Аля Б
Confession
Confession
There’s an opinion that every person can write a book. And this book would be about them.
I believe that every person has several facets, some even have many. Based on this, depending on which aspect of themselves a person wants to reveal, that’s how many books they can write.
Honestly, I’ve been trying to write a book for about seven years now, but this is the only thing in my life (at least I can’t remember other such things) that I approach with such trepidation and from which I run away so much.
So, shall we begin?
In this narrative, I very much want to encourage the reader who has been given a terrible diagnosis or whose relative has. I, for example, have a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder and I want to share my life journey with this illness. Within this endeavor, I will be writing my first book))
Let me skip ahead and tell you what kind of life I lead right now: I have a family consisting of my husband and son. I work as an analyst in an IT company. I do sports, have sex, and have hobbies. If I don’t tell someone that I have a diagnosis, it would never occur to them. Not even to an experienced psychologist.
How did I get to this point?
Now here’s the most interesting part!
Chapter 1
Summer 1995. I am 6.5 years old. I’m standing at the train car exit with my mother, and the station police officer, train conductor, and station master have already approached us. I don’t remember the name of the city, but I remember all the events of this story precisely. I assume it was the city of Makat (Kazakhstan), but within this chapter’s framework, it’s not that important. So, this whole crowd of opponents is trying to convince my mother to leave the train. She, in turn, categorically refuses and claims that the station is made of papier-mâché, the sign on the station isn’t real, and everything around is just a prank.
Hmm, the entire delegation from the train and station assumed that we had no money and nowhere to spend the night, and that she was thus trying to secure sleeping berths for herself and me. This was the final station, and the train had to go to the depot.
«Mommy, please, this really is Makat, let’s get off,» I pleaded.
«If you don’t leave the train, we’ll forcibly remove you. Do you really want your child to see this?» the police officer continued in his firm and confident voice.
Whether it was the police officer’s voice being so harsh, or my mother finally remembering that I existed, or something clicked in my mother’s head at that moment, she took me and the suitcases and left the train.
The most disgusting thing was that there was no money for tickets to Orenburg… none at all… not a kopeck, not a ruble. But my mother had gold rings and earrings, and I had a plan. And this plan consisted of exchanging all the gold for tickets to Orenburg, and once there, at home, we would figure out the finances.
Fortunately, the cashier liked my plan, and we made it to our hometown.
This was the first episode with my mother. Strangely enough, none of her circle in Krasnovodsk (now Turkmenbashi) understood that she was going crazy. None of the station workers suspected such a thing. And of course, being so small, I certainly couldn’t assume my mother had a disorder.
Later I would learn to recognize her states, the days when it would «storm,» and how to survive them. But when my first episode happens, at age 17, again none of my loved ones would think that I was ill. And certainly not me myself.
So, when you or your loved one falls ill for the first time, you most likely won’t understand it!