I know this topic is tabu. Especially when it deals with women. Even more so, when it deals with sexual abuse survivors. Still, more, when it deals with incest survivors. Not many want to talk about it, not many want to read about it. It is best left in the bedroom, or it's assumed that it doesn't exist. Yes, if you have been raped - you don't ever want to think about sex, let alone allow anyone to touch your body. You learn to disassociate from it and pretend your body is not yours, it's just a piece of wood laying there on the bed, with someone doing something to it - you are not even fully aware what, you simply watch from the distance, from the ceiling, or from the corner of the room. You participate even - but's it's all mechanic, learned behavior - it can even look passionate - except there is never any satisfaction that's derived from it. Only emptiness, and pain after. Always pain. There are drugs and alcohol and nicotine to silence the pain. But it's always there. Well, mine is gone. Poof. Non-existent. I'm free of it. That doesn't mean everything is suddenly perfect. I still have issues with shame, with seeing my body naked, with having others see my body naked, with fully relaxing, with my own image, sexuality. I'm working on it, but it doesn't compare to what it used to be - it's small left-overs. An occasional emotional clean-up. A burst of anger here and there, a frustration once a month, a sudden urge to hide - once a quarter. 

I'm not sure exactly when this stage started, but I can tell - the signs are there. I blog less often. I see less visitors, less subscribers. My outcry is not urgent. I blog more about happy times now. I don't think of daily entries like I used to - to escape the immediate pain. I'm not sure what to do with my blog yet, but I'm thinking. My journey is not over. I only took the first step, and I see a hundred more steps ahead of me, all the way to the top of the mountain. There is my sister that denounced me. There is my step mother who still avoids talking about anything related to my abuse. There are my cousins, waiting for me to come visit them in Moscow. And, of course, there is my father. The one whom I have yet to face and to forgive. There is more. There is an unfinished novel - with the premise rooted in exposing the incest problem. There is an unfinished non-fiction book - with the intent to help survivors heal. There are still insecurities left in me, there are questions to ask, to re-evaluate social concepts that broke down for me - the concept of family, of marriage, of true love, of letting go - to live fully. 

There is not much else to say. I'm even. Content. Listening to my favorite music. Writing. Re-connecting with old friends. Taking time to savor simple food. Looking out the window - because I want to look out the window. Being in love, letting myself be loved, allowing myself to fall even deeper. Living life, without it being marred by my past. To sum it up, moving on...

Photo by Royce Daniel.

It turns out, I have an amazing visual memory, but every other type of my memory sucks. I would have to listen to something several times, before it will actually settle in my brain. I would have to see it drawn out as a picture, then it will be retained. I can go down some new road once and remember how to turn and where to stop, having it done only once, but I won't be able to tell you afterwards if it was North or South, what part of town it was, what street, and what number. I can talk to you about something, being very animated in the process, waving my arms and stomping my feet for emphasis, but if you switch the topic and ask me 10 minutes later what we have talked about before, I will freeze and won't be able to tell you. It's very frustrating, and I've learned to live by the calendar, to-do lists, reminders, and notes - on everything I do, everything I have to do in the future, and everything that is worth remembering. Unless I jot it down, it doesn't exist. I;m terrified of forgetting stuff. 

My subconscious is still playing tricks on me. If deep inside I feel uneasy, unsafe, or am plain scared, I will forget everything that happened around that feeling the next day. This is, as you can imagine, particularly useful in conflicts. If I have a disagreement with someone, I can get all emotional about it, but when the other party asks me the next day what it was we have argued about - I will blank. How many times it gave my opponent an opportunity to tell me - this is exactly what you said, don't you remember? I would simply agree since I know my memory is shit, so I'd always think the other person's memory is better. 

Another inconvenient trait that is memory related and often is typical for sexual abuse survivors is - not trusting your own memory EVEN if you think you remember stuff correctly. Why? Because when a child is abused and says something about it to an adult, the story is so beyond any social norms, that the adult assumes the child simply imagined everything, and the child is being told that she is remembering it all wrong. That is exactly my story. I have been told so many times that I am imagining things, that my memory is poor and that I shouldn't trust it, that I came to believe it. The combination of that plus the actual lack of ability to remember any facts whatsoever did the deed. With which I am only starting to deal right now. Which is rather curious and yet unique - in a way that I do freak out people when I remember someone only because I have seen them once - the sad part is, I usually don't remember where. But once I've seen a face, it is in my head forever. Once I've seen a picture, it is stored like a live photograph, ready to be looked at any time. Once I have seen someone do something, quietly, without explanation, I can repeat it step by step - and will remember it really well. 

