Breaking Free

Abstract

feel loved and taken care of after the death of my mother, for loving us unconditionally, and for believing us when we were most in need. I would like to thank my brother Emre Can Durmuş, my love for whom expands and flows out of me, for being my old friend and closest ally, for having gone through the same things together, for knowing and loving me, and for occasionally calling me "Abla". I am so proud of you. I would like to thank my grandparents Ali İhsan and Nurten Durmuş for creating a cosy, warm home in which we always felt welcome and at home. I would also like to thank them for their years of efforts on raising us (even when we were insolent little brats), for teaching us good principles, the love for justice, country, family, crosswords and backgammon. I would like to thank my grandparents Amine, Hikmet and Nilgün for their love, incredibly generous support, and for their acceptance. I would like to thank my aunts and uncles, especially my aunt Selma for her ever-reflexivity and her overflowing love for us and my aunt Nurgül for infecting me with a love for cats, knowledge, and creativity, and for being my childhood idol. I would like to thank Nurşen Abla for cleaning me and my brother's apartment when otherwise we would have been swimming in mess. I would like to thank all of my family for being there for us, yesterday, today, and as I trust, in the future, and for accepting my Dutch partner as one of their own. I would also like to thank from the bottom of my heart my new Dutch family, Andrea Willmsen, Hans Damink, Paul van den Engel, Rene Jager, Vivian van den Engel. How lucky I am to meet such wonderful people and count them as my family! I would like to thank all the amazing professors, teachers, mentors and coaches I have ever had, who cared for me, nurtured my nerdy nature and opened up excellent new opportunities for me: