Ouroboros or the world inside out - страница 16

At night, I can satisfy hunger (I started leaving a snack for myself on the nightstand next to my bed) – anguish is controlled. During the day, I can be aware of anguish – overeating is controlled. It is important to satisfy hunger quickly as it arises and not to eat when it is not there. It is necessary to restore the natural physiological regulation of eating behavior, without the impurity of psychological compulsions.

This anguish I have described is characteristic of every ouroboric personality; it is related to the unattainability of illusory dreams and is expressed in varying degrees – some stronger, some weaker. Therefore, people, in an attempt to drown out this feeling, are in constant communication or work. Stopping this activity can exacerbate the anguish, leading to an inability to be alone, without a date, or on one's own. I believe I suffered from the most severe form of this anguish, as it likely first visited me immediately after birth, influencing the formation of all subsequent psychological reactions. This feeling was solidified after repeated, albeit unintentional, rejection by my mother, laying the foundation for a relentless search for a partner who would give me the kind of love that doesn't exist between adults.

I can't and don't want to blame my mom for not loving me – the situation at the birth center had nothing to do with her; it was the system. Sending me to my grandmother was not a desire to get rid of me. From my mother's point of view, nothing special happened; she took me to her mother because her academic and maternity leave was over, and she had to return to school. The fact that I was without my mother and her breast, taken to people unfamiliar to me at the time – my own grandparents – did not embarrass anyone; it was common practice. In those days, maternity leave was short, and children were often given to nurseries or relatives because everyone had to work. My father's parents, with whom the young family lived, also worked and could not take care of me.

I ended up not in a five-day nursery but with loving people, and my mom visited as often as she could. The grandmother I spent my childhood with was a wonderful woman. However, she had a big house, a piglet, a cow, a vegetable garden, and she sewed to order, so she physically could not give me as much attention as I needed. There was nothing supernaturally traumatic about my childhood. Nevertheless, what there was, was enough to keep my psyche frozen in an infantile ouroboric structure with all its complexities.

As a newborn, I could not understand the peculiarities of obstetrics in the country where I was born. From the warm «paradise» of the womb, having gone through the pain and fear of birth, I found myself alone for 10 hours (an infinitely long time, probably seeming like forever), in the cold (it used to be 36.6°C all the time), and probably hungry (though I was fed, it was not the same as feeding through the umbilical cord). Just as a nine-month-old, I could not regard being sent to my grandmother's house as self-care. In one day, both my mom and her breast disappeared, and I found myself among people I had never seen before. I certainly perceived it unequivocally – as rejection.

In fact, that dream about visiting the past was literal – to return to the present, to reality, you have to make a journey back to the beginning of life. To your mother.