Fire Smoldering Under Water

I used to make an agreement with the train driver and asked him to apply the so-called slow speed before the train reached the final station. And at a low speed of 20 kilometers per hour I just threw the bags with the cans of caviar on to the platform of the intermediate station that we were passing. And then I jumped myself.

– And the train kept moving? – Jean Batist was surprised.

– Of course, it kept moving! This was the whole point of the trick, – Anastasia laughed. – Yes, I used to jump from a moving train after throwing my bags. This was the only chance to avoid police cordons at the final railway station. After that I carried this caviar to several Moscow restaurants, with which prior arrangements had been made. I used to work like this.

Six months later, when I turned 19, I bought my first apartment. Only people who had no fear and with a propensity for risky ventures could survive at that time. Of course, I am not an obvious risk taker, but there is more than enough romanticism in me, – Anastasia smiled and continued.

And certainly, all this greatly influenced my subsequent choice of profession.

I have survived in the criminal environment, but I have not become the same as them.

I have entered their world, took what I needed and went away without looking back.

Later I began studying the psychology of a criminal, and my diploma at the institute was on this subject. Then it became obvious that I could solve complicated problems and could work with traumas. You know that sometimes this requires softness and sometimes extreme hardness. Over the years some professional pattern has been formed. But I chose an individual style of communicating with every person. Once my client called me a surgeon. He said that I had cut off his soul pain and sewed on a joy of life. I liked this metaphor.

Probably a work with a psychological trauma and its consequences can be acknowledged as a surgery in its essence. The existential manifestation of neurosurgery is a psychosurgery. Psychologist-surgeon opens the door to his office with a firm belief: we will cut off everything which is not necessary and will sew on everything which is needed.

There is an issue of anesthesia.

Sometimes it is contraindicative. And until a person goes through the whole event, which has caused the trauma, “right here and right now”, with the help of a specialist, they will not be able to get rid of it. But in most cases the anesthesia does work, a person drifts into a trans state and comfortably watches, by means of the inner vision, the images, which are born by unconsciousness through the imagination in response to the properly chosen words of the professional, who knows how and what to say to this particular person.

High quality psychotherapy can only be exclusive.

This is the first principle.

Sometimes, surgery has to be cruel. Because the patient has already learned how to live in pain and suffering after trauma. This has become more interesting for them. They continue to hold onto their negative memories. They feed their Egos. As well as their Alter Egos.

To the fullest.

Although by that moment there is already that stage of fatness, which does not allow them to move actively in the corners of their own consciousness.

And it is important to note that this is not a fast food. This is a special diet. Sufferings are fed with special viands of author’s cuisine.

For breakfast they usually prefer powerlessness plentifully seasoned with apathy. For lunch they serve a rare done uselessness and a fricassee out of the feeling of guilt. Dinner – as desired and to the one’s abilities. If with alcohol – anger is ideal as an aperitif and loneliness – as a digestive.

And voila!

Diet called “pseudo-depression” – at your service. Exactly like this. Because, as we know, depression is a psychiatric term meaning a mental pathology.

But people love this word so much! They really like to vibrate the space with the set of these letters: deepresssiiionnn…

Between their own immorality and stupidity.

All these daily regimes and diets give importance to a trivial way of existence. They create a so-called “secondary gain” – a kind of unconscious advantage obtained as the result of destruction, giving up on which would lead to a loss of any benefits for justifying your own laziness, lack of initiative and lack of discipline.

– What do you mean by that? – specified Jean Batist.

– I will explain it now. I will explain everything, which, in my opinion, is related to fundamental principles, – and Anastasia continued.

Laziness is an absolute evil. To overcome laziness one would need motivation, willpower and commitment to action. Problems begin when it becomes easier for a person not to think about this and to just live as a vegetable.

