Make an appointment for treatment
This girl called the Institute on Saturday. We don’t have consultations on weekends, but she begged so much to take her out of the queue that our administrator could not stand it, conveyed her request to the professor, and he allowed the girl to come to the reception. True, it was her “my cat died” at the first thing that made the administrator want to answer something like “sorry, but we help people who need psychological help and support, and the death of your cat is not a very serious reason for contacting us”, but the patient did not hear these words, she was invited for a consultation.
The next day, Sunday, Dasha had already started treatment, and her story impressed our team. The patient allowed me to share a story about her life, about defeats and victories, that at our Institute she finally decided to forget everything that was wrong that had accompanied her before, and be happy!
There were 7 people in our family: mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, 2 sisters, and I, the eldest of three daughters.
From the age of 6 until the age of 10, I was subjected to a strict, tyranny-like upbringing.
Grandfather is the head of the family, he is the founder of such “education”, dad is the right hand of “education”, the grandmother is the one who leads these two men to some physical and psychological actions, sometimes the initiator of various situations with an unpredictable outcome. Grandfather loved his only son, our dad, very much, and he seemed to “break away” on his grandchildren. The daughter-in-law, my mother, they liked, but I, the eldest granddaughter, as it turned out, not very much. My family bullied me all the time.
In education, fresh vines, army harness, wire, palm, pushing in the back, and moral humiliation were used. I remember the moment when my dad beats me, I scream and say: “But it doesn’t hurt me” and laugh, after that he began to beat even harder. It was not customary to talk about domestic violence then.
They beat me because my grandmother thought it was right. She is a big manipulator and provocateur, for example, she could say: “Dasha, I went to rest, the house should be quiet.” If we forgot for a moment that she was resting and talked loudly, she immediately began banging on the walls and screaming that we were disturbing her.
Grandmother did not understand that children could make noise. Parents curry favor with grandparents because we lived in their house. Grandparents loved their home very much, grandfather did a lot there with his own hands. Grandmother, during strong quarrels, did not miss the moment to say: “You are nobody here, get out of my house.” From the grandmother’s side, she looked like an intelligent woman; in public, she and her grandfather seemed well-mannered people. Mom lived for 20 years under the same roof with her grandmother, she called her daughter, but it was always hypocrisy.
At the age of 11, my grandmother and mother insisted on me: “You need to lose weight, boys don’t like fat ones. Look, you already have a stomach, big thighs, and now a “life buoy” has appeared around the waist.
They did not see my soul, my relatives, whom I trusted, said that I was fat, but I was not fat, they told me that I was. Then I stopped going out, completely, because of the acquired complex, with the thought “nobody likes me”.My mother and grandmother did not understand why I behave this way. I was of a normal build, but under stress, I started to eat more and really got better. Due to closeness, complexes, passivity, and silence, I became a “weak link” in my family. I have never seen love, they did not express it openly, I have never heard the expression: “I love you”, I have not heard the words “you are my bunny”, “you are my cat”, as they usually say to other children.
At the age of 14, I developed guilt after eating and developed obsessive bulimia. I “got drunk”, and then I went to the toilet and caused artificial vomiting. Whether it was a delicious cake, or potatoes – it doesn’t matter. As a result of my actions, I developed gastritis and diaphragmatic hernia.
All my friends disappeared, answering the call of my friends was on the verge of a panic attack for me, I ran away from them, I was afraid to go out, I went only to school, I turned into a terrible introvert, I was neutral to everything.
I constantly suffered from asthma attacks, I have had it – from the first cold, from half a year. I recently found my medical card, which is like several volumes. Once every six months I go through therapy for asthma.
Everyone did not like the fact that from puberty I began to show myself as a person. The expressions “Do not argue with the elders, obey” – they already acted on me differently, after such words the conflict flared up to the point where I already had a 100% boiling point. I couldn’t control my aggression, I could grab a knife…
I reached such a state only because of quarrels with relatives.I kept thinking why they reject me, because they should love me. Classmates are loved, their relatives, but not me. Didn’t I deserve it?
Self-aggression itself suggests what to do – to injure, so that “moral relief comes through physical pain.” Needless to say, I never had suicidal thoughts.
Once, after another “communication” with my mother and grandmother, I went up to my room, which was located on the second floor of our large house, saw a clerical blade, treated it with alcohol, and for the first time cut my hand … I felt a strong spiritual relief, and physical pain was absolutely not felt. There was no pain, no fear of blood.
From that moment, after every quarrel with family members, I began to cut my left hand, not controlling the depth of the cut, because I was under the influence of aggression.
One day, my mother ran into my room and saw what I was doing to myself. Then there were already more than 50 deep cuts on my arm. Mom cried and fainted. With the help of ammonia, I brought her to her senses.
The cuts were not spontaneous, I read about it on the Internet, I thought through each cut, starting from the elbow and ending where it was just visible from behind the sleeve. Even in the summer I wore long sleeves. I have never seen this in any of my classmates.
