Eyes to the Soul | Ilan Wittenberg Photographer

Jenelle

“To My Husband,

There was a time when I could have opened this document and filled the pages with anger, sadness, and disappointment 1000 times over. There are so many examples of how your drinking has impacted our lives. But surprisingly, to me, I am struggling to find the emotion that should be behind them. I feel empty and detached, having untangled myself from a relationship that was hijacked by alcohol and robbed of all of those foundations that have to be present for two people to thrive: trust, honesty, presence. You never noticed the untangling was happening because you were never sober.

The thing we always had was love. I never doubted how much you loved me. In turn, I think it took you some time to truly believe that I loved you, that you were worth loving, that I was your best friend, your number one supporter, and that you were loved and adored and respected by our kids. But it wasn’t enough.

Why wasn’t it enough?

It should have been enough!

Every time you poured a drink, I felt that you were choosing it over me, over us. I am not an addict and I don’t pretend to understand the overwhelming desire you would wake up with every morning to find a drink. But it’s hard to separate my head and heart, and every day that you drank, I felt betrayed that you didn’t fight hard, or at all, that you didn’t fight for us or, even worse, you didn’t fight for you!

I have literally lost count of the number of times I tried to get you help, to go to meetings, to get a sponsor, to talk to a counselor, to go to CADDS, to go to the Dr. But you always managed to convince yourself that you had it under control, that you were different from those others at AA, that you didn’t need help, that you didn’t have a problem, that you were “an island”. For such a smart man, I often wondered how you could be so bloody stupid.

The thing about living with an alcoholic is that when a disaster occurs, you think ‘well perhaps that’s it, perhaps that’s the worst that can happen’. Except it’s not; there is always more to come.

I have used weeks of my own sick leave to stay at home and detox you when all the services turned us away. I’ve fed you soft foods like a baby, showered you, dressed you, put you to bed, held you for hours on end, tended to your wounds when you have fallen and ripped open your head or fallen asleep against the heater. I have refused invitations from our friends for years to the point that we stopped being invited anywhere. I have made up more excuses than I can remember to protect you. I always wondered when people asked how I was, were they really asking about me, or asking about you? I have stopped you killing yourself from carbon monoxide poisoning in our garage whilst our kids were home. I have kept all the car keys hidden for months at a time. I have found you in my emergency room, full of the people I have worked 30 years with, fully clothed and standing in a pool of urine, listened to the story of how you fell through a ranch slider window slicing open your face. I’ve had to ring your boss (a man who has bent over backwards to help and support you) to say his work vehicle has been impounded as you have been caught DIC. I have been woken after nightshift from the sound of you crashing into and wrecking our letterbox, again drunk and again in a brand new company car. I have had to receive the phone call of how you have been drinking at work and have now lost your job. I have had to ask my family to help pay our mortgage. I have had to tell our kids that we have to sell our house, the house they grew up in because I cannot pay all the bills alone. I have had to pack up our house and move into my mother’s house, who is 93 with dementia, with our 19-year-old daughter and two cats and two dogs. I have spent hours searching for your latest hiding place for gin bottles. I have poured thousands of dollars of alcohol down the drain. I have worked hundreds of hours of overtime to support your habit indirectly. I have listened to the vile names you have called me, the accusations that I was having affairs. I have taken calls from our kids saying they were frightened of your behavior. I have been hospitalized with stress-induced gastritis with pain so bad I needed a morphine infusion. I have had to message your mother saying how I feared for your life. I have come home after days sitting with my dying father to find you drunk and incoherent, not able to offer me any level of support. I have had to have you committed to the mental health unit. I have used the people around me as a constant support, my family, our friends, my work colleagues – sharing the latest saga but usually finishing the conversation with my hope that perhaps this time will be different. But it never was. And it never will be for me and you because I choose not to have alcohol impact my life and the life of my children anymore! I am not going to spend any more of my life waiting for the next disaster.

