You think it doesn't hurt me

Journalist Yana Kuchina - about how tolerance to pain is brought up by the adoption of violence

For six months now, people in Russia have become cooked with the war. Someone emigrates, someone begins to support the state and divide people into their own and enemies, someone closes in himself and lives as if what is happening does not exist. But the everyday life of people has changed little: violence as it was a familiar environment, and remained. The journalist Yana Kuchina understands how tolerance to pain turns into tolerance for violence.

This is the third column of the cycle. The previous ones can be read from the links: “ I start with myself ”, “ Be patient, beloved ”

The author’s opinion may not coincide with the opinion of the editorial office.

Dad said: "Okay, let's take you a kitten."

I waited until I smile and present my kitten. That very, gray and fluffy. I played with him with Uncle Seryozha in the morning, but dad said: "No, do not even think."

“But first hit mom. Hit - there will be a kitten for you. "

I looked at my mother. Mom smiled. I looked at my hand. The hand was five years old. The hand was small, and my mother was big.

I hit, with my palm, with a light loud cotton.

Dad laughed, mom quickly got up and went to cry. I told her in the back: “Mom, well, I don’t hurt! Well, tell me that it doesn’t hurt! Dad, I don't hurt! ”

Dad laughed. He was pleased. Mom believed that I would never hit her, but he was right.

He joked about the kitten.

Then I cried for a long time, hiding in the pantry.

Mom seemed to me a traitor: she was crying, although she does not hurt; Crying, although we were at the same time: both wanted a kitten and could not persuade dad. Crying, although when she hits me in the classroom, when she teaches me, so that I will raise my legs above or try more, I do not cry. I believe that she "makes me better." The kitten is both better for us, so why couldn't she tolerate?

I also cried because my palm was sick. And the head was sick. And the stomach. And I was sad that I was not at all like my cheerful dad. And I will never have a kitten.

The legend of the skateboardist

Now my cosmetic bags and backpacks are stuffed with painkillers. I know that there is no need to endure pain, but still sometimes I do not accept them until someone nearby says: what the hell, Yana? I answer absently: but so far it is not enough for me. I can endure.

As a child, I hid plantainrs in my pockets, in sleeves and under socks. In reserve. Remember, the plantains of adolescence are best kept on the wound. The small ones are rapidly falling off or torn, the elderly - puff and tickle. Before leafing, it needs to be linked.

I sculpted them on the wounds, tied it with blades or laces, tape, with an island, just to “not drive home” for the fact that all the blood is again. Broken legs are ashamed. This means you went badly. It hurts - this is weakness. This means that other children at home will get that they played with you and you fell. Plantain stops blood in a few minutes, and the pain does not matter. If it hurts, my mother said, then everything is fine. If it still hurts, then you are alive.

I have cerebral paralysis. To put me on my feet, my mother was engaged in Soviet medical gymnastics with me, in terms of stretch marks multiplied by the great and ruthless ballet. It was almost always painful. From pain, it was thrown into the heat, then in the cold, tunnel vision appeared. When it was getting dark in my eyes, I said: "Enough." Mom nodded and pulled a little higher or straighter. Only this is “a little” and counts, she explained. Only the fact that you could "I can’t."

I said: "Yes, of course." After classes, the head was sick and dizzy. I went to face the couch face down, my mother said: “Do not lie. Get up, walk. Let the body remember how it is to walk with straight legs. ” The body remembered that walking was painful.

In the hospital, where I went to rehabilitation, there was a legend about a skateboarder.

There was such a boy, they said, he walked even worse than you. In general, one might say, crawled. On the half -bent. But he and his mother did not spare themselves, but worked. Mom put on the tutors for the night - such a removable gypsum that they do as if for your foot, but already straight - and he slept in them. Then his temperature rose from pain, right 39.9, rose right under 40, and then his mother unwinded him for half an hour. And when the temperature fell, he himself asked: "Mom, come on again." And she smashed him, because she knew that it was so necessary. And the boy knew. And a year later, he had completely even legs, and he walked completely imperceptibly. Don't you believe me? Then listen: he won the skateboard competition. Among the healthy, yeah.

And you cannot do the squats fifty times. And you pity her, mommy!

The skateboard, of course, finished off. It’s like if someone had learned to fly somewhere, jumping a hundred times. The history of the skateboarder has always been told in the edification: mothers were transferred to the children, and physical therapists to mothers so that they would not give a descent.

Over time, I began to snapping the storytellers: "Show that boy, he was unlikely to survive." I was sure that these were fiction, but when I was 16, I accidentally met him. Everything turned out to be true, even a skateboard.

Now I know why stretching pain was so unbearable that it brought to temperature and dark spots in my eyes. I had a brain injury, and spasts remained in the inheritance. Spasting is a breakdown. The spasts that they tried to defeat with ballet stretch marks is a permanent team from the brain to muscles to be reduced to the limit. It only increases from pain, because if the body hurts, it should strain and be ready to give a fight, escape from death. When spastic muscles are pulled, the pain is like that as if they are now torn. The body reflexively pulls the muscle in one direction, to become shorter, the alien hand in the other is to become longer.

