Submit your personal my way stories.
With or without your personal details.
Bianca Kastner
I always suffered a lot with my mother. She was always a very negative person who only saw the worst in everything and lived in constant fear of something terrible happening. And she transferred that to me and my sister ...
Bianca Kastner
I always suffered a lot with my mother. She was always a very negative person who only saw the worst in everything and lived in constant fear of something terrible happening. And she transferred that to me and my sister from early childhood. Whatever it was that she said, we got this guilty conscience somehow, just knowing that we had managed to do something wrong again. My sister, who is older than me, seems to have coped better than I did: she moved out aged 17 and only very rarely came back to visit. At some point I had just had enough and started arguing with my mother more and more. Things got pretty heated, I have to say. On one occasion it was so bad that we both just dissolved in tears by the end. That was a step too far for my father and he sent us to a therapist. And that was the first time in my life that I actually saw what kind of a person my mother really was. That she had a pretty bad childhood, with a father who would frighten her all the time to keep her in her place. During our sessions I finally had the chance to tell her how it all had affected me over the years. It was terrible and liberating all at the same time, and obviously we cried a lot every time. But the experience brought us a lot closer together. Today I don’t see her as my mother, but as a friend, and we now spend a lot of time talking about whatever it is that is on our minds. I finally learned to recognise my feelings, understand them and talk about them openly. The “battle” with my mother helped me to grow up and made me stronger.
Robert M.
The diagnosis hit me like a train. Cancer, and lung cancer at that. But I always knew that I would get cancer one day. My mother smoked a lot too and also had cancer. It was grim watching her slowly ...
Robert M.
The diagnosis hit me like a train. Cancer, and lung cancer at that. But I always knew that I would get cancer one day. My mother smoked a lot too and also had cancer. It was grim watching her slowly deteriorate like that. But it still didn’t stop me from smoking. Bloody smoking. Maybe I deserved to get cancer and was just waiting for it to come along and sinks its claws into me. Maybe fate is punishing me for something. What do I know? And now all that’s left is fear. I could scream with the fear inside me. I don’t want to die. There’s so much I still want to do. That can’t be my lot. Every day I try to muster all my courage. I am going to fight, go to chemo and get through it all. The main thing is getting to carry on living. I have to be strong for the first time in my life
Thomas Weber
I’m from a pretty poor family. There were four of us children. And never enough money. My friends had great toys, but I never did. We only ever went on holiday as a family once. A week on a farm. ...
Thomas Weber
I’m from a pretty poor family. There were four of us children. And never enough money. My friends had great toys, but I never did. We only ever went on holiday as a family once. A week on a farm. Great. I pretty much hated it, but it also gave me strength. I always wanted to have a great job and earn lots of money. I wanted to make sure that I would never be poor again, and that my children would be alright. At school I was always really lazy, but then at some point the motivation kicked in. I completed my school leaver’s certificate at night school and went on to do marketing at uni. And from that point on it was all about my career for me. My wife loved it at first but then she started complaining about it all the time. And when the children were born I really went for it. No one did as much overtime as I did. I wanted to get all the way to the top. When I left in the morning the kids were sleeping, and they were asleep again by the time I got home at night. At the weekends I either worked, needed to rest or maybe did a bit of exercise. Playing with my children never entered into it. The girls grew up without me, but I was finally head of department with my own office and company car. But I paid a heavy price. My wife was always fed up with me and the girls simply shut down and there I was, left on the outside. That really upset me, even though I would never have admitted it at the time. In reality I only pursued a career to benefit my family. I just wanted them to have a nice life. But it all went wrong somewhere along the way, and I noticed that at work, too. I simply wasn’t enjoying it any more. And then the company packed me off on some seminar. It was a management training course. The coach was really good, because he was able to identify my problem right away and he explained to me how I had basically built a cage for myself – one that I would never be able to escape unless I made some radical changes in my life. With his help I managed to at least make a start. My wife and my daughters noticed immediately, and said so, too. That really helped me. I think that we are on the right track now.
Elisabeth
I was always a bit of a hedonist at heart. No party without me. No fun-filled night out with the girls without me. What happened yesterday? What will tomorrow bring? Who cares? The only thing that mattered to me was ...
Elisabeth
I was always a bit of a hedonist at heart. No party without me. No fun-filled night out with the girls without me. What happened yesterday? What will tomorrow bring? Who cares? The only thing that mattered to me was having fun, the moment I was in, the here and now. My parents could never understand it. “It’s time for you to grow up, get married, have a family and stopping flitting around all over the place,” they told me all the time. So, I should become just like them. Anything else? We argued about the subject all the time, and it still pains me to this day. And then I got pregnant. I noticed that the little building blocks in my mind were starting to change. Was it my hormones playing up, or was there something deeper going on? I changed completely, I was no longer the free spirit who would rather soar through the air than keep their feet on the ground. And then the worst thing that could happen to me back then happened: I started thinking about things. My boyfriend didn’t like that at all. So he was off as quickly as he had appeared. And there I was with my sweet little Miriam, alone. Her happy smiling face blew me away, every day. The parties are still going on without me, and the girls are still out and about, just without me. But I don’t miss any of it. It seems to me that I spent my whole life only ever looking in one direction – and now I am looking in another, seeing things that I have never seen before, never felt before and never believed before. I now meet up with other people and talk about completely different things. I’m good with that, really.
