My Story …Adoption … Heart Attack at the age of 37…

First I would like to introduce myself. My name is Tanja Jade I am 40 years old, mother of three children at the age of 17, 19, and 3. I had a heart attack on the 29.12.2013 and ventricular fibrillation I was lucky to have been at the right time at the right place and to have had people around me who could resuscitate. With my project heartbeat I want to enlighten and show people not to be afraid to help. I would like to go in gyms and shops for free and show lay people how important and easy it is to do the right thing with a doll and a defibrillator. Because "Every minute counts!"

My story I was born in April 1976 in not-so-nice conditions. As my birth mother was 6 months pregnant with me my birth father died in a domestic accident.  He wanted to align a TV antenna but rushed from the third floor from the roof on a porch in the backyard and on the road. He was transported by a helicopter and died in the helicopter with 38 years, too soon. Besides me, there were 4 other brothers and sisters. The oldest was 12 years old at the time. The youngest 2 and I wasn't even born. A world collapsed for my mother because she was there and saw everything. The two were inseparable, as I heard from my big sister. My birth mother has not coped with all this and she withdrew increasingly in herself after my birth and it came to a neglect of the apartment, because she was no longer able to manage a household with 5 kids. My big sister and brother who was 10 years old, often were at a place of an uncle and my mother was on the run from the Youth Welfare Office with the middle brother. My 2-year brother and I were 6 months old. We were alone for days until the Youth Welfare Office, who was reinforced by the neighbors, made an end of the whole thing. My siblings were in a home. My big sister and the 10-year brother grew up with his uncle. The two middle brothers were adopted and I came to Dortmund where I was fed with special food for three months, sometimes intravenously because I was malnourished and sick and had to stay in a hospital. I was adopted in December 1976.My adoptive parents, who always were real parents for me, brought me home on the

09.12.1976. I still own the Teddy bear that I got from them. I still have this Teddy today. I called her Teddy Mama because she had a bear child in her arms. My parents couldn’t have children themselves. After 5 miscarriages, my mother’s doctor advised them to not try it again. In September 1975, my father lost his sight. His eyes were very damaged by before received operations, so it was a matter of time until it came to blindness. One morning as my mother had pulled up the blinds and tried to wake him up, he said: “why I should get up already? It's still dark!”. He got new courage to face life because of my adoption. I was his everything. My first years at my new home were relatively harmoniously. My father was very strict, because he grew up with his grandparents and was born in 1937.He was a child of the war, his upbringing was very different. He was of the opinion that beating children hasn’t been bad for him so it couldn’t be bad for me as well and that as long as I'm placing my feet under his desk, I have to deal with what he says. The holidays that we have made together were always nice and lighthearted. I was happy at these times.

It was always strict at home and there was house arrest for being 5 minutes late at home. He had a speaking clock which is why he knew when I was late. My classmates often were sorry for me because I could not go out again. I was told that I cannot come home with a “C” for an exam because beatings and house arrest were what I could expect. My mother was not able to go against his dominant nature. still loved my parents a lot. For me it was carrots and sticks. When he built up in front of me and said to me: “you stop now” I did that out of respect and fear both at a time. I wanted just to be loved and not hear:” if you do not act like I want you to, I will send you to the home again! ". They always were my parents, because I have no memory of the time before that. When I was in puberty, it was very bad. He was trying to keep me close with all his might. With rigor, but this completely was the wrong way. I really was not a bad child. He sent me to the school psychologists, because he said that it was not normal that I started to lean up against him. I was at the school psychologist with the Result, that there was everything completely right with me.

My father was ordered up by the psychologist to make him realize that everything was ok, which worsened the whole thing because he always thought that he was right. My career was also determined by him. I wanted to go to the police. I passed the 2-day aptitude test in theory and sports but only could attend this test because I pretended to have slept at a friend’s house. My father forbids me to go to the police after I had confessed this to him. He wanted me to become an assistant dentist and had to do what he said. I would have enjoyed my high school, but did only my professional upper school readiness, because the pressure was simply too high at home. I was just 48 kilos at a height of 170 cm because of all the stress. I then started an apprenticeship at the dental specialist and dropped out of this after three months because every day I was going there with abdominal pain due to the working climate which was bad. I felt out of place. The friend that I had at that time, was a house painter and his father (my future father-in-law) was a journeyman for years.