I'm learning to live with this, to ignore its weaknesses, and to capitalize on its strengths. Forget me not. And I won't forget you. The way your hair falls on your forehead, the way you slant your shoulders when thinking, the way your eyelashes glisten with tears when crying, the shape of your fingers, the lines of your profile, the color of your eyes. Never.

Photo by Courtney Carmody.

It's one thing to observe it from the gallery, another thing to be on the stage fully participating, and it's another thing entirely to participate in the drama without knowing that you are. Without being aware that you're being watched by hundreds if not thousands of pairs of hungry eyes, catching your every fall, savoring your every blooper, discussing your every remark, waiting for you to miss your step, whistling loudly at your poor attempts to connect with the story, and throwing rotten tomatoes at you in the end - deciding that you failed. For good. I've never been a good actress. I tend to wear all my emotions on my sleeve, but I'm just waking up to the concept of human drama, the game around it, and the rules - realizing that I've been participating all along, only I didn't quite know the rules.

Drama is inevitable. For some it's blown out of nothing, for others it's a way to experience and interpret life. For me it didn't exist - the concept didn't exist - I would just feel openly whatever I felt, raw, uncensored. But I'm only now getting that people never perceive me as open, they always think there is a motive behind my actions, a lie hidden in my words. They don't believe in people stripping themselves naked in public - nobody with a sound mind would do that, in their opinion. It must be a suit. There must be a purpose. She is a bitch. She is a sneak. She is a manipulator. She is working it to her advantage. She is - you can continue the list. But I never was - though this does not make me guiltless. I've done things out of naivete - I've spoken directly about what I felt and how I felt it - and I broke a bunch of rules and pissed off a bunch of people in the process. I've shown raw emotion - and I've overstepped the boundaries of the common social norms. I've alienated more people. I've reached out to connect - without realizing that I've been overstepping other's boundaries. I've closed a few paths this way, never to be opened again. I've been riding a roller coaster for too long now, and am now understanding the price that's got to be paid at the entrance, and the price to be paid to stop the ride. I know now that everyone is wearing a mask, and that it's not my job to tear it off; not my job to offer help when nobody asked me to. I don't have to yell - I'm surrounded by the clowns! I can simply observe them quietly and smile - because that's what they are being paid to do - to make me smile. I can't reach out and grab the stilts to show that those are not real legs, I can't tear at the hair to show everyone that it's a wig. 

I have never read the script. I don't know my lines. I stumble, guessing. The sets are changing and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be in this scene or the next. The props are being rearranged - and I can only hope that others will help, will point me to my position, will show me a sign when it's my turn to talk. But they don't. They get irritated at me. They shove me around, moving along, speaking, delivering brilliant monologues. I look at my costume - it doesn't fit the period. I'm blinded by the lights - and suddenly hear silence. I feel how a fellow actor pushes me to the edge - and I stand there, balancing, flapping my arms, trying to hold on to the thin air, to not fall. I manage to stay. Stay standing. My mouth is dry. I know everyone is waiting. This is it. This is my test. Can I do it? Can I participate? I inhale and I sing. I don't know why. I've never sung before. And suddenly I can. I got it. It's all one big game. You are who you declare yourself to be. You do what you declare you can do. You feel what you tell everyone you can feel. I sing. Terribly at first. I hear shouts - this is no opera, get her off the stage! But I keep singing. And when more voices yell at me, I yell at them back - shut the fuck up! It is my stage, my play, my game - so shut up! I sing because I said so. It's my hour. My song.

