Behind the Façade: A Conversation About Vulnerability, Healing and Starting Over with ELIF

ELIF: Definitely. I’ve been making music for such a long time that I’ve already been through several different phases. I’m also constantly redefining myself and trying to understand who I am. Now, at 33, I feel as though I’m getting closer to myself and beginning to understand myself better.
That is why I started making music in the first place: to understand myself. As you know, I’m currently in a clinic, where everything about myself is being taken apart and examined. I’m beginning to understand why I started making music, why I am the way I am, and why honesty matters so much to me. It feels good to finally understand that. For a long time, I felt as though I was simply following an inner urge and had no choice in the matter.

I hope that after leaving the clinic, I’ll be able to make more conscious decisions and approach things with greater care. That inner urge is fundamentally a good thing. Every artist has a reason for doing what they do. But I think it’s healthier to pause and ask yourself: Yes, I feel the need to say this, but do I actually want to share it, or would I rather keep it to myself? Over the past few years, I haven’t always been able to judge that very well.

I want to handle it responsibly because the things I share are deeply intimate.

It is frightening. I’m always afraid that people might turn away from me because my honesty is too brutal. But I like to stay close to what really happened, even though, of course, it is still my version of events.

My songs are like diaries. Through them, I notice how certain things keep repeating themselves. I think everyone knows that moment when you stop and wonder: Why does this pattern keep returning in my relationships or my family? I’ve forgiven it, so why can’t I forget it? Those are the things I want to work through for myself.
In that sense, “Leb wieder” and “Fassade” are the next step because they are entirely about me.

Until now, I’ve often written about love. I think I used it as a distraction for years. On this album, I reveal much more about myself. At the moment, there isn’t even a real love song on it. I’d still like to write one, but I’m simply not feeling it right now. At this point, it is all about ELIF and what is happening inside her.

Yes. There are so many ways to distract yourself: love stories, your phone, work. I’ve been writing this album for quite a while, but at some point I reached a turning point and changed everything again. I realised that I genuinely had to stay with myself instead of looking for another distraction.

I had always wanted to reveal more of myself, but I often retreated into love stories instead. I’ve written many love songs, and I’m sure I’ll write more in the future, but this album focuses entirely on me.

Yes and no. “I am strong” is a belief that sounds positive. For me, however, it has gradually taken on a negative meaning because I often feel that I have to be strong to prevent myself from completely collapsing.

Since I began looking more closely at my mental health, I’ve realised that I find it difficult to allow myself to feel sadness. Anger, on the other hand, comes very easily to me. You can hear how angry I was on my album “Nacht.” I was almost screaming rather than singing. That has changed now. I’m singing more again.
Whenever I begin to feel sad, it automatically turns into anger because anger is easier for me. My goal is to learn how to simply be sad. I keep noticing that I don’t really allow myself to experience that emotion.

Showing vulnerability does make me feel strong. But I don’t think I’ve truly shown everything yet. I’m doing that little by little now.

I started making music to bring my inner world to the surface. Nobody can see from the outside what is happening inside you, so music is a beautiful way of expressing it. The problem is that my music is always being judged. It isn’t neutral, and of course I also want it to be successful.

There are so many indie songs in my Dropbox that I don’t think anyone would be interested in.

It’s difficult to use music solely as a way of expressing your feelings when the label, the public, and the community are always going to assess it: Is it good enough or not? I still want music to be that outlet for me, but I also need another creative space where nothing is evaluated.

Today, for example, I started a painting made up of countless dots that continues to evolve. I will never share it. It gives me a space where nobody is watching and where I don’t want to judge the result either. It feels good to have something creative in my life again that nobody else sees or measures according to whether it is good enough.

I think the ELIF who is emerging now is softer again. She isn’t as angry anymore. She is ready to move forward. She is strong and vulnerable and, hopefully, more connected to herself.

This campaign feels very special. Usually, everything is planned in advance: How do you want to look? What should the sound be? This time, I’m only finishing each song shortly before it is released. I wanted to give myself the freedom to discover what I actually want to look like and how I want to be styled. It all belongs together.

Some people tell me that this approach is far too chaotic. To me, it feels like freedom. If I want to find out who I am, I have to allow myself to experiment.