You have to know how much it kills me to say that. I married you, for better or worse, in sickness and in health. I married you, you had me, I was all in, all yours. Because we had something that not everyone finds. We had that connection, that fabulous ability to look at each other and know each other’s thoughts, we had the laughter, we had the tenderness, but I could see your high level of daily distress, that there was something bad and powerful and underlying that was fundamental in how you lived your life, but you could never share that with me so I could never help and for that I am sorry. And now each of us is alone, and it’s such a fucking waste, and I hate that this is where we have ended up.”

(c) Ilan Wittenberg

Frankie

I am 22 years old and my name is Alyssa, but I go by Frankie🥰. I haven’t been able to get over my personal story.

No one really talks about the trauma that comes when a close friend or family member takes their life. June 15th, 2019 is the day my world fell apart. Everything was dark and my life was never going to be the same. This is when my best friend of 7 years wrote her last words and took her own life. At just 18 years she was gone.
My life has spiralled and I fell apart. The constant sadness I felt every day when thinking what would have happened if I would have done this or that! I could not understand.
I was so confused and mad at the world. I ended up isolating myself and I stopped eating. I started drinking alcohol and doing drugs. I wanted to feel anything that wasn’t normal. I wanted to pass out. I didn’t want to think, feel or remember. I wanted everything to stop. As the weeks went by, I dropped weight and started having an identity crisis. I became depressed and bedridden. I ended up with social anxiety and could no longer hold a proper conversation without having a few drinks. I became what doctors call Alcohol Dependent.
To this day when I think about my friend I still cry. I still visit her often in the cemetery. I feel that helps me in a way, and that I’m closer to her, even if it’s just her body down there. I feel like my friend’s story became my story in a way: when she took her life she took mine with her. A year or so later I tried to take my own life as I kept blaming myself.
Four years have passed and I have done some self-work counselling through I Am Hope as well as started boxing. I also dance full time now, which is something…
I still suffer from extreme anxiety, and have a drinking problem, but I am trying to get better, day by day, for her. I live moment to moment, one day at a time, recreating and finding myself, learning to live with all of this and love myself again.

(c) Ilan Wittenberg

Svenja

My name is Svenja and I’m a 29 year old artist.

I faced many difficult challenges throughout my life. From an early age of 13 I struggled with eating disorders. There was a lot of shame about being me and my body. I didn’t feel like I had a place in this world I wanted to disappear. There was something wrong with me. I had a difficult childhood, not because my parents didn’t love me, they certainly did and did everything they could to support me. But generational trauma lead to missing out how to take on life in a healthy way. After years of work on my eating habits and weight the root cause of my troubles still remained and I started drinking heavily to numb myself. I couldn’t bear to be me. I made many mistakes I’m not proud of and been through abusive relationships which left me feeling lonely and even more ashamed.

About four years ago I made a cut and left Germany to start over in New Zealand. It was a difficult time. I was alone,new language, foreign country, I went from job to job and tried to build something from nothing. I had hope but unfortunately I couldn’t outrun my past. I was still drinking a lot and some days I couldn’t manage to do anything before my morning drink to soothe the withdrawals. I tried to stop so many times I lost count. Something needed to change at my core. How I saw myself and the world around me. I was very fortunate to meet some amazing people along the way and it took me another few years and the support of my partner, family, friends and colleagues to finally make a change, to do everything I can to be a better person. Striving for the best version of me. I had my last drink over a year ago now and I’m happier than ever. I forgot there was a me that loved life and can see the beauty of it. As if there was a dark cloud hovering over my head and the more I open my heart the more it dissipates.

I’m honored to have this opportunity to share my story and it’s just the beginning of it. I still have a long way to go, every day comes with new challenges and it’s certainly not easy but my mindset and my intentions have changed over the past years. I’m claiming my life back. I learn to be responsible and to take care of myself and I’m so grateful for the people, the love and the opportunities that have come my way. Instead of being ashamed of my past I try to see it as part of me now that needs healing. I can’t change what happened but I can change who I am today and do better as well as supporting others moving forward.

