(3/3) “I never tell the story to anyone. I find it shameful....

(3/3)  “I never tell the story to anyone.  I find it shameful.  I find it pitiful.  When I finally escaped, the man said to me: ‘I hope you’ll forgive me for what I’ve done to your life.’  But honestly his soul is not my problem.  I’ve done everything I can to forget those years.  I think you have only one duty in life.  You stand up and you go.  No matter what happens: I will buy a dress, I will color my hair, I’ll put on my lipstick, and I’ll go out and meet people.  After I got my papers, the first thing I did was enroll in French school.  I began to make friends.  I learned that people liked me.  I could make them laugh.  Can you imagine?  For ten years I hadn’t made anyone laugh.  I began to see that I wasn’t handicapped.  I wasn’t deformed.  I wasn’t broken.  I became a salesperson at a make-up store.  I was so good at it.  Number one in Europe for my company.  And I met a man who cares about me.  His name is Mark.  He’s super beautiful.  He’s bald.  I love bald.  I typed ‘bald’ into the dating site.  And he sincerely cares about me.  He’s given me home and family.  Twenty times a day he surprises me with something kind.  It took me three years to tell him about my past.  I didn’t want him to know that I’d lived through dramatic things.  I didn’t want to be a survivor.  I wanted to be delicate and feminine.  It’s my pleasure to be weak.  It’s my joy.  I cried for three days after I told him.  But he didn’t care at all.  My past didn’t bother him.  It only bothered him that I was crying.”
(Paris, France)