And they do. They quiet and murmur. I sing. I can hear another voice join me, and another, and we build a chorus. It's beautiful. The sounds reverberate through my entire body. I feel it. I can sing. I can act. I can play. This is my game too. But I will make it however I want it to be played. It feels good. I finish the song. For a second it's quiet, but then I hear applause. It's small and coming out of the corner, but it's something. I bow and I walk off. I hear more clapping in the back. I ignore actors looking me in the face, asking me questions. I push them aside, and go to my room. To change my costume, to put on a new mask, to get ready for the next show. A special show of human drama. To participate now, being fully aware of what is happening around me, and to have fun in the process. I'm not sure what I'll do next. Walking a tightrope? Maybe. Doing somersaults? Sounds like fun. Juggling. There. Gotta get ready now before the curtains open again.

Photo by Ko_An.

I wonder how much of this is coming from the distant past, and how much has been accumulated during my adult years, and how much of this can be broken and reprogrammed so that I can go with the change, no questions asked, no panic or paralysis settling in, no anxiety at all. I look for patterns, for any new pattern, for anything to hook my sanity into - and know that it won't be bothered. Know that I can settle and sail forward in silent waters. Know that tomorrow will be exactly as it was today, that today is exactly as it was yesterday, that every day is predictable. Knowing this will allow me to relax. But I also know that this is not true. There will always be a wind, a storm, a stone under the water, a hole in my boat - there will always be something to upset the calm, and I won't ever be able to predict any of it, no matter how hard I try. And when it happens, I have to shift gears fast. I have to toss what I was hoping to get out of my day and be happy with what it turned into - overcome the disappointment and carry on - as if nothing happened. I don't know when I'll master this skill, but certainly today it is far from being operational. 

The most disturbing detail of this trend of mine is - it all happens in my head. The past is no longer there, but it keeps influencing how I feel, adding to the present in real emotions. The future hasn't happened yet, but it gives me several outcomes to chew on, and to add to the present, again, in the form of more emotions. Did actually anything happen physically? No. But, once the anxiety settles in over something that didn't happen or happened in the past, once it manifests itself in my mind - boom - I feel it in the now. I stop enjoying what I'm doing and start obsessing over what things in my head, to the point where they become real - flushing my body with a dose of chemicals - and those are as real as if someone was standing with a knife to my throat. I know that if I only let myself be - if I only allow myself for those breaks in my existence - for the time and space when I can do nothing, stare at the wall or into the sky - and trust the time - know that as the tome goes by, so will my anxiety. If I only let myself feel it and roll with it like with an old friend - mildly annoying - but nevertheless one that would constitute a good company and whom I can trust. I seem to always forget this magical quality that the time has - it passes. No matter what I do, it will all expire. No matter what I begin, it will all end. If I only wait long enough, if I try to remember that what seems like an emergency right this minute, might not be an issue at all once a couple hours pass, and might not even be worth mentioning after it has been several days?

The pattern that was broken is my crutch. I realize that even chaos has the pattern, even the constant change has the pattern - it changes. Once I see how fluid it is, I can let myself flow with it. I can be bumped along the way, but it won't phase me inside - hence, goodbye anxiety. If only it were so easy, it is. I'm sure I will battle with this one for a while - but at least for now, it's gone. 

Photo by square eyes.

There is an immediate instance of life that is removed from my observation – like a snowflake that I never saw and therefore never knew that it melted. I can obsess all I want over a wet spot on the ground, not knowing what have caused it, not seeing what is around me, not lifting my head and therefore - being blind. It would never occur to me to think that it could've been a snowflake. A single one. And it would never occur to me that this could be only be part of the picture, and if I stand up and look around, I will see that it started snowing. But if I walk a little and look again, I will see that it is fake snow that is being dumped from nearby roofs. Artificial. If I lift myself a bit higher and look again, I will see that it is a scene being filmed for a movie, and I happened to stumble upon it. I will see that it's summer and there is no snow in sight - fake or real. I can look more, fly up higher and see that there is a snow storm brooding just a few miles away, an anomaly - something that will soon bury real houses and fake ones from the movie set. I can keep going here forever, inventing hypothetical scenarios, but what I really mean is – the same applies to people and behaviors and life in general.

