A survival story
This is the story of a woman who survived what should have broken her. She tells it in her own words.
I am connected to three family names: The one of my mother, my real father, and my daddy, who is my step father and later became to be my adoptive father.
My mother and my real father weren’t married. They just so happened to be boyfriend / girlfriend for a certain while. During this time, she gave birth to my brother, and roughly one year later, to me. We were both born in Krung Thep.
My mother never felt capable to take care of her children. This is why her son was given in the care of his father’s family in Krung Thepp, and I was given in the care of her mother in Lamphun.
Therefore, I did not grow up with my sibling. We only met at special occasions, such as family celebrations.
My mother stayed in Krung Thep and worked as a restaurant chef at a university canteen to earn a living for herself and her daughter. The paternal side paid for the son’s upbringing, while she sent money to her own mother in Lamphun to support the daughter.
In Lamphun, I didn’t just live with my grandma; an uncle also lived there with his wife and their slightly younger daughter. This uncle and his wife ran a restaurant. He asked me (his niece) to help out in the restaurant and promised to pay me a wage. However, I received this money irregularly at best, or less than promised. So I was basically used as cheap labor.
That was one thing. The other was that the aunt was a nagging shrew who picked on me constantly and maligned me. For instance, she kept telling me that I was a slut, would become a single mother, drop out of high school, and end up in the gutter. (In reality, her own daughter got pregnant as a teenager and failed to finish high school). She didn’t say that stuff to me only, but rather to any family member who happened to be on a visit or who would pick up the telephone.
grandma had a rather special story. I’m no longer sure whether it was she herself or her mother, but one of them must have been at the royal court for at least some time, and was probably even a royal mistress. In any case, because of this background she felt she was somewhat superior and tried to raise me, her granddaughter, to be ‘better’ as well — meaning with special respect, special manners, the way someone from the court should behave. But that courtly background was far away, lay years if not decades in the past, and no longer had any significance, since there was no money or further support coming from the court. So it was nothing more than a dream of the past.
On top of that, grandma — probably in her delusion of wanting to raise her granddaughter into a ‘higher‑born’ daughter — eventually despaired of the child. When I was around fourteen, I ran away from home and stayed with a friend for a few days, until it became impossible and I was brought back home. Sometimes, on the way home from school, a few classmates would walk along with me, then stop in front of my house while I went inside, and the classmates would continue talking and laughing outside until they dispersed. Grandma would then bark at me, calling me a slut because I was ‘running around with men’, saying that such behaviour was improper, that I should walk alone and not talk to any boys.
I was also occasionally caught by grandma lying (as children sometimes do), and stealing — sometimes I took a bit of money from my grandma’s purse because I was kept so short that I could barely afford anything to eat at lunchtime. And grandma then went around telling everyone in the family — to her daughter (Bonus’s mother) and to her other children, my aunts and uncles — that this girl living with her was a liar, a thief, and a slut, and that it would all end badly.
I felt that during my mother’s occasional visits, at the very least my mother should have stood up for me and protected me. But my mother, in turn, hurled exactly the same accusations at me. As she later told me once, when I was an adult, she hadn’t had the courage to stand up to her own mother’s slander, and besides, she believed that adults don’t lie — only children do — and therefore what grandma had said about me was probably true.
I don’t know exactly remember when mom married daddy, my stepfather, who later became my adoptive father. It was probably still during my Lamphun period. In any case, I loved him very much and was so grateful that he adopted me and that I, finally, had my own daddy. He at least gave me some sense of stability.
In any event, at some point the granma in Lamphun had an accident — she fell on the floor on the first floor of her house — in which she was injured, bleeding, and left lying unconscious. I was upstairs in my room at the time, doing homework. Later, the rest of the family accused me of not immediately noticing grandma’s fall and not calling for help right away. Grandma was taken to a hospital, where she fell into a coma and died not long afterwards. And, as mentioned, I was apparently to blame for grandma’s death. It was all my fault. This was around the time I finished high school.
