How ? Where ?

Five years have passed since I have finished my Master’s in Amsterdam and returned to Turkey. I still don’t feel completely at home here. I know I am different than the majority of people who live in Turkey, yet do not know where I would fit in the world. At least I have my family here, I can see my sister grow and enjoy time with my grandparents. I have my own home-studio for my dance practice and for my lessons. I am slowly being established in Istanbul.

Yet, Istanbul is so psycho-socially difficult to live in. Even more difficult for an atypical and sensitive person like me. While I could totally be my “in-control” , smart and poised self in the Netherlands, in Turkey I always feel pushed to the “young, naive girl” role, by people who do not even have the quarter of my knowledge or life experience. An unmarried, bookworm woman who looks, sounds and feels different creates conflict, tension and trouble in Turkey. Coupled with the fact that I am not exactly my fierce teenage self, yet have turned into a vulnerable and anxious adult, does not make things any easier. Day after day, Turkey feels like the wrong place to be for me. How many more years can I spend avoiding my true self or being “sensorily incompatible” with the society I exist in !?

Hiding my true self has been passed down to me as a true wisdom and a fundamental survival skill. My true identity, my true self would invite persecution, or could invite persecution at any time, so I had to learn to hide myself and rely on my acting skills to pass as something and someone else in the face of oppression and harassment. I am an immigrant, a refugee, an “Other” by roots and no matter how high my family has achieved in the social ranks, no matter how successful all of my family members are, I still feel this to the core.

Yet why should I hide? I know I am not entitled to move anywhere else in the world, but Turkey with its aggressive, unthoughtful, disrespectful people and politics feel intolerable on my sensory sensitivity, day after day. I miss the understanding and respect shown to me in the Netherlands, because people respect education and quality. The first time I left Turkey at 24, it was a bittersweet seperation from my homeland which I loved so much. Yet, if I were to leave Turkey again, I would do it with loating, with major disappointment, heartbreak and trauma towards my country, in which I have been living the last 5 years.