If someone was quiet and didn’t answer me, it could have been that they are busy. It could have been that they wanted to, but have gotten distracted. It could have been that they never got the message, or that they got it but never read it. It could have been any number of reasons - but I can never tell for sure that I know what happened until I find out - and it is hard to pull my head out of the little hole I plant it in (and a pessimistic one on top of it) and look around. Imagine a bigger picture. Understand that time will show, that I will find out what I need - I only need to be patient and need to wait, to see, to look for the bigger picture. To let thing settle, let emotions sizzle and melt away, let time take a roll and flatten everything out - every doubt, every wrinkle of uneasiness. In the aftermath, I always find out that nothing was as I thought - which only proves my point. But it doesn't tell me why I invent the nearly death outcomes - why everything is so glowingly dark - due to my past, due to always waiting for a death threat - to be beaten - to be abused - to be taken advantage of - to have to turn off my body and my brain to survive? I wonder how many years it will take to understand that nothing is as scary anymore as it was back then, how many years will it take to know that I am not being abandoned if suddenly I haven't gotten a response back, within minutes. I am still being loved, and liked, and missed - even though there is silence when I reach out. I'm ok simply waiting - the world is not coming to an end, and life is not only black and white - there is a multitude of colors, and each and every one of them deserves to be savored. 

I seem to forget this simple truth, I seem to miss the bigger picture, to trust that I will be ok, that everything is ok. I get impatient and can't widen my outlook, dipping my head deeper and deeper, hiding, cowering. Crying, feeling alone, broken. Diving deeper into myself - afraid to look out. It takes an effort to actually breathe, to know I'm safe, to realize that all is good. I am making an effort. I try. I slow down, I distract myself, I talk to myself. And yet nothing is as exhilarating as hearing the response back - the one that I was looking for - suddenly life is good again - that is, until the next time I reach out. I hope I'll have bigger eyes and a quieter mind.

Photo by Square Eyes.

How many years did it take for me to see this? I'm glad it's happening now. I was completely oblivious. Still remember the first episode of proof to this - three girls from my class didn't like the fact that three cutest boys in my class always hung out with me, riding bikes, so the girls told me that they will play hide and seek with me (why didn't I think that it might be odd that they suddenly decided to include me in their games), they told me to hide and not come out until they call me - and that it might be a while. I told the boys to wait and went to hide. After hours of waiting, I finally peeked out and was surprised to find the playground deserted. Guess what, it took me over 20 years to get the significance of this - it was set up, and I was completely clueless. I wanted to mind my own business, and I was oblivious to what was going on around me - I simply liked riding bikes, that was all. Looking at it now, I don't think I'm far away from where I was in elementary school - still being surprised by people doing things that I don't understand, without trying to get into the thicket and participate - always being in my own head, thinking my own thoughts, listening to others and taking everything as sound truth, walking around dazed in my own ideas, thinking that the world is very simple and that 2 plus 2 always equals 4. So I thought. It's not how it works. All people have emotions, and as I walk through the middle, I touch them, I touch their lives, but I neglect to see what effect it has on them, and I neglect to participate with them closely - listen to what they tell me, respond to their questions, and more. Trying to step into their shoes. Looking at things from their perspective. Not rushing to think I understand them, and I understand everything about them - but getting that I have no idea, no clue - and the only way to know is to listen, to watch, to absorb, and to never assume anything - to see beyond what it seems like on the surface. To never rush into judging, but wait till I cool off and think and project and ask myself - what would I have done if I was in their place? 

I need to stop being oblivious. Enough time has passed since the hide and seek game, and I still feel like I am only now coming out of my hiding spot, still wondering - where did everybody go? Still clueless about why did they tell me to stay till they call. Still not understanding why in the world did I not decide to come out earlier - exactly what made me patiently wait for so long? I think I know, but I don't. I think I've figured it out, but I didn't. I act as if nothing happened, but it did. I listened, but I didn't hear. I saw, but I didn't recognize. I felt, but I didn't act. I reached out, but I never touched. Enough. I need to be part of it. But I don't want to. I like my daydreaming. I want to just trust everyone, to never look beyond the surface, I want it to be easy - but it ain't. Why can't life be simple? I guess because we are the ones living it, and we are far from simple, including me - because I am oblivious to how I affect people - because I do. I mingle in the same middle, I play the same games - the only difference is - I only got it now. It's never too late. I've lost count - was it 100, or 1000, or more? I'm ready now, and here I come.

Photo by Lance Neilson.