After finishing school and after grandma’s death, I went to live with mom in Krung Thep. At first, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. Then I had the idea of going to an evangelical missionary station that also ran an English school, and to learn proper English there — not the broken, poor English I had learned in public school. Because somehow, even back then, I had already decided that one day I wanted to go abroad, probably to America, because I hoped for a better life there (that last thought wasn’t entirely clear at the time, but to me it seems like nothing more than the logical continuation of my life up to that point).
Thanks to that evangelical English school, I can now talk wonderfully in English today — not just in fragments, as I’ve noticed with most other Thais.
Mom had no objections, knowing that her daughter was in good hands and that she didn’t have to deal with her all day.
Around that time, mom took a step forward in her own career. Another uncle of hers opened a Thai restaurant in Los Angeles. Since he knew that mom was an experienced cook, he asked her to come along and work as a cook in his new restaurant. And she should bring her husband as well — he could make a living there as an all‑round helper.
And so it happened that mom asked me one day whether I wanted to come to America with them.
I was thinking hard about this question. My motivation to learn English was there, I was right in the middle of it, and the idea of escaping my domestic inferno and going to a free country tempted me. But I decided against it and told mom that, no, I wanted to stay in Krung Thep and study there. Mom agreed and said, alright, we can do that, and I will send you money every month so you can live decently here.
No sooner said than done — mom and ‘Daddy’ were suddenly in far‑away America, and the I remained alone in Krung Thep, truly alone. I did not go to live with any family members who lived in the city, but arranged my own accommodation. I rented a house for a while and lived there with my dog, that I got during that time. I then went to university and completed a bachelor’s degree. I didn’t finish particularly well, but at least I got my degree.
After that, I worked in social institutions for a while, such as a women’s shelter. It was a state‑supported institution. I conducted interviews with the women who fled there from their violent husbands, asking them about their background and life experiences.
In that women’s shelter, some of the empoyees were men, as caregivers, for example. I had lively professional conversations with one of these caregivers, and one day I took him home, cooked for him, and we ate dinner together. Alas, he simply did not want to go home. Even though I clearly signaled to him that it was time to leave, he didn’t go. He stayed.
After a while, when I had had enough of the women’s shelter, I returned to university to continue my studies and completed my master’s degree; Master of Arts (Social Development). Maybe I poured my entire life’s trauma into this field of study, hoping to change something — either in my own traumatic fate or in the lives of other people, perhaps to help them achieve a better life.
My main professor offered me the possibility of continuing my studies with a PhD. I thought about it for a while, but eventually decided against it.
I believe it was because shortly after finishing my master’s degree, a man entered my life. A European. A Belgian. I decided that he would be my way out of Thailand. I married him, and at my request he organized a huge traditional Thai wedding ceremony, where I proudly appeared in traditional Thai dress and the whole family was present to celebrate the ‘success’ of the (unloved) daughter — that I was now (finally, probably) in firm hands, taken, and no longer their problem.
My new husband — today I only call him ‘Fucking Braun’ (which, as we will see, is very well‑deserved) — first flew back to Belgium to sort out my entry visa and prepare his house. Although, he didn’t actually help much with my visa. In fact, I had to do everything myself: handle the paperwork, submit the applications at the embassy, and so on. What was a bit strange: he was Belgian, but officially registered in Luxembourg, and therefore I had to obtain a Luxembourgish entry visa. In reality, however, he owned a house in Belgium, not far from the Luxembourg border, but maintained a mailbox in Luxembourg so he could be officially registered there — purely for tax reasons. So I ended up with a Luxembourg residence permit in order to live with my husband, the Belgian, in Belgium.
As it turned out, I was meant to serve him mainly as decoration and as a housekeeper who also shared his bed. He himself was, as far as I understood, a personnel manager in a German automobile company. At home he had a Mercedes and a Porsche. The house we lived in was an old building with no central heating, only a few fireplaces. In winter I froze unless — since I was alone at home most of the time — I kept the fireplaces going with heavy work, feeding them properly with firewood. He expected me to cook for him, yet rarely had a kind word for my cooking. More than once he said that my cooking was shit. He also invited his friends every weekend and expected his Thai wife to serve a royal feast for him and his guests.