Mom always said that in the classroom one should think about the movement, wide and smooth, so that the brain sought to him. I remember how I clung to the couch with my fingers and thought: this is mom, mother, mother, you can’t give back, you can’t break out, you have to hurt it, let me hurt, it hurts, it hurts.

Mom said: “The face should be relaxed with a half -smile. Do you like ballerinas? So we were taught in all classes. And imagine how I was! ”

Once I found documents with the date when they issued a disability. I was about two years old. I asked how much rehabilitation began: a year and seven months.

Mom, I say, in a year and seven months of children cannot be taught sand not to eat, how did you teach me to do gymnastics?

I did not teach, I forced, says mom. Yes, it hurt, but I could do even more painfully. And you understood everything, did everything, always. You were so smart.

I was so smart, and I was lucky with my mother.

My mother cried if I cried. And she cried, making me too painful.

I remember how I consoled myself on stretch marks, connected in tears and snot: my mother, who tightened the belts, worse. It hurts me, but she is worse.

I think this ultimately saved me. I remembered what it is possible to do others: for the sake of their good, health, for the sake of a kitten, a sweet cook with bones and fluff that will love you, even if you walk crookedly, you can. But it hurts, it is very painful for you.

The first dressing

I was 11 years old when I found out that from someone else's pain it is fun.

They did the next operation, strange in my knowledge today, but it seems that they did not want to be harmful to me then. Doctors lengthened the tendons: cut a piece, sewed it a little higher. At least, so they explained to me and my mother, the operation of the operation, shredding leaves in the cell. After the operation, it was necessary for three more weeks to lie in gypsum tutors from the hip to the ankle. I don’t know what would happen to normal rehabilitation, but in three weeks of immobility my muscles weakened, partially atrophied, and the spasts increased many times.

But I did not know anything of this, I waited like a fool, the promised ease of movements. I thought: I will send my mother to teach me dancing. A little. A little. A little bit, but I will try so much, with such a half-smile that there is not far from the machine.

On the operating table, a surgeon, a cheerful womanizer, love of the whole department, gently told me in the ear: “Do you know who I have always dreamed of being? Veterinarian. You cut the cats as you want. A cat was dead - and no responsibility! Well, come on. ”

I was naked, lay on the operating table with legs spread. I would be frightened to death - but anesthesia acted.

The first day after the operation was unbearable. I was lying, and tears rolled down my face. They rolled softly, because the vocal cords were strained to any sound, and behind them all the muscles in the body - and the place of cuts too. I anesthetized me every four hours: there were no two hours out of four hours, two hours out of four I wanted to go back to anesthesia.

On the second day, I realized how not to strain anything at all. If you don’t look anywhere and do not hear sharp sounds, you can relax for several minutes in pain. It became transmitted.

On the third day, they made me the first dressing.

You know, there are events that are recorded in life with the title letter. Here I have the first dressing.

The doctor who did it was so low, with narrow bones, almost feminine facial features. In the department, his name was a chick. He was a younger surgeon - I think he was about 30.

I was naked again. There were 40 centimeters of clean cut on my legs: two holes on one leg, two on the other. My legs were taken out of the gypsum, they laid me on the stomach, and the chick began to squeeze the liquid from the seams, which accumulated in them. He put two fingers and squeezed, as if bursting an air bubble inside each node.

I screamed.

Never in my life, neither before nor after, I did not scream like that. Help, help, mom, mother, mother, help me, why, for what, no, no, no, no, mother, mother!

I was sure that someone was holding mom, maybe even two people, or maybe three. That she will appear here, literally after a second, winning everyone.

I also thought that it would not be worse for me, but when they shifted me to my back, I saw that the chick was smiling. I saw on his face a pure, endless pleasure that I had not met before.

I shut up. He laughed.

He continued, at some point interrupted and asked: “What, no longer hurt?”

I could not answer, I was afraid to unclench my lips.

Everyone finished, tied me in a gypsum back, put me on a gurney, took me out. I saw that all the doors were open, and my mother was sitting alone on the chair and listened to how I called her. Cried.

I thought: "I must say something to console her."

I could not say anything. She put a small lilac-soem dog into my hands, with which I slept in intensive care.

I thought: “I am older than my mother. We must pull yourself together and say something. ” I said: "Everything is fine."

When they brought me to the ward, the chick said: “Tell the doctor (to him, that is) thanks.” I was silent. Tell. I was silent. “If you ask me well, I won’t do anything tomorrow, and if you don’t ask, I will.” I looked at my mother. She was silent.

And I - I am still ashamed of me - began to thank him and beg not to touch me. Please, I said, please, please.