When I was little, it was easy. I started taking care of myself early, combed my hair and brushed my teeth and made sure my clothes stayed clean. All of my features didn't really bother me, I looked pretty much like every other kid, with nothing out of the ordinary. It was not until puberty hit, when I saw that I was different - the unibrow, the curly hair, the non-typical Russian look - the things that started growing - my nose, my breasts, my hips. I suddenly focused on my own self and viewed it under the lens of perfectionism - the same way I viewed things around me, and it hit me. I wasn't perfect. The way I looked wasn't perfect. I started nibbling away at things that irritated me, and instead of focusing on what I liked, I focused on what I hated, and hated it more every day. I didn't fit into the order, but I couldn't "clean myself up", and it was the ultimate failure in my eyes. The beginning was to get rid of the unibrow, and it started snowballing from there. Nothing I had was to my satisfaction. I hated my growing nose - but I couldn't chop it off, so I escaped pictures being taken of me, especially in profile. I hated my curly hair, so I made sure most of my adult life it was short, so short, in fact, that it couldn't curl at all. I dressed in jeans and t-shirts, because of course I despised my curves, and I didn't feel they looked curvy enough to deserve being shown. 

It has gotten to the point of no return, to the point where I almost morphed into a robotic soldier boy - once being a girl in the past - marching forward, being "cleaned" on a regular basis, to make sure that nothing stuck out, that nothing was imperfect, that everything fit a straight geometry - from shortly cropped hair, to straight jeans, to flat sneakers, to no jewelry, to short clipped nails, to perfectly clean and matching socks, to the no-show bra - you name it. I occasionally broke through this pattern, but it didn't last long. Until I understood where all of this is coming from and started accepting myself as I am. Imperfect. I still struggle, a lot, with the patterned thinking that dominated my behavior for so many years. I still battle the urge to chop my hair off, so close to the scalp that it would stop curling. I still shy away from clothes that hug me too tight. I still can't bear looking at myself in the mirror without obsessing over the size of my forehead, the way the skin wrinkles under my eyes, the way my body is shaped - but all of this is giving away, slowly. I feel that the grip of perfectionism is letting go. That it is a useless fairy tale that I tell myself - but that has nothing to do with reality. And no matter how much I wish I looked different, I'm not. And instead of pretending I could look this or that or else, I can start loving what I have, because it's part of life - and it's imperfect. It is chaotic, by definition, and no amount of thinking and cleaning and obsessing will change that.

I struggle the most with pictures. Every time a photograph is taken of me, I hate it. I can't stand it. There are very few that actually pass my own criticism. My battle with it? Taking more every day. Photographing myself so much, that I start seeing my face and my body in a different light, as it is, and accepting it for what it is, and loving it - as it is, and not as it should be - one hypothetical day that will never arrive. It is hard to let go. I have to grab myself by the hands and slap myself on the wrists. I have to peel my eyes open and make myself look at my pictures. I have to get over the hump and relax - let the chaos roll around me, and be with it. The strange thing is - when I do that, I'm happy. Just like I was when I was little. Unaware of the need to obsessively organize my life - living it moment to moment. Even in this moment - battling with perfectionism of this blog, thinking it's not good enough, not worth people's time, not perfectly written and not interesting. I am letting go. It's the truth, and it's never perfect. No such thing. I am hitting the button "publish".

Photo by Royce Daniel.

I found one outlet – writing. If I can’t write it out, I have to talk it out. If I can’t talk it out, I channel it inward, and that destroys me. Sounds like a case for a mad house, right? I wonder sometimes. I wonder why I feel so much, and how I would have loved to be someone who doesn’t. Someone who maybe feels half, or even just a third – of what I do. Wouldn’t life have been wonderful - being non-emotional, walking through life while being stable and nonchalant? Are there people out there that can do that? I wonder. Is it me only who has everything on the surface? How would I go about growing a thicker skin and not letting myself read everything around me, and letting it affect me – sitting in a crowd and not paying attention to a single face, to a single gesture, being oblivious to tones of voices, to glances towards me, to how people talk to me, to what they say, to how they move, to how close they get or how far they step away?