(c) Ilan Wittenberg

Gabriela Alves

How much power or control do you have over your life? It’s crazy that it doesn’t matter how organized you are, no matter how many plans you make, how ready you feel, things still can go completely out of our hands. My name is Gabriela and my story is about “Resilience” I’m from Brazil and I came to New Zealand in 2017 to study English. I fell in love with the country, for the challenges and for the life over here. I came here without knowing anyone, my first job was as a waitress in a catering company. I was living in a flat sharing the bed with my friend to save money. After 3 years, I was still in New Zealand and so proud of everything that I have achieved. I graduated from a Business course. I was living in my own room, I was working with something that I loved and I had found the love of my life, my partner.

Everything was going really well and I decided to go to Brazil to visit my family for the first time after 3 years in New Zealand. Oliver went with me, as I wanted him to meet my family. I was planning the trip for ages, I was really emotional about going to Brazil, really anxious. The year was 2020, everything was going as planned, I was thrilled to be around my family and friends, and one of the best moments of my life happened, when my partner proposed to me. We were living the dream, so happy, so in love! My partner came back to New Zealand before me, I was going to stay 2 weeks more in Brazil to enjoy my family, and it is from that where my plans got out of my control, the rumours of a Pandemic it wasn’t a rumour anymore, suddenly it became something really serious and the whole world panic. A week before my departure from Brazil, I started getting worried about not being able to get on the Airplane to New Zealand, I changed my flight, but it was too late, New Zealand closed the borders for the whole world.

I remember till now when I received the news, I didn’t panic, I didn’t have any reaction, I just accepted. In my mind the borders were going to be closed only for a few weeks or months, so I was ok about it, especially because I could spend some more time with my family. During the lockdown in Brazil I have spent some really good time with my Mom and sister, but it was hard to have to deal with the distance with my partner because we had no idea when we were able to see each other again. After a few months in the same situation I started panic, I lost my job in New Zealand, I had to put my room, I was far away from the love of my life and things started getting really bad in Brazil.

My life went from a free soul to a bird in a cage, I was feeling that I was losing my life, everything that I had achieved in New Zealand was gone. I have never felt so weak in my whole life, I was stuck in the past or in the future but never in my present. Me and my partner were supporting each other but after so long we were both devastated. We used to video call every single day, but after a while it was getting harder and harder. Life came back to normal in New Zealand. I was happy for my partner, so then we could at least have a life but on the other hand our realities became completely the opposite, I could feel that I was losing him in tiny bits. I had to learn how to be happy again, how to enjoy the little moments inside that apartment, my mom and my sister helped me a lot, we created a beautiful connection. After 1 year apart from each other, me and Oliver started to get so depressed, so hopeless, I will never forget the call we had where we couldn’t stop crying because we didn’t know what to do anymore. We couldn’t believe what was happening with us, it was so sad and we had no idea when the borders were going to be open, it could take years.

Because of this sadness we decided to break-up for a while, such a hard decision but necessary for us to be able to find ourselves again, fully our own love to be able to give love again. After a while, I decided to apply to get into the Country one last time, I was so not motivated
after so many NO. This last time I decided to put all my emotions in the letter for immigration, and somehow they listened to me and accepted me back, and after nearly 2 years apart from my love, I was finally able to come back. I felt like a dream coming true, I will never forget the magic moment of our first hug. It felt as if I had never left, our connection shined up, we couldn’t believe it, it was one of the best emotions I have ever felt, at that moment, I knew we were made for each other. Today, after that thunderstorm we felt that it was meant to be. It makes us stronger as individuals and stronger as a couple, we have never been so happy and sure about our love.

This whole history taught me so much, it taught me that we need to accept that things are out of our hands, we can’t control everything in our life. It gave me such a strong mindset, hard times look like they are going to be forever, but they’re not, we just need to keep going, living, accepting and embracing all our feelings, understanding our emotions, asking for help and to be able to withstand adversity and bounce back from difficult life events. Being resilient does not mean a person doesn’t experience stress, emotional upheaval, and suffering. Resilience involves the ability to work through emotional pain and suffering. We cannot control everything around us, but I believe we can choose how we will deal with everything around us. Life’s not about waiting for the storm to pass it’s about learning how to dance in the rain.

