Pia Herc [1976] HR
Biography
I am born because my mother is against abortion as a deadly sin
From the age of four my mother hits me violently whenever I ask about my father, who I know nothing about
From the age of nine I play basketball and my mother rewards me
At the age of eleven I defend myself from my mother’s sadistic abuse and humiliation of me
At the age of fourteen I lose any prospect of a career in sport
At the age of fourteen I leave school and am beaten by my sisters and my mother
At the age of fourteen I try to kill myself so that my mother will be rid of me
At the age of sixteen I drop out of my course and help Bosnian refugees in a UN refugee camp
At the age of sixteen I learn from UN peacekeepers to smoke dope and to use XTC and LSD
When I am sixteen my mother forbids me to marry a Muslim Arab
At the age of seventeen I have a job and I can afford to take speed, LSD, XTC, hash, marijuana and magic mushrooms at techno parties
At the age of nineteen I fall in love with the party dealer and we get into a symbiotic relationship
At the age of nineteen I am adopted by my mother-in-law as a much-loved daughter
At the age of nineteen I use heroin as a downer after consuming extreme quantities of cocaine, XTC and speed
At the age of twenty-two I am happy within our junkie relationship
At the age of twenty-two I am clean and happy with the birth of the first of our four children
From the age of twenty-three my husband takes care of the drugs and money and I make sure we have a nice home
When I am twenty-three my mother reports me to the police to get my children taken away from me
When I am twenty-three the police threatens to take my children away if I don’t confess to an offence
At the age of twenty-six I am relieved after my mother’s death and miss the continuation of our conflict
At the age of twenty-nine I am put in a coma while on remand so that I will survive withdrawal
At the age of thirty I take methadone while my husband is in detention and suffer from the unbearable separation of living apart from him
At the age of thirty-two I am sentenced to time in prison, I am clean, and I despair at being separated from my husband and my children
At the age of thirty-two I feel guilty about what my children are suffering
From a dialogue with the participant and with the aid of the matrix a biography of basic facts is developed, which portrays the person’s life as a sequence of events and decisions, of acts and reactions.
The texts of the biographies are spoken by the participants themselves, and recorded for the audio modules of the Baby Dolls and the project’s audio archive.