Suzan Erem is an organizer and writer. In 2015, she co-founded the Sustainable Iowa Land Trust, which is a nonprofit dedicated to protecting land to grow healthy food. She continues to serve as its executive director. She lives in Cedar County.

The following story has been formatted to be entirely in her own words, and has been edited and condensed for clarity. This story mentions suicide and may be triggering to some.

I was the third illegal abortion that my Catholic mother could not endure. I found that out when I was 25. It was a huge relief. Most folks can’t believe that, they just cringe. But it gave me the answer to the way my family had treated me all my life. It wasn’t because I was fat or smart or short or obedient or honest or the opposite of all those. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I was just resented for being born.

I grew up in northern New Jersey. My mom was an undiagnosed, self-medicated bipolar. My dad was an immigrant doctor from Turkey and worked 14 hours a day to support his family. They had a son and a daughter one year apart so they had their perfect family. They decided to have no more children, but she was incredibly fertile. She had two abortions after my siblings were born. And then I came along six years later.

My siblings did not like me. They did not want me there. For most of my childhood, I was tormented, humiliated and demeaned. I’d be left alone in the house with them after school and they would accuse me of lying and make me hold Tabasco sauce in my mouth for five minutes. I remember one time, I was singing to myself. My sister came up and said, "Shut up, you sound like crap. Don’t make anybody listen to that."

After a four-year custody battle – which my siblings told me was my fault – I ended up getting shipped up to my father’s sister’s house in upstate New York to be raised. She did a good job of protecting me from my siblings, but by then I had learned to not speak up and to be as invisible as possible.

When you’re constantly confronted with a sense that you don’t belong, that you don’t deserve a space on this earth, you want to be as quiet as a mouse. Because otherwise people will hurt or humiliate you. I tried really hard not to speak up. I was a loner in high school. I was on some sports teams because I was trying to avoid the house, but I didn’t have many friends. There were some suicide attempts in there. When you feel like you’re not supposed to be there, it doesn’t feel like a big deal to kill yourself. I lost my voice before I ever had it. I had it humiliated out of me or something.

I came to Iowa to escape a toxic situation. I fell in love with Iowa.