( CNN ) -- I moved from Turkey to New York right after college and stayed for 10 years . I instantly felt I belonged . No matter how small my apartment was , how little money I had or how bad the streets smelled , I was happy . I went to graduate school , worked , had the time of my life and became an adult . Although I missed my family , friends and having a glass of Raki looking at the Bosphorus , I never wanted to go back . Unfortunately , there was one big hurdle in my New York forever plan : the scholarship that got me to U.S. had a strict rule of returning home for two years after graduating . That rule was to prevent brain drain : the departure of educated or professional people from one country for another , for better living conditions . More than that , my significant other wanted to go back . `` No matter what '' he said , `` I want to build our lives in Turkey . '' So we did -- I am writing this from Istanbul , where I have lived for almost two years now . The `` no matter what '' part he was referring to was all the reasons why people leave in the first place : lack of opportunities , political and economic instability , and oppression . But from afar , Turkey did not seem to be such a gloomy option . The buzz was that it had become the 16th biggest economy in the world with a dynamic , young work force . Pundits were quick to praise Turkey as a model country : a secular Muslim democracy with a liberal market . Friends were going back and the ones who stayed in New York were asking if they should follow whenever we got together . I did not see such a model country when I moved back . And things deteriorated over the last two years . I saw Erdogan 's unbearable authoritarianism , his denigrating and polarizing stance , a discriminatory attitude towards anyone who is not a Sunni Muslim or an ethnic Turk and no respect to anyone who is not 100 % pro his AKP party . Human Rights Watch 's 2014 report said that the AKP has demonstrated a `` growing intolerance of political opposition , public protest , and critical media . '' Regulation against hate crimes did not recognize ethnicity or sexual orientation as separate categories . Neither were Alevis listed as a distinct faith community or Kurds -- the largest ethnic minority in Turkey , recognized as a separate ethnicity . As violence against women increased , the World Economic Forum ranked Turkey 120 out of 136 countries in its 2013 Global Gender Gap Index . Amnesty International accused Turkey of `` gross human rights violations '' during the Gezi protests . I saw a complete lack of freedom of expression as Turkey became the worst jailor of journalists in the world . As for my beautiful Istanbul , the city I dreamed of whenever I missed home , I saw an utter lack of sustainable urban development . Projects like the world 's largest airport , a canal that would split the city 's European side , a third bridge and the now infamous Ottoman-era barracks in lieu of Taksim Square were planned without any consideration for the ecological system or the fabric of the city . Large scale real estate projects gentrified neighborhoods and pushed the poor out of the city . It was no surprise then that Istanbul ranked 117th among 221 cities in the EU 's urban livability index . The economy was not as good as it looked either : according to the OECD 's 2014 statistics , Turkey has the third highest level of income inequality in the OECD area . One in every five Turks is poor . I started asking myself : shall I go back , can I really live here ? Then the Gezi protests happened . A cloud of hope surrounded all of us skeptics despite the horrendous police violence we had witnessed . I felt alive and happy to be in Turkey , hopeful for future . Protesting in the streets as long as we did , I thought `` I could not have lived with myself if I was in U.S. at this time . '' When the police cracked down the protests , the resistance reconstituted itself as political opposition in different shapes and forms . But the physical and political violence did not stop . Erdogan became more despotic as the recent corruption scandal started threatening his power ; he went as far as blocking Twitter and YouTube . A feeling of depression replaced hope . So I started thinking again : shall I leave ? For every person who wants and is able to go abroad , there is another who would never dream of leaving his beloved homeland or one that is not fortunate enough to have the opportunity to leave even if he wanted to . It is hard to be trapped between your brain and your heart . As for me , I think I will stay for now . And even if my brain drains to the farthest corner of the world , I know my heart will carry my country with me , wherever I go . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Binnaz Saktanber .
Binnaz Saktanber recently came back to Turkey after spending a year abroad . She says she felt happy to be in Turkey during last year 's protests , hopeful for peace . Recently , she started to lose hope and started thinking about Turkey again , she says .