Dared To Survive - Olya Mancuso

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I am everywhere.

      You see, Daddy raised up so high

      You were asleep, so you didn’t hear my cry

      I know, little girl, you would not have died

      If someone had only bothered

      To listen to you when you cried.

      I became dead before I was reborn. I could no longer handle being hurt, afraid, intimidated, and ashamed. I had no choice but to rise and live. I have seen hell. It was so painful and dreadful that my pain and sufferings forced me to become unbreakable. The only way to survive was to become unbreakable, and to learn to love myself.

      Sometimes, when you can no longer handle your life, bear your pain and loneliness, you become immortal, immune to anything. So, your time comes, and you set your spirit free and fly.

      As a child, I had begun to find comfort in cemeteries. It was humbling and peaceful. I would walk among the graveyards, and talk to the dead. Then, I would lie on their plot and rest among them. I would spend days there fantasizing that God will give me shelter there too.

      Uninhibited by a dread of graveyards, I played hide-and-seek among the tombstones, talking to them, and telling them about my pain. I loved to walk among the graves and look at the dates and words on the tombstones. I played a game, wondering what sort of life the person might have had.

      That’s the thing about life. It is fragile, precious, and unpredictable. Each day is a gift, not a given right.

      The cemetery was my comfort zone, a place where mother could not find or hurt me. So, I fell in love with its peace. I had never before felt such peace. I hadn’t known what peace was like. My house was a place of nonstop violence. Growing up, I feared living at home. I was petrified of my mother. I would hear her opening the door with the key and – no matter what I was doing – whether I was watching television, making food or talking on the phone, I would stop what I was doing and run. Then, I would sit in my room, waiting to hear and feel how her mood was.

      Had she had a good day? Did she have sad news about my criminal brother, Zhenya? If it was bad day or she’d received sad news, I knew the day was going to be bad for me and my Dad.

      I never used to run to her. But, I remember how, one day, she came home and I ran out to greet her. Her response: «Why are you svoloch (brute) running to me? Get out of my way?» It was the last day I ran to her.

      Mother used to belt me almost every day. She was creative. She used a variety of methods to physically punish me. Her physical punishments never ended. Every day, I was beaten. She used leather belts, plugs and anything she could find to beat me with.

      Again, I got used to it. I simply stopped feeling physical pain. It wasn’t the physical abuse that bothered me. I became used to it. It was the fact that she didn’t even bother to think about my needs. She seemed unaware that I had physical or emotional needs. I never got those warming hugs, that concern, that care that moms give to their children whenever their children are crying, feeling down or even when they make you proud. I never got reinforcements of my mother’s love for me. I was alone in my own troubled world.

      I never had the mother-bonding experience that I wanted. For so many years, I blamed myself. I cried because I wanted to feel that love. To this day, I still wonder what it would be like to be loved, cared for, and appreciated by a mother.

      A vivid memory has stayed with me. I always wanted to have long hair. But, mother dragged me to the hairdresser’s to have it cut short because she said I was an «ugly scum» anyway. Therefore, no hair style would make me look beautiful, she always explained. I did not belong. I wasn’t wanted. I wasn’t worthy of the same treatment from her as her son, Zhenya, received. She used every opportunity to let me know that Zhenya was her favorite.

      All my life, I have felt like the rest of the world is going to treat me the same as my mother did. So, I have kept to myself. I never learned how to socialize. I still to this day automatically assume that everybody is going to dislike and eventually mistreat me – especially verbally and emotionally. I can talk to guys. But, I find it hard to relate to women, even though I am a woman.

      Perhaps that is why I kept getting married to men who physically and emotionally abused me. I tolerated it because it was all I knew. I didn’t believe I deserved any better treatment. Being abused was a habit. It was better than being ignored.

      My Dad was never home. He was a military man, catching criminals and keeping a secret about my brother from the Communist party. As a party member, he lived in fear. You had to meet certain qualifications to be accepted. The Communist party was tough. Your new social network in the party gave you access to many benefits that non-party members wouldn’t have. This resulted in a mixture of jealousy and envy from those not in the party.

      The struggle for leadership was filled with feuding cliques, the competition brutal. The ambitious were always watching you, waiting for your failure so they could take your place. If they had found out about my brother’s criminal activities, my Dad would have lost his rank and his job forever.

      Dad was rarely home. He was often sent off to the states to work for months. So, mother often used to lock me up in the Reform (reformatory) School for girls and the orphanages where disabled or mentally disabled children were abandoned by parents who did not want them.

      There I was subjected – along with other girls – to a harsh and sadistic regime designed to break our spirits and install discipline. I always wanted her to know how much grief and pain she added to my life. But, she never allowed me to cry, complain or plead.

      I longed for my Dad. He was the only person who had ever shown me kindness and love. He was the only person in my childhood memories who loved me, who tried to protect me. He was probably the only reason I ever tried to become somebody, study hard, and survive.

      I was my mother’s sacrificial lamb until I married Alik, the first man who offered me a better life. This later destroyed me.

      It was the summer of 1981, in the Ukraine. I was six years old. I was terrified of my mother. She was always angry, hysterical and furious with Dad and me. She constantly yelled. She was preoccupied with my brother’s issues, his debts, and his efforts to pay them off that resulted in his criminal affairs.

      Zhenya was always in debt. He needed a lot of money to buy the good things in life: fancy clothes, expensive cars, food and women. These were things that most soviet people couldn’t afford – even those who worked.

      Whenever I was near my Mom, she got so angry. She hit me and pushed me over. I was always walking on egg shells, so afraid to be in her sight. She called me bad names and cursed me. I was petrified of her, dreading being in her sight.

      So, I often stayed under the bed hoping that she would forget about me. That provided only temporary safety. Aware of her violent outbursts and her hatred for me, whenever my Dad was home, he kept me near him. He made sure I was not out of his sight to prevent my mother from beating me.

      I was safe when he was home. But he was rarely home. As a military man, his work often took him away from home, out of our town. Some of my happiest memories are of him putting me to bed and telling me fairy tales in his soft voice. I drifted off to sleep feeling safe and loved and happy.

      «You are spoiling the evil bitch!» my mother would scream. «She does not need so much attention,» she complained, «Who is she? Your queen? You old fool. You are undermining me when I tell this spoiled bitch that we have problems with Zhenya and she needs to understand her mother is suffering and has

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