The only thing I was convinced that I was superfluous in this family, I should not be here, my soul suffered, like my body, because a child who is loved is not treated like that, I did not understand why this happened. I did not receive support from my mother, every time she said: “They are older, listen.”
When I turned 18, on May 30, on my birthday, I covered a lot of scars with tattoos, and promised myself not to return to self-aggression anymore.
I “made” myself, raised myself. I love poetry very much, read books, after graduating from school I wanted to become a psychologist, I read Freud avidly. My mother did not like my choice, and I went to study as a paramedic. Mom and dad suggested this profession, they said that people would respect me, it became decisive for me.
With sisters – the middle one, Natasha, 6 years younger than me, the youngest, Polina, 12 – we always had an excellent relationship, but they were silent when the elders in the family offended me. It happened that they started with me, and then switched to the sisters. The youngest had a terrible neurosis, she was frightened, took off her underwear, did not wear socks, she writhed all over, twitched, itched. Polina was then taken everywhere to the doctors, they thought that she had a subcutaneous tick.
We have always had scandals, quarrels, misunderstandings, aggressive attitude of family members towards each other. When I was 19 years old, there was another strong scandal in the family.
I heard the cries of my mother and grandmother, when I approached them, even the blood vessels in my mother’s eyes turned red from indignation and resentment, the wreath on her forehead throbbed.
Mom said that she did not know what to do, that she wanted to leave, that she could not continue to live like this.I felt very sorry for my mother, I ran to my grandmother, I wanted to talk to her, to tell her to stop the scandals in the house. After all, even some household trifles in the kitchen were enough for the grandmother to cause aggression in us in order to get her dose of pleasure. She grabbed my hand and threw it away, but I also had the strength to push my grandmother away. Then I heard another “get out of my house.”
Dad arrived, grandmother, as always, began to lie, that my mother and I were to blame for everything. Grandma was like a puppeteer all the time, she led dad. Without listening to our opinion, dad, naturally, drew his conclusions in favor of my grandmother.
I went up to my room, breaking my promise. This time, I already made 2 cuts very deeply with a blunt blade on my thigh in order to feel more pain. I got my dose of high. I didn’t immediately see the depth of the cut, I just pulled on my pants, and then my mother ran into the room and asked: “What are you doing?”. When I realized that my mother was coming, I came to my senses, I was afraid that my mother would lose consciousness again. I answered: “Nothing, I’m calming down,” and she calmly left, not realizing that I had cut my thighs. Having lowered the leg, I see that 2 cuts have parted, and you can see the absolute structure and relief of the dense fatty layer, 10 centimeters long, 2 centimeters deep. I processed everything, hastily pulled off the wounds with a thick plaster, over time they healed.
Unfortunately, such cases only contributed to the development of my bulimia, as well as a huge inferiority complex.If it weren’t for my Vitya, I don’t know what could have happened to me next …
In the fall of 2019, on the Internet, on a dating site, I met a guy. He said he liked my eyes in the photo.
So that Vitya would not be surprised and not afraid of such relationships in my family, I slowly began to bring him, so to speak, up to date. She told me about what was happening and the desire to move soon, to leave this place, because living is simply unbearable.
We met. Then Vitya said that when he first saw me, he had tachycardia, which had never happened before, and that he followed me with his eyes until I disappeared around the corner. Then we met for the second time, the third, for the fourth time Vitya had already resolutely come to get acquainted with my parents, and on the same day he confronted them with the fact that he was taking me to live with him.
Grandfather reacted to this in cold blood: how is it that someone other than him commands in his house and makes decisions. He is a tyrant, but a tyrant to his grandchildren, not to his beloved son. By the way, my Vitya is somewhat similar to his grandfather. Maybe I subconsciously chose a similar man to my tyrant …
The rest of the family was also not against my departure.
I left for Mariupol. After a week of cohabitation, my brain did not understand: “but, how can it be so good, without quarrels, with understanding, respect?”.
Vitya is 8 years older than me, he has been working in the legal system for 10 years. He, like my dad, is alone in the family. At first, his mother was jealous of her son for me. At first we rented a separate apartment, then we lived at Vitya’s house.
He took me with my troubles and problems and “remade” me. With my Vitya, I felt protected, needed, loved. For a year and a half, my boyfriend spent the so-called “rehabilitation” of me, accustomed me to a fun, harmless, easy life, to the fact that they would no longer offend me, taught me to communicate with people, to often receive guests, which never happened in our house , to cheerful companies. I did not know how to communicate in companies, did not know how to receive guests. We never had them, only rarely did relatives visit for a short time.
We visited my parents every month, relations with them became good, my grandmother seemed to miss me, the long distance did its job.
