What on earth is wrong with me? The question ‘Who am I really?’ tormented me day in, day out. It constantly drove me out into nature. Each time, I sat all alone in the field in dead silence. My inner voice screamed at me that I couldn’t stay here. I had to flee, run away to another city, away from the pain and all those thoughts. So I left everything behind – and, without further ado, turned my three-day holiday into a permanent stay in Berlin. With all my traumas and negative feelings locked deep inside me, I was finally able to find peace. For half a year, I felt really good and, full of courage, I decided to return home. 

Surprisingly, the first few weeks went well. I looked for an apprenticeship in a different profession to the one I’d worked in 

before and for football clubs that had places available in their first-team squads. I found both, signed a contract, and various training sessions were already lined up. Suddenly, the whole whirlwind of thoughts started up again and hurt all the more. My body rebelled and the subconscious traumas seemed to be pushing their way further and further to the fore. I was nowhere near ready to come to terms with it, and instead I forced myself to leave everything exactly as it had been. I convinced myself that things would get better from now on, thanks to my training and football – as if!

I was duped by someone who lied to me through his teeth and made a complete fool of me. He exploited me emotionally, 

treated me like dirt, manipulated me, whilst at the same time pretending to love me. I fell for his assurances that he genuinely wanted to apologise to me. Instead, he spat on me, used me, raped me and, whilst doing so, nearly strangled me to death with a belt. I was in such a state of shock that I couldn’t even run away, but just sat it out until he’d calmed down and took me to the station. I couldn’t make any sense of what had happened at all. I’d convinced myself that it was completely normal and okay. Despite the visible physical signs, such as bruises and pain in and around my throat, I drank loads of tea to ease the pain instead of dealing with it. That only worked for a few days, until I completely freaked out and reacted violently to a movement behind me. From then on, it was clear that I had to seek help. Within a week, emergency appointments had been arranged – leading on to ongoing trauma therapy. During this time, my condition deteriorated rapidly. I was constantly having flashbacks, was barely present, and when I was outside I had to keep turning round to make sure no one was walking behind me within reach. As my training had already begun by this point, I didn’t take much in from my lessons because I was constantly in a state of alarm. It was bearable in the office, as no one sat behind me there. Diagnosis: Acute stress reaction, which developed into the early 

stages of PTSD – post-traumatic stress disorder. Thanks to the relatively prompt emergency care and the ongoing trauma 

therapy, I was soon out of the worst of it. After three months of intensive therapy, I was considered cured and the trauma 

overcome. During this time, everything was documented by various doctors, and I was ultimately able to 

report the incident to the police.

Everything carried on as normal, and my football training sessions went ahead as usual. During these, I was triggered on several occasions because of my strong left foot. Why, when I’m actually right-handed, do I play with my left foot? I’d never really noticed that before, or perhaps I’d pushed it to the back of my mind. I could write with both hands and generally tended to use both sides. Because of this, I found myself constantly drawn back outside in search of the answer to ‘Who am I?’ I tried to work out why, for the most part, I tended to use my left hand and my left side in general. Something was trying to reveal itself to me, and yet I still wasn’t ready to let it all in. The trauma therapy continued, too, to look deeper. Deep down, I felt I couldn’t go on like this. I was so deeply trapped in my flight mode that I gave in to it once more and dropped out of my 

therapy and my training. Back to Berlin, back to finding peace. At least, that’s what I thought. But this time, 

everything changed there too.

There was still so much slumbering within me that I neither wanted nor was able to face at that time. When I started at my new job, I very quickly realised that I wouldn’t last long there. To the boss of the company we were working for, we were 

nothing more than a slave workforce, and there was a certain underlying atmosphere there. My colleagues and I raised the issue of his behaviour on several occasions, but ultimately to no avail. We were constantly told that we had to go along with it, rather than keep bringing it up all the time. We felt let down by our own boss. At some point, though, I’d had enough and stood up for all of us by writing an uncomfortable email to the head of the company we were working for. In no time at all, our boss and his superior were standing in front of us. There’s now a meeting, and it’s just me and the three of them. Great, I thought, is this for real? I was seething with rage inside. That became clear during the meeting too, because I was direct and, above all, I didn’t mince my words. I’d already applied to another company because it had got so much on my mind that I was constantly 

suffering from migraines with aura and it just wouldn’t subside; so I was on sick leave until I’d signed my contract 

with the new company and made the switch.

Having started afresh there, I finally found some peace again. With the change, I had a line manager on site who treated me as an equal and a relatively pleasant team. Work became enjoyable again and I felt supported. At the same time, I was volunteering with the ASB – the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund, a German disaster relief and social welfare organisation – and was doing my EGA basic emergency response training for medical disaster relief – on the side. I also frequently volunteered at Hertha BSC football matches and helped out with the ‘Kältebus’ (the Berlin cold weather bus for the homeless).

For the first time, everything remained relatively stable. I lived in a hostel the whole time, where several altercations later took place – including death threats and my room being vandalised. As a result, I was thrown out of the hostel, even though my room had been paid for over a month in advance. So there I was, forced to leave the hostel by the following day with all my 

belongings and no financial reserves. I didn’t get the money I’d paid for the hostel straight away – it would be refunded within
the 14-day period. “What am I going to do now?” It was all too much for me. I rang my boss and explained the whole situation to him. He gave me a few days’ emergency leave, but somehow we’d both misunderstood each other. I was supposed to come back to work that very same day, which I hadn’t realised, as I had to be somewhere else by early the next morning. So I started
packing my things. I was already in bed when my other line manager rang me, asking where I was. We had a chat and, in the end, he came to pick me up with my suitcases. Straight after work, I headed back home. 

I was back for a few days. Then back to Berlin for a week’s work. During that time, I tried to organise a transfer to Mannheim with the same company, where I’d worked before. So I got an interview in Mannheim relatively quickly, even though the entire
route was due to remain closed for up to half a year. In the meantime, I went to Frankfurt. That dragged on for a month before I could go back to work. Nevertheless, I was back in my home town by then. When things finally got underway, I thought once again that this would finally be it and that I could settle in. The tide turned exactly one week later. It was a perfectly 

normal working day, and it happened just before the end of the shift. I twisted my ankle whilst standing up from a height of 

40 cm, without even touching the floor, and fell forwards, but didn’t fall completely because my colleague grabbed me from behind. For a brief moment, I thought I’d be able to walk properly. Instead, from that point on, I could no longer roll my foot properly. The pain went all the way up to my knee, down my entire lower leg and into my foot. As it was a work-related 

accident, I went straight to hospital, hobbling along the way. A&E, X-rays, a physical examination, a plaster cast…
“You’ll certainly be able to go back to work in three days,“ the doctor said. Instead of giving me any aids, I had to hop on one leg or limp around in an extremely cautious manner. Instead of getting better, the pain and swelling increased
rapidly, and I started experiencing muscle twitches…