Confessions of a Butterfly By Maïra Aureïs (English)

My name is Mayra Oréis. For a large part of my life, I believed I was born to be abandoned. I was born in France in 1987, but my early years were not sheltered by the love that every child deserves. My mother was very young and faced with issues of addiction and instability. As a baby, I suffered such severe neglect that one day, my heart stopped. Doctors brought me back to life, but surviving was just the beginning. After my parents separated, my mother gradually disappeared from my daily life. For a time, my grandmother provided the tenderness I needed. At her place, there were warm meals, vegetables from the garden, and small surprises hidden under our plates. With her, I felt safe. But that security didn't last. I returned to live with my father and his new partner. Behind the walls of our house, I experienced fear, humiliation, absurdity, and unpredictable violence. I learned to enter rooms without making a sound. I tried not to attract attention. I began to behave as if I had to apologize for existing. My little sister and I took refuge in an imaginary kingdom made of Disney stories, dolls, princesses, and happy endings. But even as a child, I could never imagine what came after the end. I believed that happiness was just a brief pause before the return of pain. At school, I was mocked and kept at a distance. When I tried to tell someone what was happening, my trust was betrayed. Instead of feeling protected, I felt punished for having spoken. So, I fell silent. But two things began to keep me alive: writing and music. My father wrote poetry, and I discovered that words could hold emotions too painful to be expressed aloud. When I read one of my poems at school, other children listened. Soon, some asked me to put into writing feelings they couldn’t express themselves. For the first time, my sensitivity was not seen as a weakness. It became a gift. Music offered me another world. I recorded on cassettes the songs playing on the radio, and I sang on my way home from school. Sometimes, I intentionally slowed down, because I felt safer singing in the street than arriving home. The streets became my first stage. A teacher told me I had a beautiful voice. She couldn’t know just how much those words would mean to me. They sparked a small, yet powerful idea within me. Perhaps my voice deserved to be heard. The wounds of childhood followed me into adulthood. Because I had grown up with the deep desire to be chosen, I sought love with an open and unprotected heart. Too often, I confused attention with affection, intensity with intimacy, and promises with safety. I entered into relationships believing that love could save me. Instead, I encountered emotional neglect, control, manipulation, infidelity, humiliation, and violence time and again. I left, returned, forgave, hoped. Every time someone promised to change, I wanted to believe them. In a way, a familiar pain felt less frightening than loneliness. Motherhood gave me another reason to continue. My children became my roots and the deepest source of love in my life. But motherhood also brought fear, separation, and guilt. After seeking help following a severe assault, my children were placed in care. I thought I was asking for their protection so they wouldn’t witness my trauma. Instead, I felt that my vulnerability was being judged. Each visit, limited in time, ended with yet another separation. Each time my children unwrapped their arms around me, I felt as if I was leaving behind a piece of my soul. There were moments I believed I wouldn’t survive. During a violent assault, a man I had loved threw me to the ground and clasped his hands around my throat. I thought I was going to die. My 5-year-old son ran toward us and shouted at his father to let me go. My little boy became my hero. I ran down 14 flights of stairs, half-dressed, terrified, and barely aware of where I was. A stranger saw me and discreetly offered me a pair of pants. This simple act of kindness helped me regain