I try, but every time I fail and plunge into darkness by default. I can feel it starting – I now know what it means. I can even explain to people what is happening to me while I am going down – but I haven’t learned yet how to stop it on my own. I seem to always be needing a hand, someone to grab me and hold me, someone to tell me I’ll be ok, someone to be there for me while I wrestle with it, even if someone would only watch. Knowing that I’m not alone helps me battle it faster and root it out on the spot. But being alone? No way. I see the familiar abyss. I yell and scream, but I realize it's only inside my head - and nothing is coming out of my mouth. I'm used to suffering quietly, I'm afraid to disturb other people's peace - and so I only open my mouth, like a fish out of the water, but then it explodes in my head, but I keep falling and falling and falling. Unless someone catches me in the middle, unless someone can see and understand that I'm asking for help. I have yet to learn to ask for it. It just so happens that if someone stands by, sometimes they get the idea that something is wrong. And if not - well, I don't typically ask twice, or ask at all, so I assume - I'm on my own. Better suck it up. Better get through it alone. Better not feel anything - because it's painful. Better let it happen because fighting it will only make it hurt more. Better - what else? Whatever reason I can cook up, I will. Anything but to see that I actually can stop it, I actually can be alone, I actually will be fine. No need to get numb, no need to fear anymore - I will be ok. My default behavior is - it's the end of the world. It is black and white, there is no middle. 

But it shouldn't be. There is no default. I have control. I can. I know I can. And I don't have to do it alone. I'm not alone anymore. There will always be someone to catch me when I fall - that's what friends are for. I am not on my own, I'm among people, and they all fall too, just like me. They all feel things too, just like me. They're all afraid, just like me. We're all emotional roller coasters, in one way or another, and we bump into each other as we hurry forward, and we all catch each other when we get off course, and we all are just trying to live this life as best we can. Even when it gets dark, it will always get lighter after. Look, I thought I was in the middle of darkness again today, but not anymore. 

Photo by Royce Daniel.

I keep going down the drain, and at some point, if I don't catch myself and pull myself out, it's too late. I plunge into one of my dark moods - the world hates me, everybody is against me, they all think I did everything wrong, I owe every single one of them an apology, life will never be the same, nothing can be repaired now, I wrecked it all. I brood on it, and I shut down completely. So if you will try breaking to me at this point, good luck. I don't believe the good things you say about me, I can't take compliments, I don't trust your offerings to help, I only want one thing - burrow myself deeper, and never get out. Forget about light and air and freedom. Shrink to a non-existence, and then more. Disappear completely. Become so insignificant that nobody will ever remember me, or need me, or remember if they ever needed me at all. And the worse I can make this hell for myself, the better. I collapse onto myself, but I have to keep living, so I turn an autopilot mode on, and keep going. I have to. Like a machine. Last time I did it, it lasted nearly 4 years. Now I shudder, realizing it was me and only me responsible for this. I started catching myself mid-way, and sometimes at the very beginning, the second I feel the familiar slime on my feet, the temptation to give in and slide down, all the way down.

I notice now that whatever other people do, has nothing to do with me. They are struggling with their own moods as much as I do. The way they look at me has nothing to do with what I did - and I will never be able to guess what goes through their minds, as much as I might want to try. I notice I go so deep into analyzing every single detail of every single conversation I have, that I forget to simply enjoy it and dismiss the negative details - to not even think about them or try to see them - to stop watching out for the danger - because there is none. I don't have to watch out for signs of a comping catastrophe anymore. I can relax and be myself and know what whatever crosses my mind has to do with me and me only, and whatever crosses somebody else's mind has to do with them and them only. And we all can coexist. No need for chain reaction, no need to spiral down, to create a drama out of nothing, no need to make simple things complex, no need to project my own emotional poison onto others, or let their poison penetrate and control me. So I'm breaking it - breaking the chain. I consciously started stopping my eyes from sizing faces up and down, from searching the expression of the eyes or listening to the nuances of the voice tones, or catching every single body movement and thinking about its significance. Wait, not true, I still do all of the above, but I now realize why I do it and I know how to stop it. It took weeks in the past, then days, now it's hours, and I hope one day I won't have to do it at all. I will be rooted in being myself so much, that nothing will shake my stability, no matter what patterns I see, no matter how easily I read people. I'll just be me, and I will trust that it's ok to be me, and my perfect mood won't be broken. 

Photo by Demi-Brooke.