Lack of initiative is a failure to express individuality. Individuality can be expressed through a positive and creative action. But there is an obstacle of the behavioral strategy of “avoiding failures”, fears, low self-esteem and an external locus of control, when a person finds the cause of all the problems only in other people and in the prevailing circumstances. And this is irresponsibility.

And this is also a manifestation of a form of vegetative existence.

Laxity is a generally unacceptable format of livelihood. Laxity – this is about scrambled eggs and tomatoes: only the right tomatoes provide scrambled eggs with laxity. Laxity of tomatoes makes scrambled eggs lax. And what can be more tasty than lax scrambled eggs? But this is now about cooking, not about psychology.

We are what we believe in and what we do.

To be happy and to live a full life you have to be a fanatic. As defined in the dictionaries, fanaticism has only a negative meaning. Therefore, at the proper time I wrote a thesis on human subjectivity. The absolute faith mentioned there, inherent in fanaticism, had found its reflection in a form, which was more acceptable to the society. So, subjectivity is a person’s ability to creatively change internal and external reality. And to do it with a fanatic faith. Into their own mission.

Anastasia asked Jean Batist to open the window. The smell of blossoming jasmine flew into the room, and light coolness moved the air, echoing in the fireplace.

Anastasia was always glad to be a psychologist, not a psychiatrist. At a first consultation most of the people, who were her clients, showed one or another degree of insanity. From the existential point of view. What they did with their own lives, could not be defined in any other terms. In most cases these strange structures of destiny were based on the foundation of stupidity. Anastasia named it the eighth sin. It was followed by a weakness of spirit and a miserable existence thanks to that particular secondary gain. After them proudly marched the problem of the Ego – being either highly over-assessed or put below the groundwater level.

In many cases people successfully create their own problems themselves. And in this state, split into atoms, they come to the point, beyond which there is an abyss of despair. Sincerely blaming external factors for what happened to them. This generates a conclusion about the grounds, on which the foundation for the building named a “Problem” has been built.

The name for these grounds is “Irresponsibility”. Perhaps, if people were brought up bearing responsibility for their own lives, psychologists would have lost half of their clients.

But this is utopia.

In reality at their first appointment people show a certain degree of insanity, as they come to a psychologist for a magic pill. You take a magic pill – and there is no problem. Clients always look for a specialist’s reaction. For a support or for a condemnation, whatever one needs more. Anastasia always provided her clients with a feedback. But she gave them something, what they were not ready for. The thing was that at the beginning they just did not know how crazy she was herself…

Anastasia looked at Jean Batist, whose eyes reflected the glow of the fire in the fireplace. Jean Batist watched the burning wood, being somehow faraway, as if he was thinking about something. But, as soon as Anastasia stopped talking, he intertwined his fingers and said:

– Anastasia, as a psychiatrist, I can agree with much of what you said.

But.

The fact is that in my work I pay more attention to the psychotherapy itself. Morality and ethics, which occupy a special place in your skill of a psychologist, are secondary for me. In your case there is, probably, a complex of your individuality, which includes certain features of personality and character, isn’t it?

– Of course, Jean Batist, – Anastasia decided to clarify the issue. – One day I was getting hired by an outstanding scientist. He had developed a unique method, which allowed identifying a personality profile. We talked in the office, where I had been invited, and then we stepped out for a smoke. He briefly informed me on the results of my testing.

– It is quite curious. Your level of intelligence and responsibility are diametrically opposite to the level of conformity and anxiety. Plus accentuations. You have extremely high peaks on the schizoid and paranoiac scale. – After that he folded his hands in a pose of a smoking thinker and waited intently. I transformed my answer into a common language form:

– Yes, certainly, intelligent, extremely responsible, absolutely indifferent to a public opinion, atrophied sense of fear. Now about accentuations. Creativity is over-the-top, I can synthesize anything and everything. When I see a goal, I am turning into a self-guided warhead and move towards the goal in the multidimensional space, which excludes any obstacles as a phenomenon.