I’m at a day clinic from around eight in the morning until three in the afternoon. It is helping me enormously. I wish I had done it sooner.
I decided to go because I had fallen into a severe depression that had become life-threatening. I didn’t have the very darkest thoughts, let’s put it that way. But I reached a point where I said that I no longer knew how to keep going. I promised myself that I would never allow myself to reach that point again.

Depression also runs in my family. Both my mother and my father experienced it, so I feel a responsibility to take this step, for myself, but also for the people around me and my family. Certain things keep resurfacing. I want to understand whether I may be dealing with post-traumatic stress, whether I genuinely cannot forgive, or what exactly has been weighing on me so heavily.

I’ve had a very turbulent life, and I think I played that down for a long time. A lot has happened. There is a reason I once felt: It is screaming so loudly inside me that I have to pick up a guitar and sing. But music alone isn’t enough to heal. At some point, you need professional help.

A lot happened not only during my childhood, but also throughout my journey as an artist. I entered the music industry before MeToo and before women’s voices became as loud as they are today. When I look at younger female artists now, I sometimes think: We helped lay the groundwork for this. In turn, the women who came before me had to endure things that I didn’t.

That depends on who is looking at it. When you come from a deeply religious family with clearly defined values, where you don’t speak about what happens within the family and are expected to protect the family or even the perpetrators within, you can quickly be seen as a traitor.

I understand that, and I can see both sides. But I had to ask myself: What price will I pay if I remain silent? I am taking responsibility, and I wish the people around me would do the same. Some of them don’t. That hurts, but it is okay.

I want to live authentically. I only have this one life, and I only get one chance to be an artist. I want to speak about the things that move me. At 17, I didn’t have the courage to do that. Many of the subjects I address in my songs today only began to surface gradually. Sometimes I wish I had been brave enough to say everything back then. Perhaps it would be quieter inside me today.

I already knew that there were certain things I wanted to talk about. When I moved out of home, I initially stayed with a friend. I had been there for three days when the line came to me: “I don’t think anything hurts forever.” It became one of my first releases.

I could have spoken about domestic violence and religion even then, but I was too afraid. I thought I might lose the foundation beneath me.

Today, I’m an adult. I can support myself. I’m not dependent on a man, I earn my own money, and I have built my own career. That gave me the freedom to say: Now I can truly speak about these things. If people turn away from me because of it, that is okay. I know how to hold myself now.

I also believe that two truths can exist at once. You can love someone deeply and still say: What happened hurt me terribly, and I cannot forget it. In many of those situations, I had no choice. The adults, however, had a choice in how they treated me because I was a child. I carried a great deal of guilt that was never mine to begin with.

I actually spoke about that in therapy today. I think it begins with learning how to hold yourself. That can create a kind of forgiveness. You treat yourself with care and say: Something happened to me, I am hurt, and I am here for myself.

Perhaps you have to grow up before you can do that. At 17, I couldn’t. Back then, I needed someone else to hold me. I didn’t yet have the tools or the life experience.

Yes, many of them do. But people also tell me: I’m going through the same thing, but I’m too afraid to talk about it because I might lose people. I understand that too. You have to decide what matters most to you.

I’ve seen people become genuinely ill because they weren’t able to live authentically.
But I don’t want to speak on behalf of everyone else. I only want to speak about myself. I became depressed because I wasn’t living authentically. I kept adapting and bending myself out of shape. Eventually, my body said: That’s enough. You’re staying down. Nobody understood how unwell I really was. There were days when I couldn’t get out of bed.

Absolutely. It is only now, through the clinic and the people I’ve met there, that I truly understand what it means to live with depression or an anxiety disorder. We all experience similar symptoms.
I’m not completely through it yet. Yesterday, for example, I felt very dizzy. Today, I feel better again. But the periods when I feel well are becoming longer, while the lows are getting shorter because I now know how to catch myself before I fall too far.

Mental illness is incredibly difficult. I don’t know what it feels like to have another serious illness because I don’t have one. But living with an illness that nobody can see at first glance and that people may not even believe you have is extremely hard.

We need to be clear about this: Depression can be life-threatening. People can die from it, and it has to be taken seriously. There are many artists and many other people who didn’t make it. I want to create greater visibility around that. I don’t think many people would expect it from me.

I am definitely not perfect. None of us are. The music industry trained me to function whenever I had somewhere to be. I think that is true for all of us in our professional lives. When you go to work, you are expected to deliver, and I place very high expectations on myself.

