What dreams Yllka still clung to in 1999 were dashed when Serbian forces came to her home in Kosovo and raped her.
"I had everything in front of me, but the war destroyed me," Yllka tells RFE/RL's Balkan Service, her voice quiet, her speech hesitant.
Then just 17 years old, she was one of thousands of women in Kosovo reported to have been raped by Serbian forces, who, according to Human Rights Watch, used sexual violence as a tool of "ethnic cleansing."
Today, 25 years after the conflict erupted, the victims of rape are still struggling to cope in Kosovo, a traditionally conservative society. Many still feel the stigma of shame and are hesitant to speak out or ask for help.
The Kosovar authorities have taken steps in the right direction. In 2014, Kosovo passed a law recognizing the victims of wartime sexual violence, enabling them to receive a pension of about 230 euros ($252) per month.
And for the first time ever, on April 14, Kosovo marked a newly designated Day of Survivors of Sexual Violence to, as the authorities put it, "recognize the pain" of the victims from the 1998-1999 war.
For Yllka, now 42, recently returning to her childhood home in the northeastern region of Llap rekindled the horrors of that day in 1999.
Most of the war crimes -- including rapes -- happened between March and June 1999, as Serbian forces terrorized the ethnic Albanian population in Kosovo. In March 1999, after internationally brokered peace talks collapsed, NATO launched air strikes against Yugoslavia that lasted 78 days before Belgrade yielded.
"When I went [back] to the door of the house [of her former home], I had a feeling...but I tried to hide it," Yllka recounted in the interview with RFE/RL at one of the offices of the Kosovo Center for the Rehabilitation of Torture Survivors (KCRT), which offers therapy and other help for rape and other victims of the Kosovo war.
"For a while, I was not very well. Everything upset me, even just the sun shining. I didn't want to see the sun with my eyes, nor light. Nothing," Yllka said.
Before the rape, Yllka was smitten by Endrit. That relationship came to an abrupt end with the Kosovo War, although afterward the young Kosovar man tried to rekindle it. But Yllka wasn't sure, avoiding him at first.
Undeterred, Endrit met with Drita, Yllka's cousin, who knew what had happened to her. "I thought he was just coming over to see how I was doing. I didn't think there was any point to it," Yllka said.
However, Endrit ultimately proved to be the support Yllka needed. "He has done everything for me. He's been my everything, my love...my everything, a shoulder to lean on," she said.
They later wed, and to this day, neither have discussed what happened to her during the war, something Yllka is grateful for. "Whenever I had a bad moment, I was overcome by tears. I cried so much that I almost passed out. I was trying to release what was inside of me in my soul. He would knock on the door, go up to the window. He kept saying, 'Let's go to a doctor or go out on the town.' He didn't care what the neighbors might say," Yllka said.
While Yllka is grateful for the support Endrit has provided, she worries other women in Kosovo who suffered a similar fate aren't so lucky. "God gave me...as they say, where there is darkness, there comes light. But not for everyone. For some, where there was darkness, it has turned to complete night. But why? No woman wants this. They have to understand...what woman wants to experience this [being raped]," she said.
Besides her husband, the couple's five children have also proved a blessing, providing a pilar of strength. "As they say, mothers are very strong, made of stone. Sometimes I think that if I didn't have my children, I would go completely crazy," she said.
At the same time, Yllka frets that the trauma she experienced may somehow impact her kids.
Children of women facing physical abuse, including rape, during the Kosovo War have higher levels of cortisol, a "stress hormone," according to research released in March by the KCRT in collaboration with the Danish Institute Against Torture.
The KRCT studied 118 women and their 119 children and found that in some of the children of the survivors, cortisol was either at very high or very low levels. As a result of this research, the survivors' center has launched a project, offering therapy for all members of families impacted by rape or torture during the conflict.
The rape survivors were given the opportunity to bring their children to the KRCT's offices in Pristina, where they were offered psychological therapy. Yllka decided to try it.
"After family therapy, I myself have felt calmer. Because I've always been concerned that [the children] may be hiding something from me [such as stress or anxiety.] But then the psychologist told me that they are OK, and I really liked those sessions," Yllka explained, adding that those four years of therapy had helped her heal.
"In the beginning [of therapy], it was very difficult to open up about what happened to me. At the time, it seemed to me like it had just happened [the rape]. Now, fortunately, I feel like I'm with family here," she added.
She says the therapy has led to her feeling "resurrected," adding that she no longer feels "ashamed" every time someone glances at her on the street. Before, she would feel defensive, if not frightened, convinced they had figured out her secret.
"When I came here, I saw many other women. They told me that I am not the only one, and then I said, 'OK, it's not just me.' And then it was much better. Now I feel like...oh God, like I've been born again," explained Yllka, talking softly and looking visibly relieved.
Selvi Izeti, a psychologist at KRCT, says that the treatment of trauma caused by sexual violence should be continuous. Requests for therapy increase, she says, when cases of sexual violence are reported in the media, for example with the current war in Ukraine. "The very term 'sexual violence' is a trigger of trauma for the survivors, because it immediately brings back the uncertainty they felt when the traumatic event happened," Izeti said.
In addition to the work she has done, since 2007, with survivors at the KRCT, she considers the family therapy to be particularly important. "For us, this has been a very significant result because we have made changes not only in the lives of mothers, but also of children. We are trying to break the chain of carrying the trauma", she emphasized.
Yllka's kids never knew exactly why they had attended the therapy sessions. The mother of five says she never plans to divulge to them what happened to her. At the same time, she advises victims of sexual violence during the Kosovo War to seek out help.
"Any problem...when you talk about it with someone you trust, it helps. It lifts the burden from you," she said.
Knowing what she knows now, Yllka wishes she had started therapy earlier. Now, she advises victims of violence to get help right away, ignoring any sense of shame they may feel. "Even the children have noticed the change in me, especially the older ones," she said.
"They noticed that now I am calmer, and they told me: 'You are so well now, Mom. We thought you would always be like you were before [the therapy].'"