We simultaneously flipped the ashes off our cigarettes into a freshly washed ashtray. And I got the job. 4 years later I had defended my thesis on accentuants in psychological development of successful people, as well as proved that to be successful, one would need the same qualities that I had got. I had found these qualities in the group of respondents, consisted of more than 3 thousand successful people.

This had become one of my funniest entertainments with the social medium.

The social medium never understood that.

But for me its opinion was deeply indifferent. Having bent the system till the required curvature, I managed to defend my thesis using my intellect. Unlike most of the other candidates for a degree, who did not have enough intellect. But they had a status and financial resources, which provided opportunities for getting a diploma of a scientific degree.

People played a huge role in my life. I was very lucky with my teachers. They managed to stand up for my defence of the thesis. For that I am grateful for life to my thesis advisers as well as to certain scientists of the department, who are of really great spirit, heart and morality.

Coming back to traumas, I would like to say that the highest award to a psychologist for his way of life is a well-being of clients. When I manage to get a day off, there is a habitual joke among my friends: “So what, have you operated everybody again?” It means that somebody has got something cut off, something sewed on, rehabilitation went well. Because the psychologist, who works with traumas, has to be a surgeon. And then a person gets out of trauma-prison to freedom with a clean conscience and untainted mind.

Also important is what the one, who cut off and sew on, has once gone through. It is my profound conviction that working with trauma is similar to diving or mounting climbing. It is difficult to teach how to dive or how to climb a mountain being a theorist. Of course, it is possible to give a lot of statistically average recommendations. But trauma is a specific experience of going through. It is a special type of therapy where theory is not enough. Often it looks as follows:

– What did not kill me, will not kill you as well. You came for this, you wanted to hear this, didn’t you? – I usually ask in different forms a person who came to see me on a recommendation. And the person realizes, that if somebody has already gone through this situation, it means that he also has a chance.

Probably a work with a psychological trauma and its consequences can be acknowledged as a surgery in its essence. An existential psychosurgery. When a specialist has his or her own experience of diving and mountain climbing, the therapy process obtains a shade of guidance. The guide’s image participates in the professional dissociation of a psychologist-surgeon as a fragile fabric, woven from a subjective objectivity, embroidered with gold threads of unconditional love.

This I would like to clarify, so that you do not get any illusions.

In their lives psychologists-surgeons are strongly pronounced misanthropes.

And I am no exception.

I sincerely do not like mankind as a species. It is hard to imagine a more stupid, deceitful and unholy expression of life. But the Supreme Being is merciful, and more often I work with the exceptions. And I help them.

Others – I do not help.

Yes, yes, Jean Batist, do not be surprised.

I choose with whom to work and with whom not.

But the main point has to be clarified. I do not blame. But I do not accept.

This is my second principle.

And this, in my opinion, is the basis of success and quality in work.

For example, I refuse to help a person if he is a pedophile. Or a sadist. Or evokes my rejection for any other reason. This is what happens when you walk past an open manhole, and you know for sure that the key word is “past”.

I refuse to help those. Politely but categorically. Because I have my own values, which I collected throughout my whole life. And now I construct any therapy building on this particular foundation.

For the sake of a successful therapy.

For making a person free.

For securing the psychologist.

The deep part of the foundation consists of a sense of respect. It is necessary to respect a patient.

It is more complicated with regards to the surface of the foundation. Psychologists should work on the border of the vectors of moral and ethical perceptions. Of their own, as well as of their clients’ perceptions. Figuratively, in the case of a psychologist it is like a huge mirror-like hand fan reflecting a rainbow. Reflected in this mirror-like hand fan are thousands of shades of morality and ethics acceptable for them. And the client has only one perception. Well, sometimes there may be several shades. Because clients do not need more. They have their life, experience, education, conditions that determine their existence. And if the client’s view of the world is reflected in the huge mirror-like hand fan of the psychologist, then the therapy will be successful.

In other case – it is just a business.

Or a fraud.

Or a crime.

