Aida was still in elementary school the first time she tried to end her life. It was night, and the echoes of her parents’ argument could be heard from room to room. She lay frozen in bed, listening to the noise of an argument, which seemed to never end, until a thought crossed her mind: if they left, the thin thread that kept her connected to the world would snap, and she would simply disintegrate.

Aida fell into a state of almost constant detachment after this, unable to understand where she began and where she ended. It was a strange half-life, as if everything had been put on hold. The days blurred together, and the rooms lost their edges, dissolving into shapeless spaces.

She spoke and moved normally, as children do, but her experiences were not normal. Everything seemed alien to her, as if she were watching herself from a very faraway place. Even when she was conscious and surrounded by people, she felt as though she wasn’t part of the same reality as them.

“I felt like I couldn’t exist anywhere,” she said. “Not in spaces, not in friends’ houses, not even in my own home. I was there, but it was also as if I wasn’t really there. It was a complete disconnect, as if my body was doing things while my mind was somewhere else entirely.”

After a week, her parents reconciled. For them, the fight had been temporary — just another crack in the glass shield of a life filled with bitterness and fragile reconciliations. But for Aida, the experience left a fracture that never closed. She had grown used to the thought that her parents could separate at any moment, and this uncertainty kept her suspended in a constant, unbearable state of anxiety.

“My parents gave me interpretations of everything,” she said. “I existed, I did things, but always from someone else’s perspective. My own perspective was so internal that I couldn’t express it. When the two figures I relied on left, even for a little, I believed I would disappear, not die, not be taken away, just disappear.”

Years later, during psychotherapy, she began to understand that this state had not been only about them.

Sitting across from her therapist, in the quiet of the room, she realized that it hadn’t been her parents’ separation that had nearly brought her to her knees, but an inner suffocation that had taken hold long before her parents started fighting.

Later, she would realize that their conflict had only been a reflection of her inner turmoil, of the struggle to accept herself.

The emptiness that haunted her — the constant feeling of not belonging — had its roots in something deeper: in the absence of self-understanding and the loneliness that accompanies being queer in a world that does not know how to see you for who you are. 

Although psychotherapy helped her articulate her feelings with greater clarity, simply being able to name them was not enough to make them disappear. Dissociation — the initial disconnection Aida had felt from reality — had seeped deeply into her psyche and continued to haunt her, even after she had learned to recognize it. Meanwhile, the feeling of depersonalization — as if she were suspended, somehow outside her own body — became woven into the rhythm of her everyday life, something ordinary and constant.

“Depersonalization became part of who I was. It became part of my identity,” she said.

Facing depression

By the time she was in her twenties, Aida had already attempted suicide four times. Doctors diagnosed her with major depressive disorder — a label that finally explained the emptiness and disconnection that had haunted her since childhood. For more than a decade, she went from psychologist to psychologist, psychiatrist to psychiatrist, trying various treatments and spending years on antidepressants.

“I remember it happening very early. Maybe in second or third grade,” she said. “And now I understand that even then I had depression.”

Her story echoes what studies around the world have shown. Queer people, whether lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or non-binary, experience depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts more often than their heterosexual peers. Psychologists call this minority stress, a constant state of pressure created by stigmatization, prejudice and social exclusion. This stress becomes a daily burden, accumulating over time and slowly eroding mental well-being, leaving deep and lasting scars.

In the United Kingdom, a study of nearly five thousand teenagers in Bristol found that queer young people between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one were four times more likely to feel depressed, self-harm or have suicidal thoughts. The researchers linked this directly to bullying, family rejection and the constant anxiety of doubt — whether it was safe to reveal who you really were. The study also showed that symptoms often begin as early as the age of ten, when children start to realize they are different from their peers. This pattern is repeated everywhere. What harms queer people is not their identity, but the reaction of their environment to them and, above all, the fear of rejection.

Aida’s parents never understood that her despair stemmed from being queer, though they were deeply worried about her deteriorating mental state.

“How could they understand,” Aida said, “when I myself didn’t have the language to explain how I felt?” After her first suicide attempt, her parents took her to the local imam, a common practice for a religious family. Another time, they sent her to a public-sector psychiatrist, but the experience was devastating. He was dismissive, arrogant and made her feel even weaker than she already was. On another visit, a psychiatrist read her verses from the Quran instead of providing psychiatric treatment.

But over time, things began to change. In recent years, Aida found psychologists who listened to her without judgment. She describes her sessions as not only affordable but even “pleasant.” Still, she is not sure whether such a change has reached the small town where she grew up. In Kosovo, activists and queer individuals speak of a slow shift. Collaborations between LGBTQ+ organizations and mental health professionals have created free services and raised awareness, at least within a limited circle of psychologists and psychotherapists.

