July 17, 2025 

Not so long ago, near my parents’ home, I was attacked for being gay. I feared for my life. The assault left me shaken in ways that I hadn’t yet the language for. I know of three others who have been assaulted like me: a gay man and two transgender women, each now navigating a life scarred by individuals who should have just minded their own business. 

Three years later, I’m sitting at a workshop hosted by the Anibar Animation Film Festival, exploring writing as a tool for justice, identity and resistance. As I begin to write, I start to hear his voice inside my head, “We’ve been looking for you!” 

It was day four of the workshop, a Thursday. And for the first time in a while, I felt like I might finally be closing a chapter of my journey. It has not been easy. For most of it, I didn’t even know what I was facing. It wasn’t a physical illness, something I could just “get over.” It was trauma, a word I once associated only with survivors of war. 

But, now, I need to reclaim my voice, to use words, to take up space. To heal. 

It all started at the workshop. I boarded a bus to Peja from Prishtina, arriving an hour and a half later. I remember checking the time; it was 9:35 a.m. I had just a few hours to explore the town before the workshop. A friend and I checked into our hotel. We ate lunch at the Dukagjini Hotel, both frightened for the upcoming program, but loving every minute of it. 

We began the workshop discussing “WTF?!,” Anibar’s theme for its 16th edition. Elsa, a peer, directed our discussion with the phrase, “Me ngrit zërin.” It caught my attention. It spoke to me directly, and it ultimately inspired me to choose a personal story to explore for the writing exercises. 

In English, “Me ngrit zërin” translates to “raise your voice.” And in that moment, I knew what I had truly gone there to do.

Lately, I had found myself reflecting on the steps I had taken to cope with the trauma of my assault, which had replayed countless times in my mind: the instinct to run away to a safer place, the courage to start exploring writing as a tool for healing, the joy of marching in Pride Parades, and the resolve to seek both justice and professional help. 

I get goosebumps. I pause for the day. 

July 18, 2025 

The next day, I continue writing. I have told my story before — to my therapist, to the police — every time, as thoroughly as I could manage. It is not new. I have grown used to recounting it. But I still do not remember certain details or the exact date it happened. I should. I was there. I saw it. I lived it. But the memory refuses to stay whole. Retelling it stirs something: emotions, anger, the sharp sense that I was wronged, and I was. I still feel humiliated and ashamed. The panic attacks have not stopped. 

Two decades before the assault, I had left my parents’ house and the place where I was born, in search of new opportunities: to study, work and start fresh. I never looked back.  

Every time I spoke to my mother, she would encourage me, “Come back. Visit your place of birth.” Telling me that, “After a while, even sea turtles return to their place of birth.” I always told her I was too busy, traveling, working and seeing the world. 

I wanted to go to Paris, California, Venice — places that felt a world apart from where I was from. But, a month before my assault, I got a call from my sister: our mother had Covid and wasn’t doing well. One of her dearest friends had just passed away from it. I dropped everything and rushed back. 

Mom had told Dad that if worst came to worst, she preferred to die at home. “Do not, under any circumstances, send me to the hospital,” she had told him. 

We honored her wishes. My father and I took turns caring for her, doing shifts. It was exhausting, intimate and humbling. But in the end, after two months, she pulled through. 

During the lockdown, the once-bustling streets of my childhood home that I had remembered teeming with life, had become eerily silent. One day, I felt an urge to step outside, to stand on the threshold of our garden, and watch the world pass by.

I wanted to speak to someone from a distance, anyone other than my Dad, the nurse who came twice a day to administer medication, or the doctor we’d seen just twice during my mother’s therapy. 

Staring at the empty streets, I was relieved to see a single car with two people in it approaching — it was red. It pulled up beside me, the passenger rolled down his window, and said, “We’ve been looking for you.”

I froze; the faces looked familiar. The passenger jumped out of the car and grabbed my arm.

“You’re a bitch,” he yelled. 

“Let go of my arm,” I shouted back. 

He spoke to me using the feminine form of Albanian. 

“I’m gonna kidnap you,” he continued, using other explicit words, smiling, as he tried to drag me into the car by force. The driver didn’t help; instead, he stepped out and just watched the scene unfold, laughing as if he were watching a Hollywood film. 