Or a mental disorder of the specialist.

But not a psychotherapy, which, in my opinion, means a soul’s rehabilitation. Do you understand what I am talking about?

Anastasia looked at Jean Batist and once again reflected the inner light coming from the depths of his heart. He smiled back.

– Jean, what do you think of psychotherapy as a psychiatrist?

– Anastasia, I will certainly tell you about it. When talking about my own trauma. But not now. Because you began talking about yourself. And I want you to continue. – Jean talked a little slow, but almost without an accent. After all, his student years spent at the Russian Peoples’ Friendship University have left in Jean Batist an imprint of a blade wrapped around by a snake as well as a Cyrillic engraving. He had become an excellent psychotherapist with a good command of Russian language.

– OK, Jean. But being a gentleman, will you give me some preferences? I just have not one, but several traumas, which I could tell you about.

– Of course, – Jean laughed and shook his head. You are a woman. Moreover, you are a Russian woman. A Russian woman who is a psychologist-surgeon! Oh! I want details!

They laughed, and it got lighter near the fireplace.

– Then I will tell you the first story, which happened to me at the time when I was especially happy…

Anastasia looked into the cup with cappuccino. The drink was perfectly ready for use. I wish everybody has a motivation like this, she thought.

The smell of coffee and cinnamon was stopping the time, and Anastasia, warming her hands in the embrace of porcelain, wondered what to begin with…

Chapter 2. Angel’s Death

Goldfish Broth

Jean Batist smiled with his cautious smile, poured himself some tea and began to listen to Anastasia carefully.

– What a great meaning has the ritual of sharing food and thirst quenching. As if we not only feed the stomach, but also add some special spice to the soul food. It seems that we not only quench thirst, but also slowly and with pleasure fill with a bracer the vessel of the mind. We can call this a repast, compiled from the temporal and the eternal. This kind of lunch is only possible when the interlocutors are free from the most widespread evil – stupidity. And stupidity is a human evil, eighth sin, I am deeply convinced of that, – Anastasia put her fingers around the porcelain cup and, responding to Jean Batist’s expectations, proceeded with her story.

Fateful nuances comprise our reality like the sand makes up the ocean coast. For example, today, when she decided to talk of a trauma in psychotherapy, an interesting awareness had occurred to her. Anastasia recalled the date, which she usually did not recollect. Almost 13 years ago, on November 20, 2003 she lay on a hospital bed, waiting.

She waited, unable to change anything.

She had waited for two days in a row.

Waited for her child to die.

Her little boy. Her Mishenka.

To die inside her.

To die in her.

And this had brought the understanding that she was dying together with him.

And probably no one would believe, but she had died.

This was an absolute, hundred percent death. Her physical body lay somewhere. Somebody took care of it. Her family. Her mother, husband, friends. Thus she was told afterwards. They told her the same way, as usually a person with amnesia is told. But she herself almost did not remember that time. Probably her Guardian Angel practiced in painting and at some point decided to master the technique of pencil drawing. And in graphic arts curved lines should be periodically erased.

Absurdity of the situation had brought such a compilation of emotions and feelings, that to Anastasia, who was a psychologist at the moment, not yet a surgeon, but already a great experimenter, all this seemed to be a bad dream. Viscous, stifling nightmare as it happens sometimes when you cannot wake up.

Because just yesterday she had been brought by the ambulance to the hospital and was told that her waters had started to break. But, despite such period of pregnancy – 6.5 months – nobody would try to change anything.

Thus she was told.

Nobody would.

Because, from their point of view, the term was too small. The chances that a child could be born alive, in their opinion, also were too small. And anyway, why did she bother them with some stupid junk and diverted the whole medical team from celebrating the anniversary of their best gynecologist. They had got a table set there. Vodka was getting warm. And you, girl, has to hang on, it happens like this. You already have a child.

So. It means that you are lucky.

Others have not got even this.