But this was serious. It wasn’t simply a bad day or temporary heartbreak. I developed a serious illness, and I’m taking myself seriously. I know that my mother experienced it too and didn’t really take herself seriously.

Depression is surrounded by so much shame, partly because the illness itself makes you ashamed of all the things you can no longer manage.
But there is no reason to be ashamed. It is much better to ask for help and to understand that this illness is real and that support is available. I want people to see that and to know it.

I sometimes think about what it would mean if I had children one day. I don’t want to pass this on to them. Someone has to break the cycle, so I suppose that person will be me.

Doing this work on yourself is hard. The clinic is certainly no walk in the park.
But I’m learning a great deal about myself, and I’m also beginning to understand why my parents were the way they were. At the same time, I wish someone had explained to me when I was younger that my parents were depressed. Perhaps then I wouldn’t have spent so much time believing they didn’t love me.

My mother was often unable to be there for me. She would stay in bed, couldn’t make food, or wasn’t able to pick me up from school. Perhaps she also had other compulsive disorders. I don’t know because she is no longer alive. But I can do better.

I wish I had received more support from my family, especially because mental illness is so prevalent within it. But perhaps what I’m doing is so triggering for them that they need to distance themselves. That is okay. It isn’t something I can control.

I’m learning that again and again. I’m trying to let go of everything that is beyond my control. I can’t determine what my father, my sister, or my older brother thinks. But I can find a way of dealing with it and accept reality for what it is.

I’m incredibly grateful to have such wonderful friends, many of whom have become like family to me. I used to draw a clear line between friendship and family. I don’t anymore. Friends can become family too.

No, because different subjects have always shaped my work at different times. Life naturally brings new things for you to confront. Right now, depression is what occupies me most.
But I don’t use the word depression in either “Leb wieder” or “Fassade.” I simply talk about the fact that nobody is strong all the time, no matter what might be hidden behind the façade. “Leb wieder” is about beginning again. I want to sing these songs for many years to come, and new beginnings are something I’ve known throughout my life.

Admitting to myself that I’m not always strong is a realisation that other people might recognise in themselves too.

Speaking openly about my situation gives me a lot of strength because I no longer feel misunderstood. When the symptoms become severe, for example, you can become very forgetful. You forget names, appointments, or other things.

I told my entire team what was happening. They know when they need to remind me of something. They also understand that this is a temporary state and that it will get better. They can support me as I keep moving forward, and that gives me strength.

That isn’t something I take for granted. I think many people lose their jobs in situations like this. I’m self-employed, so I’m able to choose my own team, and I am incredibly grateful for that. For a while, I was afraid that nobody would want to work with me anymore, but I’ve found wonderful people.

And, of course, my female friends give me strength. I speak to them on the phone every day. They are the people who truly see me.

Women really have been the people who pulled me out of difficult situations most often. One of my friends is called Lisa. She quite literally grabbed me and said: We’re going to the emergency room now.

I had completely stopped sleeping. That was the worst phase. She has known me for a very long time and quickly recognised how far I had fallen. She kept telling me: Something isn’t right with you.

My boyfriend at the time didn’t understand it. He judged me for being unable to remember certain things and for almost forgetting his birthday. None of it was intentional. I was simply in an extremely bad place. He thought I needed a holiday. What I actually needed was someone who could help calm my nervous system or give me the time and space to regulate it myself.

I sometimes have the impression that people think other people are responsible for my art, as if someone else creates my music videos, photographs, or everything I put out into the world.
But as an artist, I’m involved in every part of the process. I direct my team and tell them what I want. They help me bring my art to life.

That is true for a lot of artists in Germany. Most of them are relatively authentic. If you look at Korea, for example, a lot of it is more heavily constructed. But with German artists, including rappers, there is usually a great deal of truth in what they say. The same applies to me.

I think this misunderstanding exists because people underestimate women. They don’t believe that we are genuinely capable of creating and directing these things ourselves.

I am a songwriter. I built my own company, ELIF. I’m very proud of myself. In some way, you can achieve almost anything. I only wish that sense of pride would reach my body too.

Because of the depression, I wasn’t able to celebrate myself for a long time. I could no longer recognise my own achievements because I couldn’t feel anything. But now, that feeling is slowly beginning to return.

Yes. The new ELIF.