At 6.5 years old, I experienced terrible stress. I don’t want to burden readers with the weight of the situations on the way home and the hell I faced at home. But I want to tell you that upon arriving home, I wanted to be baptized. Fortunately, there was a church not far from home, and my mother, after really lengthy persuasion, agreed to go with me. She hadn’t been hospitalized yet and naturally wasn’t taking medications.
Where did the thought of God originate in me? How could I, at 6.5 years old, never having encountered this before, have drawn this idea? For me, this remains nothing other than God’s providence. And this was my first step (from grief) toward God, toward Faith and Hope that I would survive no matter what.
Subsequently, for the next 2 years after my mother’s hospitalization, I would continue living with her, and she, not taking medications, would be able to maintain remission for 2 years. But then I would have to leave her and go live in the Caucasus, with my grandfather. There I would experience my mini-hell, but I don’t want to write about that. At least not in this chapter.
Chapter 2
What triggered my illness? I’m sure the reader has asked the same question about their own diagnosis or their loved one’s diagnosis. It seems to me that it’s more of a cumulative effect. There’s a feeling that nerves gradually thin out, and then a significant or insignificant event happens, a strong rupture occurs, and they seem to run dry.
For me, that accumulation was life in the Caucasus at my grandfather’s with his wife. I went through manipulations from my grandfather’s wife and bullying at school and in the yard that lasted four years. I held on only because I had an equally sensitive friend. Together we went to the library and devoured everything we could read when we managed to find time between working on the land and selling fruit at the station.
Kropotkin – the city where I lived – was a junction station, and trains made long stops there, sometimes 40-50 minutes. Before continuing on their routes, passengers usually strolled along the platform and bought everything from vendors. Prices were significantly higher than at the market, so many sought to sell fruits, nuts, and God knows what else. But there was one «but»: it was forbidden by local law, so you could often meet police officers on the platform, fining vendors or taking them to the station.
Some vendors ran quickly with buckets of fruit, some hid under train cars, and some gave bribes. My grandfather and I sometimes ran away or crawled under a car to hide on the other side of the train.
I won’t say that police came on raids for every train, but scenes with the Moscow train that departed at 3:00 PM every day are forever imprinted in my memory. Oh, that was bliss! Here you could sell all four buckets of fruit for fabulous money by my standards. This was a gold mine for vendors!
All these moments were happy moments for me; my grandfather completely accepted and loved me. I perceived escaping from a police officer as a game. But after the sunny day and piercing sun that left an inimitable smell of heat on the skin, there were always long moments of bullying at school and in the yard.
I couldn’t stand up for myself, and there was no one behind my back. And this is the most disgusting feeling – when there’s no one behind your back!
Every evening I cried into my pillow and begged God to return me quickly to my mother, to my home.