From jail time to living on the streets, it takes pure determination and a belief in yourself to trust that who you are is more important that what your life circumstances have handed you. Sharing his heartfelt story of coming out with it’s crazy myriad of twists and turns, author, Burak Yilmaz takes us into his world of thriving beyond the impossible.
About Burak
Burak Yilmaz was born and raised in Turkey. He always wanted to write, using it to escape the harsh reality of being forced to hide who and what he truly was. Life took a twist when Burak’s father discovered his son was gay. At just seventeen years old, Burak was thrown out into the streets and left to survive on his own in a society that didn’t want him. Instead of breaking, Burak summoned the depths of his strength and wrote his first book at twenty-two years old.
Burak published his book under the pen name Devrim Yilmaz to protect himself from the dangers of writing such a book called Bir Escinselin Siradan Hikayesi (An Ordinary Story of a Homosexual) became an instant bestseller, earning him accolades and unwanted attention. Burak was arrested and tortured after completing a television interview. Again, he clung to himself and, after being released, escaped Turkey. His journey took him to the United States, where he currently resides.
Life seldom asks what we want, however. Burak worked as a model for erotic magazines and in some of the most popular nightclubs in New York City. It was a poison-filled life that left him at the point of moral bankruptcy, depressed and suicidal.
The light dawned on Burak after checking in to a psychiatric rehab facility, and he turned his life around. After receiving his GED, he graduated from nursing school at NYU with honors and multiple scholarships. Now a successful Registered Nurse in critical care settings, Burak’s passion is advancing his degree in Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner.
If My Mother Never Left, detailing raw and emotional events after his first book. Burak Yilmaz opened up the depths of his soul for the world to read.
About The Book
In, If My Mother Never Left, you will step into a harrowing and profoundly moving story of one man’s battle against abuse, depression, gaslighting, and homelessness.
Being abandoned by his mother and subjected to years of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of his uncle and stepmother, Burak Yilmaz has few fond memories of his childhood. And when his family discovers the truth about his sexuality, he’s cast onto the streets by his father and left to fend for himself.
Burak Yilmaz survives by doing things he never imagined–but that only sends him deeper down a self-destructive spiral. Even after he escapes to New York to rebuild his life as a fitness model and bartender at the most popular club in NYC, the specter of his childhood continues to haunt him. Tormented by bouts of anxiety and chronic depression, the faint glimmer of rehab offers his only hope. He may have escaped his family–but can he heal the scars left behind in its wake?
Told with poignant reflections and brought to life with vivid detail, this gripping and powerful memoir shares Burak Yilmaz’s story, confronting the harsh realities of abuse, depression, gaslighting, homelessness, and being gay in Islam.
Readers will discover an unforgettable glimpse into one man’s fight for survival in a world where everything is stacked against him, along with his first-hand experience of homosexuality in his profoundly religious home country of Turkey.
Once again, Burak opened up the depths of his soul for the world to read. If My Mother Never Left, is detailing raw and emotional events after his first book.
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