When actress and screenwriter Nadja Hüpscher’s husband fell ill, she didn’t know how to keep her head above water. The diagnosis was testicular cancer and he would have to undergo long-term treatments. Her life and that of her family was turned upside down.
In Never sleep again she talks to Atze de Vrieze about the illness of her husband and the creation of her book Happiness is with a K..
Nadja Hüpscher about her book Happiness is with a K:
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Write everything down
It started as one note with some notes and terms that Hüpscher later wanted to look up after the hospital visit. It gave her guidance in the complex time she went through with her family: “I didn’t know how to handle things. I started categorizing everything for myself. Writing became a guideline.”
Hüpscher had no intention of using her notes for anything: “I didn’t want to write a book at all. But so much happened: people who asked, who offered help, my children who literally wanted to know everything. And I didn’t find a book on the ‘cancer board’ in which I could identify. ” So Hüpscher wrote the book she wanted to read.
She read all her notes back and it was terribly painful. Hüpscher: “I had five times as much material as is left over. I wanted a concrete story that the reader could fill in with feelings. I don’t like metaphors, I don’t want violins or roses. I wanted to describe as much as possible. “
Find a loophole
One of the hardest things about her husband’s sickness all the time was the fact that she couldn’t get out, couldn’t escape. “You just want to say that it is going well,” says Hüpscher, “but now I suddenly had to tell that we had heard bad news. I was angry and I could accept it very badly.”
Hüpscher: “I had learned that everything was going well in my life, that I should not complain. But now I had to explain to my children what was going on. I had to worry about cloaks.” And wherever she went, the problems followed her. “You can hide other problems, then you go to the disco. But I could not go, I had to feed and dress and take care.”
We tried to be nice to each other, but that is difficult when you are in a lot of pain.
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“The only place where I was still seen as a ‘normal nice woman’ was at the supermarket. You want someone who thinks ‘what a nice typing’ and then gives you compliments. But if there is a moment of contact, then you know you don’t know what to do at all. “
Hüpscher: “I screwed up, I became a mouse, everyone thought that I did not look good. I wanted that I was not. I thought there was only cancer.” Everything to have a way out. “Because it’s not grand and compelling, it’s not binding, it’s just shit. It’s sad.”
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