I’ve carried this story inside me for a long time.
Not because I wanted to but because I was forced to.
This isn’t just a story about one conflict or a few bad people. It’s about bullying in higher education. It’s about multi-layered discrimination, racism, queerphobia and the deep shame and stigma surrounding mental health struggles. It’s about how easy it is for people to dehumanize someone they’ve decided doesn’t belong. And how hard it is to survive when you’re the one they chose to push out.
I’m not writing this for revenge. I’m not writing to make anyone feel bad, though I understand if they do. I’m writing because silence nearly killed me. I’m writing because even after all I’ve reclaimed inside myself, the world around me hasn’t changed. Not enough. Not yet.
This is not a story of bitterness. This is a story of clarity. This blog is my refusal to disappear. It’s my stake in the ground, my way of saying: What happened to me was wrong. I didn’t deserve it.
Writing is how I take back my voice. Not as someone begging to be believed, but as someone with authority over my own truth.
Because even if they never read this — or read it and feel nothing — it still matters that I write it. Because I matter. And my story is real.
I survived, and if you’re reading this and you’ve been through something similar — so will you. Maybe not easily. Maybe not quickly. Maybe never completely. There are some injuries we carry forever. People don’t just leave from this kind of trauma unmarked. But we can still live. We can still speak. We can still heal.
Healing doesn’t mean forgetting. It doesn’t even always mean forgiving. It means taking your story back, placing it in your own hands, and writing it from your perspective. Not through the lens of unjust society. Not from the lies of exclusion. But from your truth.
That’s why I’m writing this. Because I remember what it felt like to wonder if I was the problem. To wonder if maybe I really was toxic, or unstable, or too much. But I wasn’t. And neither are you.
This blog is for us — the ones who were pushed to the margins, called difficult, treated as expendable. This is a space where our pain is real, our truth is honored, and our dignity is not up for debate.
My story begins in the fall of 2008, when I started studying journalism at Oulu University of Applied Sciences (Oamk). I hadn’t planned to become a journalist but once I began my studies, it felt natural. I had finally found something I was good at. A path. A calling.
But by spring 2011, I was forced to quit. Not because I wasn’t capable. Not because I lacked talent. But because I was pushed out by bullying, by silence, by racism, by exclusion. By a system and a group that decided there was no space for someone like me.
It took me almost 15 years to come back. Almost 15 years of depression, of shame, of trying to survive a life that was derailed not by failure, but by violence no one wanted to name.
And I am proud of myself.
I am proud that I achieved my master’s degree in journalism, and I am proud that despite everything I had to endure — the fear of being among other journalism students again, the constant flashbacks and nightmares — I was not only able to graduate but to do so with excellent grades. And now, with no job on the horizon, I am considering starting my PhD studies in journalism. That is how deeply I care about this field.
So as I close this first chapter, I remind myself and you that this story is not just about loss.
It’s about resilience.
It’s about reclaiming the spaces I was once pushed out of.
It’s about refusing to let others decide my worth or limit my future.