Three years ago I set on a journey to learn to trust people. I gave up the lease of my half attic where I had felt isolated and alone too long. Then, on the second day of Christmas, I took a plane to Athens, and from there, a month later, I started a train journey through Europe.

I met many kind people along the way and yet, my journey ended much sooner than I had hoped. As much as I had longed to experience that I could trust people and be safe with them, I felt attacked instead all the time. And most of all, I felt attacked by myself. I thought something was wrong with me, but I did not know what.

My journey ended, one and a half week after I had left Greece, in Vienna. Panic and intense fears had worn me out. I had been on the phone with my parents almost every day to not feel completely lost, as if walking through an unknown forest, blindfolded, unable to spot traps, dangerous animals and who to ask for directions. My lack of skill and familiarity made me feel as if I was outlawed. My lack of self-care left me to judge many of my needs, efforts and considerations as proof of my inadequacy.

I had started my journey because I wanted a different life, because I wanted to stop waiting for the right moment and start living the imaginations I had had for a long time. I ended my journey because I was not quite ready to keep it up in a sustainable way. I was ready to break away from the past, yet not quite ready to embrace the future.

And maybe here was my problem, the intention to leave the old behind and live a new life, as if I could make a clean break and start a next phase like salamanders shift skins. I believe that, even if many things were right about this journey, that hope was wrong. The years that have passed since that moment in Vienna, I have spent learning to become whole again, where my past, present and future can all co-exist in my being and the story of my life. I believe love and trust have been my most important practices to achieve that goal.

During my time in Athens, I remember staying in my Airbnb, feeling like I would be followed by people from home, as if they would be able to punish me right back into my appropriate position on the social ladder of society. I remember, on my way to Italy, meeting and being helped by a very kind couple, but it felt too close too soon and I freaked out. Now I wonder why it scared me so much. I wish I would have just been able to thank them kindly for their offer and refuse, suggest an alternative perhaps.

I remember the lovely people I met and felt safe with along my way. The waitress in a favourite cafe in Athens, the Greek man welcoming me to the boat to Italy, the receptionist in the hotel in Ancona, the lady in the bookshop there. They were kind and caring, I had fun with them, but they were only passers-by on my journey. No matter how important and valuable, I had wished, I would have been able to start longer lasting friendships with some of the people I met.

Instead, I was too afraid to stay in hostels, where I would have been able to meet people, where I would have been able to keep going a bit longer, financially. However, I could only keep myself feeling sort of safe, by staying in well-cared for hotels, the quiet rooms. I wish I could have done things differently, I wish I would not have felt the need to hide as much, but I did. And don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that I went anyway, that I saw places. It was beautiful and I loved it.

Back in the Netherlands, my journey for a safe place continued. Over the years, I learned through a relationship, housesits, a job, a week in London, and breaking a shoulder. I discovered I was unable to feel safe within relationships of power, someone having authority over me. In my experience that had been a dangerous place, without right to my own needs and wishes, my freedom to say no and move on, my freedom to say yes and keep myself safe with it.

I tried to tackle some health issues I had had. Breaking my shoulder forced me to give in to the care of the ambulance nurses. I did not feel treated respectfully. I believe the man thought I overreacted and rather than caringly calming me down, he started a conversation about the water reservoir under the rain pipe while telling me to stop asking for attention.

In the ambulance, he gave me ketamine instead to calm down, which was an interesting experience. I enjoyed it and thought: do not try this at home. Arriving at the ER in hospital, I asked him for some extra time to be able to get up from the bed myself. His reply: “That’s okay, but we haven’t got all day.” I’m happy that, after that, I did not have to rely on him any longer. At the same time, looking back, as much as I disliked his care, I was not eventually harmed by it.

And so my journey within healthcare continued. I wanted to consult an internist for my digestive issues, I ended up benefiting from a physiotherapist offering me breathing exercises and helping me to recover the natural curve and flexibility of my spine. I finally had the courage to visit a gynaecologist again and made sure to ask someone that I trusted for a good one: professional and respectful.

My last experience with a gynaecologist (a young woman at that) had been rather difficult for me. Attended by a young female doctor in training, she had told me during the physical examination to just go and have a nice fuck with a man, that then my problems would disappear, because there was nothing wrong. I wish I would have been able back then to tell her that she could go fuck herself.

This time round, I was treated very respectfully. All was well. On the ultrasound I saw some vibrating dots. They were my eggs the doctor told me. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and to carry that all inside me. I felt very beautiful after that visit, precious.

As my trust grew, my shame faded. And so I started yoga last year, having built confidence enough to feel ugly and still be okay in the group. To not be rejected for the state of my body. I joined a friend. It was wonderful, to use my body again. For a bit I struggled with the (male) teacher, feeling so vulnerable in the presence of a man guiding the group through physical and emotional exercises. But my friend was with me and I was able to feel contained and protected within myself.

Over the months and years, I have come to feel more okay with the story of my life, while judging myself less. I see now, how I could not get the love and acceptance that I longed for, not because there was something wrong with me, but because the situation did not allow it, as tragic as that may be.

I am learning to let go of responsibilities that were never mine, and to take on the ones that are. I am gaining the capability to say no, and losing the need to please people to whom I would give undue authority before. I am learning to take care of my needs without the need to justify them. I am learning to create a space for myself to feel what I want and make my own choices, following my own ambitions, a space to make mistakes without punishing myself for them.

And as I learn to protect myself this way, I am learning to open up to people, to not let their judgement get at me, to help them to help me, to grow from their support or simply say, “no, thank you”, and move on. I am learning to share myself with them as they share themselves with me. I am learning to materialize myself in this world, give shape and body to the home that I have inside, but could not protect before.

I am learning to connect to the people around me, to the people I come from and to the people I long for without losing myself. As I am learning to say “no”, “yes” becomes a safe option too. And I suspect this is what trust is made of for me, the freedom to say no, so that I can choose to let go without being hurt.

As I learn to trust, I receive more of what I have longed for and wished for, for a long time. As if it is all so simple, available everywhere. And yet, I hope I will keep appreciating how difficult it is to trust, in order to be mild with myself and others at the moments we are unable to. And also, I want to remember, that everything started from trusting myself, allowing myself to fuck up and take it from there.