In bed, he told me after a short time that sex was boring. I should come up with something, otherwise he would cheat on me. I bought wigs and clothes and dressed up in ever new ways to ‘offer him something’. But he was also repeatedly aggressive, sometimes hit me, and he even tied me to a radiator on occasion and left me hanging there for days, bringing me food from time to time. Because, as he said, I didn’t deserve anything better.
At least I managed, as a personal bright spot, to eventually convince my husband to get a dog again. The basset hound was a great joy to me and gave me a lot. The basset even had puppies, and raising those little bassets was an endless source of happiness for me, something that compensated for much of my suffering. Eventually, of course, they grew old enough to be given away.
At some point, after enough torment, I managed to convince my husband — I blackmailed him into it — to pay for a flight back to Bangkok. Because I knew I had to escape that environment, I absolutely had to get away. After roughly two years of suffering in Belgium, I finally made it back to my old home.
There I was able to move into the empty house that mom owned in the north of Krung Thep and live there. I didn’t have a job at first; finding one wasn’t easy. And when I turned to mom in America to ask for support once again, mom said: Why are you so stupid and let the Belgian go? He offered you a life. And now I have to pay for you again? I won’t send you as much as during your studies — only just enough so you can buy food.
Shortly after my return from Belgium to Bangkok, the great flood hit. Large parts of the city were submerged for weeks, and my mom’s house — a bit east of Don Mueang Airport — was completely flooded on the ground floor, up to just below the ceiling of the upper floor. Living in that house during the flood was out of the question.
In this situation, I contacted a cousin who lived in the southwest of the city and who, ever since the grandmother’s death, had been keeping the key to the house in Lamphun. I told her I would like to have the key so I could go to Lamphun and live in the (empty) house until the flood in Krung Thep was over and I could return. But the cousin came up with some flimsy excuses and refused to give me the key. She didn’t want to give me the chance to return to the house of her childhood in Lamphun. And she didn’t allow me to come stay with her in the southwest of the city either. Bonus was simply told to figure out on her own where I would stay.
As I later heard, another part of the Krung Thep family rented a house in Rayong to live there for a few months until the flooding situation in Bangkok calmed down. I am convinced that these people knew I was in the city, that I was in one of the worst‑flooded areas, that the cousin had certainly told them about me — and yet none of them thought of calling me or inviting me over to Rayong. Not one. They didn’t want me there, or they ignored me, or simply ‘forgot’ about me.
In this situation, when I spent days living on streets or on whatever dry patches I could find, I came up with the idea of joining one of those NGOs — or perhaps it was even a government organization — that were helping flood victims. There, through my self‑sacrificing work, travelling by boat through the disaster zones, distributing food, blankets, and whatever essential supplies were needed, I myself received something to eat and had somewhere to sleep. In that role, I was also able to regain a measure of self‑respect, because I was no longer just a flood victim — I was a helper who could provide vital assistance to other flood victims.
After the flood, one part of the challenge was to restore my mother’s destroyed house to the point where it became livable again. And the other part was to find an income that went beyond the emergency money my mother sent. During this phase, I discovered my talent for reading tarot cards. I advertised my services as a tarot reader — a ‘future teller’ — and gained a meaningful clientele that noticeably increased my income, even if it didn’t make me rich.
In April 2013, I had my Belgian husband at the point where he came to Bangkok once more to formally finalize the divorce. We went to the government office together and made the divorce official.
At the same time, I looked for a ‘decent’ job and eventually found one in a Japanese real‑estate company that operated several rental buildings in Bangkok, presumably renting them out at unaffordable prices for ordinary Thais, likely to expats. My role in this company was that of a ‘Secretary to the M.D.’ — the direct assistant to the Japanese owner of the company. Since mom’s house was quite far from the company’s headquarters, my boss provided me with a company apartment.