Everything was happening in such an unreal world, that she took a sharp pain when breathing in and lost her mind when breathing out. She kept breathing this way, filling every cell of her body, spirit and mind with a painful insanity.

It all happened too fast. Just last morning she woke up in an excellent mood. Her caring husband had got their daughter to stay for a while with his mother, who lived in the next building, and went to his work. Anastasia went to the kitchen and came close to the window. She always liked to look through the window.

Outside autumn was getting weird.

On the bank of the river, which flowed under the window, reeds competed with fallen poplar leaves. The reeds tried to show up against the background of already dimming water with a row of brown cobs. It provided a contrast to a slate-gray shade of the river water. The river, in gratitude, added some more profound shades of mercury in the slate-gray color. The leaves of the poplars, sparsely growing along the river bank, were carried away by the breath of the autumn wind and tried to get into water. Their pale yellow worthlessness enlivened the landscape in the most paradoxical way.

Looking into this autumn river-filled November, she wanted to wrap herself up in a plaid and to fall asleep. Till spring. To hibernate for the whole winter as a she-bear. To wake up in spring, give birth to her bear cub and begin living. It would be then, when her Mishenka was born, that the happiness would become absolute and obtain some universal scale.

How else could it be? As so much was already in place for that.

She had a beloved husband, the second one, which meant that with him they should definitely live long, happily and the covers of their coffins would be nailed with one and the same nail. Because with so much love people not only live happily ever after, but also die in one day. This was an obligatory condition.

Her beloved daughter, clever, beautiful, her small panther’s kitten with the name of a goddess, her Diana. Her first husband’s appearance, who looked very much like Steven Seagal, was reflected in Diana by its best features. She was tall, with long, coal-black hair; beautiful, dark hazel, almost black eyes, with ideal face features and a slender figure – Anastasia new that she was growing to be a beauty and a clever girl. With a very kind heart and a delicately organized soul. She was excellent in her studies, was a winner of academic competitions. Kind, sensitive, delicate in her attitude to and her perception of the world, like a crystal bell. What else could a mother dream of?

And her mother dreamed of a brother for her wonderful little daughter. The power of her each previous dreaming was so strong, that all the dreams came true. Every objective had usually been achieved. The desire reigned over the achievement of the goal. So this time also the understanding of her own forcefulness continued to cultivate a selective form of vanity and pride.

She got a great temptation – to feel herself as God…

But Life and Death – are God’s Providence. And this had become her first doze of pure medical alcohol, drunk to the bottom from the Holy Grail, at a long rest break on the scenic road of the psychotherapy skills…

…It was a night. The hospital walls had become saturated with sufferings and lost their distinctness. It had been 12 hours already, during which the smell of insanity accrued and became stronger. An animal fear was spreading in her chest and stomach, mixed with the pain of the increasing intensity of the labor. She was in pain.

It was so much pain that she wanted to scream.

The doctor on duty was sitting in the staff room, drinking vodka with other participants and colleagues of the hero of the anniversary. He had waved aside the request for alleviation of pain and with a poorly controlled tongue mumbled something about the damage caused by an anesthetization. And had not even bothered to give just a pill. Just any pill. Even a placebo.

Anastasia went out into the corridor, to the stairs, where it was allowed to smoke, taking out of the pocket of the hospital gown her cigarettes and a memo pad. They did not give painkillers here. But they did not prohibit smoking in a stairwell. Nobody cared about anything here.

Well, at least she got something.

She did not manage to light up a cigarette right away – her hands had already ceased to obey, and they quivered, reflecting the internal tremor of her consciousness. She wanted so much to write something. Her soul demanded a catharsis. Just a small but tangible proof that her mind was still fighting for the adequate perception of reality.

Outside the window the first snow fell. This was early for the end of November in a southern city. If snow ever fell here, it was likely to happen in the middle of winter, or even closer to its end. The snow was scanty, as were the colors of this last autumn month. But it was there.