Almost 3 years have passed since we met. During this time, I learned to laugh out loud, became cheerful, happy, caring, reverent, learned to give love and accept it, listen and hear, find a compromise, give and accept tenderness, I learned to accept and give strong support. On May 21, 2022, Vitya and I got married.And then a number of negative stories happened, because of which I ended up at the Institute of Child and Family Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Psychology, Medical and Psychosocial Rehabilitation…
At the beginning of summer, I found out that our big house was no more after the bombing… My family managed to evacuate from Maryinka, but after the shelling of the city with phosphorus bombs, only the walls remained of our house… I had a large library, now it is gone. Everything in our house burned down. Now I can’t register for unemployment because I don’t have documents. I was engaged in manicure for 5 years, there was a corresponding VIP-master certificate, which, alas, also burned down. I was proud that I received a certificate of a qualified specialist – a masseur with the right to work in the EU countries, which also burned down … It was very painful to look at the photo of the burnt house where I spent my childhood. But the worst thing happened to me…
For 5 years, Monty the cat lived with us, a Scottish Fold, a lop-eared Scot. And, although now is the ideal age for creating a complete family, we have not yet rushed with a child, he was replaced by Monty, whom Vitya and I raised from a kitten. I perceived the cat as a child, do not believe it, I wiped his ass with a napkin.
When we were evacuated from Mariupol to Dnipro, we were settled in a hostel here, together with the families of Vitya’s colleagues. My husband returned to a hot spot for work, and I was left alone in the hostel, with Monty. And on the night of July 10, I woke up from the fact that our cat meowed loudly and, trying to escape, scratched its paws on the edge of the windowsill.In front of my eyes, Monty fell down from the 7th floor of the hostel …
It is impossible to put into words what I experienced then. I, in what I was, ran downstairs, woke up the guard, jumped out onto the roof of the first floor, grabbed Monty. The way he looked at me… Even now, when I tell this, my heart starts to ache. Then I woke up my roommate, and together, with Monty in my arms, we ran to the veterinary clinic at about 2 am. In 15-20 minutes we reached the bottom of the street. The worker is almost up this street where the clinic is located. The doctor said: “There are no wheezing, so he will live.” I was very happy, but when we returned to the hostel, the cat began to rush around the room, blood bubbles came out of the nose, and I heard the cat wheezing … Monty died in front of me, I hated myself at that moment. When he died, he was two years and four months old.
I didn’t sleep or eat for 2 weeks. She reproached herself for leaving the window open that night, for the fact that if they had not come here, Monty would still be alive. Then I realized that I needed serious psychological help.
The doctors of the Institute are the only ones who did not refuse me the help that I urgently needed. I called several clinics, but no one took seriously my, at that time, huge problem – the death of a beloved cat.
They helped me a lot here. At the time of seeking medical help, I was like a match. At the Institute, they put me out, put out my aggression, now I have no neurosis, no obsessive thoughts, no self-rejection, I wa. At the Institute they extinguished me, extinguished my aggression, now I have no neurosis, no obsessive thoughts, no self-rejection, I want to joke, laugh, this is all the merit of the Institute staff. And, most importantly, without medication. The professor helped a lot psychologically, now I am “working through” myself, it seems to me that the cat, with his death, took all the negativity of my life upon himself. With Monty dead, it was like something bad had gone out of my life, like something had spilled out. Monty’s death is kind of mystical.
Vitya and I now have a better relationship than 3 years ago, when we met. He said: “I will do everything so that you do not cry.” We recently bought a new kitten, named Barney. And here it was not without mysticism – it turned out that this cat was born on the day of our wedding.
I cried at Monty’s grave, asked for forgiveness so that he would let me go, and said that we would definitely meet in 80 years … Vitya and I will erect a monument to our Monty at the pet cemetery in the Dnipro.
Thanks to the Institute of “Child and Family Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Psychology, Medical and Psychosocial Rehabilitation”, the effective treatment methods of Professor Rakhmanov V.M., the determination of my husband, his strong support, masculinity, firmness of character, I now do not remember the “past life” .
During the treatment at the Institute, I got rid of aggression, irascibility, obsessive thoughts, causeless fear, panic attacks, feelings of depression. I used to think that these were negative character traits, but these were neuroses that needed to be treated, “chopped from the root” so that they “did not grow”.Now the same story is being repeated with my sister Polya, it seems to me that she feels the same as me, she also needs to be here for treatment …
The most important thing is that already in 5 days of treatment I had a 68% improvement, obsessive bulimia disappeared, the source of which was neurosis, I got rid of the fear of gaining weight, aversion to food, obsessive thoughts about weight, got rid of what bothered me from 14 until the age of 23, I became more balanced. Of the 56 complaints I filed, more than half went away immediately. This is something I don’t think about anymore. This is a huge work of the Institute, they really helped me here, despite the fact that I am a big skeptic.
I want my story to be instructive for those who read this, so that parents understand that their children really need them in life. If you help a child at a transitional age, then his life in the future will be much easier. You must be able to speak openly, this is necessary when a teenager feels bad.