So, I finally had a proper and very decent income of my own, one that was no longer just alms. I made 30,000 baht per month, which was significantly more than an average income and roughly in the range of a flight attendant. I didn’t think much of it first, but the company apartment represented a value of another 30,000 baht. In any case, I was doing really well at that point.
At the same time, I created a Badoo account and apparently thought that looking for a new man might be a good idea.
I approached this strategically as well. On Badoo (at least back then — I don’t know how it works today) you entered your place of residence and could define a radius within which you were interested in contacts of a chosen gender. I selected Zurich and initially the radius Switzerland, later all of Europe. Suddenly this Swiss man appeared, supposedly located in Zurich, with an adorable photo, so I eventually liked his profile picture, he liked mine back, messaged me and that is how we got in contact.
After a few months, I told him that I no longer felt comfortable in my job. I was already thinking about going to Singapore to work there. He started asking questions and tried to find out what exactly was behind this wish for Singapore and figured out that behind it was my discomfort with my current job, which had given me so much independence.
Well, I felt threatened by my japanese boss. Sexually threatened. I had the feeling that my boss would love nothing more than to sleep with me. Sometimes we had to inspect company apartments, making sure everything was in order after the previous tenant moved out and preparing the handover for the next tenant. And sometimes I was alone with the boss in one of those apartments, and I was afraid he might suddenly pounce on me and I wouldn’t be able to defend myself. He already had that kind of look sometimes.
When my new Swiss boyfriend heard that, he immediately encouraged me to quit. Because a situation like this was unacceptable. But I said, ‘And then I won’t have any income — how am I supposed to live? You don’t get a good job like this quickly in Bangkok.’
He asked me to calculate my needs, how much money I actually required, compared that with his financial possibilities, and then suggested that he send me money for a few months. During that time, we would obtain a visa for me to visit him in Switzerland, then we could spend some time together there, and when I returned, he would continue supporting me for a few months until I got a new job.
After he transferred money for the first month, I believed that he would keep his promise, and I actually resigned — effective at the end of the week. The boss didn’t want to let me go so quickly and tried to keep me for a few more weeks, but I stayed firm, moved out of the company apartment, and moved back into my mom’s house.
During this phase, I also taught him what a NATO is. When he talked about supporting me until I had my visa and could visit him in Switzerland, and afterwards again until I found a new job, one of my first questions was: ‘Are you a NATO?’ He just shook his head in confusion. Switzerland certainly wasn’t a member of NATO, and what that could possibly have to do with us was completely unclear to him. I then clarified and said, ‘Yes, right, you don’t know this — but NATO is the abbreviation for No Action, Talking Only.’ 😀
“The struggle for the visa is a chapter of its own, indeed. He first went and googled the requirements for a visa for a Thai woman visiting Switzerland. He discovered that there is no actual Swiss visa — instead, a Schengen visa is issued, and Schengen visas are generally limited to three months. He created a Google Sheet with all the necessary steps, documents, and conditions, with a status column (To Do, In Progress, Done) and a responsibility column (him or me). He gave me access to the sheet, sent me the link, and said: here, this is what we’ll work with to get your visitor visa.
He started working through his points — drafting an invitation letter and sending it to me, obtaining a debt‑register extract and sending it to her, and so on. For quite a while, nothing happened on my side, until one day he said: alright, all the ‘me’ items are now done; how are the ‘your’ items coming along? Suddenly, the next day, all or almost all of her items were green. I later told him I had been startled because I hadn’t taken it seriously — but then I realized that he had taken it seriously and had completed everything on his side, so I couldn’t fall behind. On my next free day, I went to all the necessary offices and obtained the listed documents.
