This is a story of an odyssey across Europe and the Middle East over a long period of time to escape a sepulcher, not of concrete or marble, but created by the mind. An odyssey that will not end on arrival to one’s native country, but will continue despite arriving.
This is a sepulcher that lies in one’s mind as a paralyzing fear of psychological contamination. Places that are once contaminated, cannot be revisited, ever, without terror, both physical and psychological.
There is no escape.
This story speaks of a childhood lived with truly incompetent and even toxic adults. Adults who exhibited inconsistency, coldness, uncertainty, dishonesty, as well as seething, overwrought negativity towards one another as well as the children.
The lack of loving attachment within a family casts a penumbra of darkness and rejection over its members including the children. The seeds of these early experiences were planted deeply where they grew with malignance. The result of this combination of nurture and nature was Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
Something was very wrong with these parental attachments. There was an entanglement from which no escape was or is possible. This is a story of survival and what is left of one after a lifelong struggle with a debilitating mental health disability.
This story also raises hope that one can find ways to manage one's life, even if there is no acceptable pathway available to curing the disability.