Protected: Angela Retouched

(c) Ilan Wittenberg

Deemi

Queen Deemi

(c) Ilan Wittenberg

Beautiful Brooke

(c) Ilan Wittenberg

Beautiful Rose

(c) Ilan Wittenberg

Eleanor On the Rocks

(c) Ilan Wittenberg

Melissa on the rocks

(c) Ilan Wittenberg

Tara Kartya Amoretti

Tara Kartya Amoretti

My name is Tara Kartya Amoretti, I was born in 1968, I’m 52 years old. I’ve lived in Auckland most of my life. I came over from the UK on a ship, with my mom and my sister, fatherless. So I was brought up around a family of women. My journey has been male to female, but as I was growing up, I didn’t know my true identity. I did not know why I liked doing the things that I would do. Even when I was young, I liked to dress up in my mom’s clothes and her lingerie. When my mum and my sister went out, my sister would always get in trouble for going into her drawers. She didn’t know that I used to do these things as I’d always hide out. I did not want anyone to ask why I am doing this. And I tried to hide these things and I did so for a number of years.

As I got older, the internet came along, and I started searching for answers and they started to come to me. I still couldn’t understand why I was having the feelings that I would have. At school I did not like doing full contact sports. I did not want to do a lot of things that other boys my age would do. And I’ve struggled with it, but I just thought, oh, okay, move on to the next thing. This went on for a number of years. I would dress up as a female under my clothes and nobody knew. I was still frazzled with finding myself: why I was doing this.

I don’t know whether or not this was because I was sexually assaulted when I was younger, when a guy took me and sexually assaulted me. What impact it had on me I’m not sure. I guess I never really felt the same after that. But then I carried on without telling anybody about it.

And here I am today. I’ve struggled with relationships, with my fetish that I had and not knowing what is going on. I just struggled through but I carried on. I was in and out of relationships, not that many, but I had a few. And when I came into one relationship and found myself doing the same thing, I wasn’t too sure what to do. So, I just, I carried on investigating and looking at things, and reading about transgender and the different walks of life and learning about hormones and whatnot. I’ve thought about it without taking any action.

I hid behind alcohol and drugs. I tried to hide from it. I wanted to bury it, but I couldn’t. It just kept coming to the surface. I wanted to wear women’s underwear and undergarments and lingerie. It was affecting my relationships. My partner did not think it was very nice and wasn’t positive, so I got rid of everything woman that I had, and tried to put it behind me. It still kept coming up. It went on for quite a few years, many years, but it still kept growing its head. It wouldn’t go away. I would envy other women, their faces, how they looked and how pretty they were.

I tried to come to terms with things and I couldn’t. I’ve done a couple of courses over two years. And by the end of those two years, I was just about 49 and decided I am going to see the doctor, and tell him how I felt. It wasn’t very successful to start up with but I managed to get it out of him on the second visit, what I wanted to say to him, because he couldn’t understand it the first time. I told him that if we started, I wanted to be a female. So I went through the proper steps. I was on antidepressants at the time so I’d see a psychiatrist, and everything else that you have to do when you decide you’re gonna go on hormones and to be a woman, including psychiatric evaluation on the things you do when you embark on this journey. Eventually I was able to start my hormone treatment, and when I did, I totally embraced who I was and wanted to be. I already thought about my new name that I wanted and has been on my mind for a long time. So, I went through to the end, I went over to Thailand. I had a few trips there. I had my voice done, that was the first step. As soon as I started my hormones, I threw away my whole wardrobe, everything that was male was gone. I started a new wardrobe. Now I’ve got so many clothes, it’s not funny. Beautiful ones.

As time went by, I had to be on hormones for like a year before I could have this surgery to look like a woman. I couldn’t wait. Then my time came and I went to Thailand to have my breasts implants and the sex change operation. It didn’t go right the first time. There were complications and I had to come home and let it heal. I had to go back again and have the operation again. I still have a couple of complications but it’s quite minor, I think. I’m getting there. It’s all there, looking beautiful. I’ve had work done on my face. I’ve had upper eyes, lower eyes, face lift and neck lift. I try to keep myself super fit for the operations. I’ve done a lot of pole dancing, ballet and stretching. To this day, I’m still on my journey to be the person I’ve always wanted to become. Here I am.