Then I went to the Swiss embassy and submitted my application. About a week later, I received a flat rejection. I was deeply disappointed. It was impossible that the Swiss embassy had seriously examined this visa application. At the bottom of the rejection notice was the legal remark that I could appeal the decision either at the embassy or at the migration office in Bern. He took note of that and did exactly that. He filed an appeal in Bern against the decision, as the inviting person of this Thai applicant. He explained again (as already in the invitation letter) in detail all the reasons that spoke in favor of her visit, and also the reasons that spoke in favor of a regulated, timely return.
After that, he received a phone call from the caseworker in Bern, who tore apart every single one of his points and turned them against the applicant (me) — saying, for example, that the claim of a salary of 30,000 baht could not be true, that my employment certificate or the submitted payslip could easily be forged, and that such a salary was what an air hostess would earn. The woman certainly only wanted to enter Switzerland, take advantage of him, then disappear and end up working in some brothel or Thai massage salon. Had I ever even seen the woman?! He had not — but that was precisely the point of the visitor visa, that we wanted to get to know each other. He refused to accept that. Normal people, he said, would first go to Thailand, meet the woman there, and only then apply for a visa.
At some point he had had enough and told him: alright, if the visa is apparently hopeless, then I’ll give up and do exactly that — I will travel to Thailand myself to meet the woman.
He said: okay, if you do that, let me know afterwards whether you still want to invite her to Switzerland, and then we’ll take another look.
He thought to himself: Ha! Now I’ve got him. Then he won’t be able to reject the visa so easily anymore.
That was in summer 2013. In December 2013, he flew to Bangkok and visited his future wife. We spent three wonderful weeks together. While he was still there with me, he received an email from the caseworker in Bern asking how things now stood with his Thai acquaintance. He replied that he was currently spending time with her, that his visit had not yet finished, and that he intended to inform him immediately after his return to Switzerland. The caseworker replied again, saying that was good, and that it already sounded quite clearly positive. But it was important that he receive his final email before the end of the year. He grinned inwardly and thought: Aha, he doesn’t want to mess up his year‑end statistics with unresolved cases — and the visa now seems almost certain.
And indeed, in the second half of January, we received confirmation that my Schengen visa had been granted.
I don’t want to go too much into detail here, except to say that this visit was truly an experience for me. On my first flight to Europe — to Luxembourg, to my Belgian husband — I had flown with Swiss to Zurich‑Kloten and from there continued on to Luxembourg. I had found that very exciting and already back then thought how wonderful it would be to get off right there and stay in Switzerland. That wish was fulfilled for me a few years later…
Also, during my childhood, a ‘Heidi’ series was broadcast on Thai television, and even then I had been dreaming of one day living in the famous country where Heidi came from.
And of course he showed me around, took me to many beautiful places, and introduced me to many of his friends (which was not always a pleasant experience).
At some point during the three months I spent here, he also proposed me — not with a grand gesture, not at Bürkliplatz or anything like that, but simply at home. I was sitting on the sofa, he conjured up the ring out of thin air and presented it to me. I said yes.
After my return, we immediately began preparing the next visa for the marriage. He quickly learned that in this case the federal migration office in Bern was no longer responsible, but rather the cantonal migration office of the Canton of Zurich. And a phone call there initially irritated him greatly: the official he spoke to about the next visa for his fiancée, for the purpose of marriage, said, ‘For something like that we certainly don’t issue a visa.’ What? How? What was that supposed to mean? No, he said, we are no longer talking about a visa here — which by nature is a temporary matter that expires and requires the holder to leave — but in this case we issue an entry permit, more precisely a residence permit. We will issue a residence permit of type L. It is valid for six months. During these six months, you have time to prepare and carry out the marriage. Once the marriage has taken place, we convert the type‑L residence permit into a type‑B permit, which is valid for twelve months and can be renewed annually.
Aha. So visas were off the table — now we were talking about something else entirely.
And that is exactly how it went. I received the L permit, entered Switzerland again in October, I believe, and we went through the marriage preparation process in the city of Zurich, which was essentially about obtaining the necessary documents. And as soon as those were obtained, we were married in a civil ceremony at the Stadthaus on December 6, 2014, on father’s day.