After struggling for a while, the man who held me pulled out his phone and called on another partner-in-crime, who arrived within minutes. In another car, a white one, I think, which pulled up on my other side, leaving me trapped between two vehicles. His friend jumped out and grabbed my other arm. They seemed as confused as I was; each pulling me in opposite directions. After a brutal five or more minutes of resisting, they finally let go of me. 

They wanted to terrorize me. And they did. Because from that moment on, anguish and anxiety started to take over my life.

I moved out as far as I could once mom got back on her feet; I had to; I no longer felt safe in our house. While I hoped the nightmares would stop, they didn’t. A year later, I sought professional help. I turned to therapy. The trauma had kicked in, like a late-arriving storm. 

When I was mentally and physically ready, I filed a police report. I hoped it would ease the pain, but it didn’t. 

They had definitely won, I thought. They had achieved their goal. But something had shifted. At some unidentifiable point, the tables turned. 

August 26, 2025 

The next morning, when it came time to read what I had written for the workshop, I couldn’t do it. The group had supported my topic from the start, urging me to keep at it.

I’m glad I didn’t share what I had written, though, because I wasn’t finished. 

Today, in Prishtina, over a month has passed since the workshop. I sit alone in my apartment, the afternoon light fading. I owe it to myself to finish the piece. Time feels abstract, like it often does when you begin to focus on something unresolved.

A little over a year ago, while visiting my parents’ home, our house, I was walking with a friend down the street, not far from where it all happened. We said our goodbyes, I turned to head home, and there they were. 

The perpetrators, standing in the middle of the road. Facing me. Waiting. 

I kept walking, cautiously, pretending not to notice, not to care. As we neared each other, one of them told me to “Get in the car.” 

I remember saying something like: “You keep going your way, and I’ll go about mine. Don’t bother me.” I kept walking home, and of course, they continued with their slurs. 

My friend had stopped nearby, pretending he was on his phone, talking. Later, he told me he had watched the whole standoff, trying to make sense of it all. This turned out to be crucial — he was a witness.

Much later, another friend called the men bullies when I was describing the ordeal to them. Bullies who thought I wouldn’t have the courage to report them to the police, for fear of outing myself. The intent, then, was crystal clear. LGBTQ+ harassment, after all, often goes unreported.

For a long time, I kept the incident to myself. It was easier to keep the past neatly folded away, tucked out of sight. But the ripple effects of this event brought other consequences. The choices of these men had made my life miserable, leaving lasting mental scars I could no longer ignore. 

After experiencing such a traumatic, violent encounter, I’ve learned that the mind has a way of making things much bigger than they are. Over time, without noticing, the trauma had begun to take control of my everyday rhythms. What started as slurs and physical abuse turned into more than just threats. 

It turned over in my head hundreds of times, and before long, it felt enormous. That first physical altercation soon became an obsession. I wasn’t just overthinking it; it was a kind of mental spiral that fed on itself. The more I dwelt on it, the more painful it became, until my worries evolved into a self-perpetuating torment. The event may have been brief, but the suffering was unending. 

As I put this into words, I find my voice. I read my writing from the workshop aloud to my therapist. This, in itself, is a milestone. Each word spoken aloud, intentional. No longer looping endlessly in my head. My therapist helps with breathing exercises to calm the panic, steadily reminding me that I’m safe. That it’s okay to let my mind descend from its frantic state. 

Attending Pride parades helped, too. In them, I saw myself reflected in others — marching for existence. Marching in resistance. Marching to be seen and heard. 

I’m still drawn to pieces of the past, even if they carry sorrow. 

I look forward to seeing justice served. Perhaps a fair outcome will ease the healing, though the journey from trauma involves far more than a favorable verdict. Healing, I’m learning, demands slow, patient labor — much like tending to a long-neglected garden. The damage isn’t always visible; it lies beneath the surface, at the roots. 

Rushing to recover quickly may offer fleeting relief, but true recovery takes time. It takes time for the wounded roots to mend, for the soil to nurture its fragile strength, and for the sun and rain to do their deliberate work. Progress may come slowly, almost imperceptibly. But with patience, what once seemed desolate can begin to regain its strength — not as it was, but in a new, resilient form. In writing, I had taken the pain and woven it into a narrative that has propelled me forward. In telling my story — recalling it, shaping it, committing it to words — I was able to confront the past. Writing made it bearable. Read aloud, it lost its power to terrify. A small step, but a crucial one: an unnoticeable signal that the healing is underway.

Feature Image: Atdhe Mulla / K2.0

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