Aida recounts one such case of awareness-raising, in which the parents of a lesbian friend had sent her to a psychologist for “conversion.” The psychologist, however, criticized the very idea of conversion and opposed the parents. Yet, this sensitive approach to the experiences of queer people cannot be said to be widespread. Stories of psychologists and psychiatrists judging or stigmatizing queer individuals are still common, especially outside the small circle that collaborates with queer rights organizations. In different areas of Prishtina, and even beyond, mental health practice often remains rooted in stereotypes and stigmatization, according to queer activists and individuals.

Education

Aida’s first attempt to end her life happened at school, in the ninth grade, one night after a heated argument between her parents. Teachers rushed her to the emergency room and then to the psychiatric ward of the city hospital, where the psychiatrist treated her coldly, almost with contempt. She was later sent to the school psychologist, who did the opposite of what is expected from a professional.

“She told the others at school what I had confided in her,” Aida said. “Someone even came up to me and asked, ‘How did you want to kill yourself?’”

This betrayal made her even more withdrawn and reserved. She sat alone, present in class, “in body but not in mind.”

“I only went so my parents wouldn’t bother me for being absent,” she said. “I was completely uninterested in my lessons.”

However, later, she gathered the strength to seek help again. To her surprise, the psychologist at her high school welcomed her and did not dismiss or belittle her problems. For the first time, she felt a sense of comfort, as if someone was truly ready to listen to her without judgment. It was not enough to erase the years of mistrust, but it opened the way to a new way of thinking — one in which Aida no longer felt entirely alone.

In the tenth grade, Aida began volunteering at school — work that took her mind off herself, if only temporarily. She started caring about women experiencing violence, people in need, the homeless, and she joined small activist campaigns. These activities gave her a sense of purpose, but they were also a form of escape.

“I would work from morning until night so I wouldn’t have time to take care of myself,” she said.

Deep down, however, a sense of helplessness continued to weigh on her.

In Kosovo’s schools, queer identities are largely absent from discussion. The curriculum avoids them, teachers are often untrained and many fear backlash if they attempt to address the topic. Queer children grow up without representation, without a voice and often without trust in the very adults who are supposed to protect them.

The education system in Kosovo had never given Aida or anyone like her, the language to understand herself. There is no feminist education, no comprehensive sex education that teaches children about empathy, identity or desire. In classrooms where gender was reduced to biology, there was little space for curiosity or care.

Aida’s real education began outside those walls.

Activism, language and belonging

When she moved to Prishtina at the age of eighteen, Aida’s life temporarily took a turn for the better. During her studies, she began to meet other queer people and, for the first time, could share the questions that had haunted her for years, finding a common language of concern. The isolation she had endured since childhood — the sense of alienation and disconnection — began to take shape and be named.

She read, listened and studied, slowly realizing that her pain was not a personal flaw, but a response to being nonbinary in a society that offered no meaning beyond heteronormative categories.

“It was a time when I started to think that maybe not fitting in wasn’t my failure,” she said.

The people she met used different words — some said queer, some gay, lesbian, or transgender; others said nothing at all. But being around them gave her a sense of ease she hadn’t felt in a long time.

The meetings were small but impactful. A borrowed office in Prishtina, a cramped café after hours, a circle of people speaking in hushed and loud voices about things that would never be discussed elsewhere. They talked about shame, survival, and the daily work of being seen and recognized.

“It was the first time I realized there was a spectrum,” she said. “Being nonbinary doesn’t mean one thing. Some people were fluid, others didn’t use pronouns at all. It made me feel less alone.”

Activism gave her a language, and with it came a fragile sense of belonging. She helped organize small workshops, protests and online campaigns.

Through community, she learned that identity is an ongoing practice — sometimes inspiring, sometimes exhausting.

She also realized that the journey beyond mental health challenges is not always linear. She experienced this truth in her own body. Some days, she felt alive, present and rooted in herself. Other days, that same body felt alien, distant and almost unbearable.

Yet the world around her remained unchanged. For every small connection of care she helped create, there were countless other forces treating queerness as a form of social deviance.

Returning to familiar loneliness

As Aida began to learn more about queerness and gender, she thought she was finally ready to speak up. One afternoon, she decided to tell a close friend that she was bisexual, leaving the more complicated details of her nonbinary identity for later.

Her friend’s reaction was immediate and blunt.

“From this moment on, I am homophobic,” her friend replied.

