken from me. And just like that, I’m faced with a truly deep and complex question. This year has taken everything with it and brought very little. Or perhaps, it has only brought and taught me different things. Both sentences are entirely true, but it all depends on how one chooses to see it.

Was 2024 difficult? Absolutely. Losing my home, worrying about university, worrying about work, losing my mother, ending up in a shelter, enduring the Golgotha that comes with it… Yet here I am, once again sitting on a warm couch, healthy, whole, present, writing just as I did before. Just as before, or maybe not. Because as this year, 2024, comes to an end, I feel happiness. Yes, unlike 365 days ago, I am happy. Oh, so truly happy.

It’s strange that as I write about this year, I cannot describe it as a bad one, even though there was more hardship than joy, more loss than gain. Or maybe there was gain- just one. But that one gain was me. I gained myself... Oh, and how much I love the version of myself that I have gained.

It’s a little sad that this new me entered my life just because no one else wanted him— not partners, not certain social circles, not even my closest family— so he had nowhere else to go but to me. But that is the power of loss: no matter what we lose, even if we don’t gain anything tangible in return, we are left with emptiness. And emptiness, sooner or later, must be filled.

I felt that emptiness. It was so present. So uncomfortable. So desperately wanting to be filled with something, the wrong partner... That’s how the first half of 2024 passed, with me being lost. And as I wandered, at some point, I found my way back to myself.

I know how paralysing it can be, how it destroys you, stops your life, lets time consume you. So, carrying the weight of the world, I sent a message and ended up at a therapist’s office. Just like that, from work, suddenly, because I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed a way out, a way out, any way out, or off the bridge, because I had had enough. I am so grateful that I found my way out— and found life.

On that rainy day, the psychologist told me something that changed my life: "Your mother doesn’t have to love you in the way you want her to." Oh, I’m crying as I write this. She doesn’t have to love me the way I want. She can be abusive. No one may love me in the way I desire. But I can. I can, because I know how. That day, I snapped out of the anesthesia, out of hell, and I said no.

A decisive moment— the moment I said no to the gossip that surrounded me, no to men who didn’t love and respect me, no to a mother who hurt me, no to a society that dictated my worth. I said, ever so politely, No, thank you. I’ll do it my way.

It’s easy to write these words, but learning to say no was the hardest thing. It took time to wake up. It’s like when you wake up at seven in the morning, but then drift back to sleep until ten. Still, once you’ve woken up, the process has begun— it cannot be stopped. The process needed time. But on that day, in June 2024, when I was left in tears, beaten, insulted, unable to finish my training, drowning in debt, and terrified about work— I woke up and said, No, thank you.

That June day, I woke up. I learned to say no. And I was completely awake.

No, no, and no. No, no, and no.

Yes to me. Yes to my life. Yes to my choices. Yes to happiness.

As I sat in a waiting room, waiting for a place in the shelter, I told myself: This is the lowest point you have ever reached. Not because I was going to a shelter, but because I had let myself fall apart this much.

And yet, that day marked the official start of a new project: Me. That day, I started to live—fully, deeply. I started to speak. Mostly saying no— because within every no, there is always a deeper yes. That day, no matter how difficult and complicated, was the day I started living. The day I became me, filling that emptiness with myself. It was the day I began learning how to live because until then, no one had taught me.

Therapy helped me so much. The first therapist saved me, slapped me awake so I could snap out of it. And once I woke up, the second therapist taught me how to live again. I am still learning. But the process has begun and that matters.

While living in the shelter, which was one of the happiest periods of my life, I became deeply aware of myself, of who I am, and who I am yet to become. I finally understood the violence I had endured from my mother. And to be honest, from myself, too. Because I had never properly loved or respected myself.

I was perfect in so many ways. Oh, I knew how to do everything— how to cook, clean, dress well, look good. I didn’t need a shelter for that. But I didn’t know how to live. Most people learn to live first— to have fun, to be happy— and only then build a structured life. But I had to do it the other way around. I had no choice. Or maybe, that was just the only way I knew how.

During my time in the shelter, I learned to live. To love myself. And, finally, to truly love the people around me. To appreciate others, even those different from me. To accept, to understand, to listen. To not be self-centered.

Now, as I write this, it seems like 2024 took so much from me and gave me only one thing— myself. But then again, myself is such a vast, deep concept. And I am enjoying this life where, for the first time, I truly own me.

When I moved back into my own place, I was afraid the emptiness would return. But it didn’t because now, it is filled. Life always has room to expand, but not out of need— out of desire. A subtle shift, yet one that changed everything.

And finally, I will say only this: God, thank You.

Thank You for the strength, for the lessons, for this new life that is so vast and full. You have taught me this past year. You have only taught me the hardest lessons. But I have learned, I have mastered them, and now I am reaping the rewards.

Now, let’s live, let’s create, build, struggle, laugh, cry, fall, and grow together.

This young individual, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, is one of many who have sought a safe space and psychological support from Bosnia and Herzegovina’s first LGBTI shelter, which is now marking its first anniversary. The initiative was made possible through a grant under the action “Towards an equal, inclusive and tolerant Bosnia and Herzegovina” which is part of the European Union and the Council of Europe joint programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkiye”.