I came to Austria from Syria in 2015. I was 20 years old. I came alone. I haven't seen my family since. That's eleven years.

For most of my life, I knew that everything was harder for me than it seemed to be for everyone else: noise, light, crowds, organizing my day, keeping focus, maintaining relationships. I didn't have words for it for a long time. I just learned to manage, to adapt, to appear like everything was fine. I got good at it. Too good, as it turned out, because every time I appeared fine, someone used it as proof that I didn't need help.

What I Did

When I arrived in Austria, I did everything they asked me to do. I learned German. I passed the Matura. I enrolled in university. I sought treatment from the beginning and stayed with it for years. I applied for jobs, hundreds of them. I got interviews, performed well, was told I did well, and then was rejected. Over and over, without real explanations.

I moved apartments four times because the environments, the noise, the light, made it impossible to function. I tried to find accommodations that worked. I tried to find a rhythm that worked. I kept going.

What Happened

I applied for recognition of my situation through the official system. Three times. Three times denied, including at court level. The person who assessed me spent 25 minutes with me, noted that I spoke well and seemed calm, and concluded that I was managing well enough.

Ten weeks later, a different agency assessed me using the same medical records. This time, the conclusion was the opposite: that I needed significant ongoing support. Both assessments are official. Both are currently valid. They directly contradict each other about the same person.

My residency application was rejected too. The reasoning was that since I had been able to study, I should be able to work, and since I wasn't working, I was a financial burden. The same difficulties that one system said weren't serious enough, another system used as the reason to say no.

Every system had a reason. Every reason contradicted the others. The result was always the same: the door closed.

What I Built

Through all of this, I've been building something. An AI-powered journaling app called Cortex, designed to help people make sense of their health over time. I built it alone because I needed a tool like this and it didn't exist. Nobody was going to build it for me, so I built it myself.

Where I Am Now

I've reached out to over twenty organizations: advocacy groups, social services, legal support, media. Most haven't responded. The ones that did pointed me somewhere else. Everyone handles one piece. Nobody holds the whole picture.

I'm sharing this because after eleven years of trying to do everything right, I want people to know what happened. I want it to exist somewhere outside my own head. And I'm looking for support: stability, opportunity, connection. Not because I can't do the work. Because doing it alone, against all of this, has a limit.

My name is Mohamad. I am still here. And I am still building.

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