The rejection hit her like a door slamming shut. Soon, even her relatives began to view her with suspicion. To them, her queer friendships and tomboyish clothing — her boyish style — were signs of something she had not yet openly shared.

She isolated herself again. She continued to learn what it meant to be queer and nonbinary, but she did so in secret, carrying a fear that weighed heavily on her shoulders. She wondered if she was wrong about herself, if the insecurities planted by her friends and relatives were right. And behind these doubts lingered an even deeper fear: What would happen if her parents found out? If they didn’t accept her, the only support she had, the fragile spiral she was holding onto, might break.

Still, she continued to see psychologists, though she never spoke of being queer.

“I was suppressing myself so much,” she said. “It was like I had turned off my entire nervous system. I was just existing, just breathing.”

The days became an empty routine. She would go to work, but the hours passed under the shadow of anxiety. In any large social setting, she would panic — her body would tense, her vision would blur, and she could hardly wait to leave. At home, she would sleep for three hours, wake up, watch whatever programs she could find for hours and then sleep again. This cycle lasted about two years. She no longer tried to end her life, but the thought was always there — a silent door, ready to open at any moment.

“All that physical pain that comes from anxiety — your whole body hurts and you don’t understand what’s happening. You’re always on the verge of a panic attack,” she said.

Finally, she decided to see a psychiatrist again, this time telling her everything. The psychiatrist prescribed antidepressants and anti-anxiety therapy, and she began to notice changes immediately.

“For the first time in my life, I had peace in my head,” she said. “No racing thoughts. I was just breathing. And for the first time, I realized that you can exist without feeling bad.”

The anti-anxiety medication quieted the noise enough for the antidepressant therapy to take effect. For the first time, she slowly began to imagine that she could feel comfortable in her own skin, regardless of who she spoke to or what she revealed about herself.

Childhood

Many nonbinary people prefer to be addressed using they/them pronouns. Aida chooses “she.” For her, this is not a denial but an acceptance of the experience of growing up as a girl and being seen that way by the world.

“I didn’t have a problem with my body,” she said. “But I hated the way men looked at me, how they sexualized and objectified me. And then I started disliking my body too.”

At times, she adopted behaviors typically associated with boys, as they opened doors that would otherwise have been closed — tools to feel free and move without fear.

Only later, when she found the language to describe gender and sexuality, did she realize what she had always felt: the discomfort did not come from her body, but from the meanings others constantly attached to it.

Her childhood leaned toward what others called “boyish behavior.” Her father repaired household appliances — cars, vacuum cleaners, dryers — and she loved following him into the shed, sitting among the tools and watching him work. She loved machines and the feel of a hammer in her hand. She wore loose-fitting shirts to avoid men’s gazes. Yet throughout all these experiences, a constant sense of depersonalization lingered — a feeling of observing herself slightly outside her own body.

“It might have been second grade,” she said. “I remember standing in front of the mirror and thinking, ‘This isn’t me. It’s like my parents put something in there in my place, and every time I went into the bathroom, I saw this instead of myself.’”

There were also warm moments of discovery, which she now sees as long-lost fragments of her identity. She remembers the warmth of being with girls, the first experiences of attraction to them, feelings she was too young to name. In first grade, she sat next to a girl she liked. Once, as they crossed the street hand in hand, she remembers being surprised by the feeling of security.

“It was the first time I felt safe without my parents,” she said.

For Aida, the confusion was not just about names or pronouns, but also about movement — how to walk, how to sit, how to occupy space. The rules of gender were everywhere, etched on bodies and gestures, and she never knew exactly where she belonged or which rule suited her. When she behaved gently, they looked at her like a girl; when she behaved harshly, they scolded her, as happens when upbringing is built on unquestioned gender roles: pink or blue, doll or car, girl or boy.

“Living as a nonbinary child often means not being seen, or being forced into roles that never felt like home,” she said.

Depending on the given circumstance and which offers more security, some learn to hide behind behaviors associated with boys or girls. Aida learned to do both. She borrowed from boys when it gave her freedom, stood by girls when it offered safety. In that in-between space, Aida built the earliest version of herself. Looking back, she is convinced that many of the hardships she endured could have been eased if her environment had been different.

“I know my parents are conservative, and I understand where they are coming from,” she said. “But it’s the institutions — the schools, the teachers, the psychologists, the doctors, the whole system — that should have done better. The blame for my mental health lies more with them.”

She says this not simply to accuse, but to provide evidence that there is always room for improvement. A childhood built on acceptance means less loneliness, less unnecessary suffering and a more stable mental health.

“We who are queer have learned from survival, and from the constant search for safety,” she said.

Feature image: Dina Hajrullahu / K2.0

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