Why didn’t you help me ask, I asked my mother later. The dressings are done in a day, my mother said, I knew that he would not do anything tomorrow. Why angry him once again.

Then my mother found out that the doctors had to give money so that they were anesthetized before dressing. The next dressing was made by another doctor, for money, it does not hurt at all.

Fly down

Alien pain still seemed sacred to me, its own stopped. It became a natural feeling, like hunger and thirst.

The swallow has no pain, the cat has no pain, the mommy has no pain, but Yanochka has healed. Everything that was bandaged is not considered.

Then his brother was born, with general prayers - healthy. Boy. I was disappointed: red, rough, does not know how, and everyone loves him. He does not know how, but everything will be able to. My brother loved me, I sometimes played with him. She humbly waited for him to grow up and would become interesting. Once he went. Once jumped, pulled himself up, resisted on one leg. It was not envious to me, but it seemed strange that all this was given to him, but I did not. It was easier to come to terms with the successes of other healthy children, and then the mind was soldering: the same mother, the same dad, the same room, the same palace under his feet - and then a crack was heard in my head, and I tried not to think anymore.

When he was two years old, he fell. And a bruise knee. No fracture, no blood, slightly sodar skin, to smooth pulp. This heals in two days as it was. He cried bitterly and called for help. Mom kissed him and rocked him, circled and wore in her arms. Looked in bed. When he refused to get on the legs, she again took him in her arms and wore it like that, passing either dad or grandmother, all day. I followed them, like attached. I looked at the bore and aimed brother and did not think about anything. I still remember an empty head and ringing in it, similar to the sound of a bell. The first time I felt hatred and did not know that it was her.

So exceptions began to appear in pain. Everyone should not hurt, but I can. Brother can. If not much, you can. (Everything that does not blood longer a couple of minutes is trifles.) Once my friend burst into tears, rushing a finger. She waited for me to regret it, I will smack her. I did this, but with difficulty, suppressing a wave of contempt.

Naturally, I thought that everything was in order with me, even better than in order. Difficulties, I thought, tempered me. I am strong. Yes, like that. I was proud that little could get me out of myself. Others seemed weak to me, children.

After an unsuccessful operation, I forgot how to walk on my own, without support. About five or six years I walked, relying on two canes and without raising my legs above the access step. I refused to believe that I am now slow, helpless, weak. I could not even force myself to leave the house, laying twice as much time: everyone reaches Pushkin Street in half an hour, which means I can.

Naturally, I was late everywhere. The canes slid on ice and dirt, stuck in the snow, they were taken away by the children, teasing. I walked, as my mother taught, with a half -smile. Once there was heavy snowfall and snowdrifts were to my waist. I went to the tutor through a small field, usually there was about five minutes there. There was a good, hard path, but narrow, with the expectation of a person. I was four -legged. I could not go without canes, I did not fit on the path. Over and over again, they fell into snowdrifts, I pulled them towards myself, almost falling. Mom was a seven minutes walk, led a dance lesson. To call her and ask for help seemed shame. Weakness. In the end, the cane fell into the snow so deeply that I fell after her.

At first I was not afraid. Since childhood, I played in the snow, built fortresses, rode from the mountains. I could not accept that everything had changed. Strange snow, I thought. Like concrete, liquid concrete. My legs practically did not move, although I twitched like an animal, violently, with all my might. Soon I should have caught up with my classmates who would go this road in an hour. And they will see how I am sitting here in the snow. What a shame, I thought, feeling my underpants get wet. What a shame. Better to die.

The clearing where I floundered was at the top of a small hill, the place where I needed was at the foot. There was a passing part at the foot, but it was not visible from my point. I threw the cane down with one throw, and, listening to whether there were cars, crawled out to the edge. And then she threw herself down from the hill, along with her unsuccessful legs. I didn’t even bother to cover my face with my hands.

Later, when I sat on the curb, not feeling icy arms and legs, I thought: what did I do? And if the car? And at the same time, I felt relief. As if I was able to punish myself for not being able to get out of the snowdrift, and you can forgive myself for it. Until the next "weakness".

Today I think a lot about the overall tolerance to violence. I understand that everyone has a different level of knowledge, different horizons, different access to information. I still remember how I arrived in my hometown of a student and my peers, 20-year-old people, began to prove to me that the search on VKontakte is a search on the Internet. What is not there - it does not exist. Meanwhile, they were pushing me at the university that the search in the same language is unreliable, that it is necessary to drive in requests from different IP and so on. I understand that many people, for their reasons, were helpless before propaganda and now the world in their head is built up with chemical weapons laboratories, and the US nuclear missiles look right out the window of their kitchen somewhere in Ryazan.

But all this knowledge would not lead to the adoption of war, genocide, if there were no adoption of violence in society as a permitted norm. For example, violence, which is understandable to someone the eldest, is not necessary for you. Violence for the goal. The violence for the feeling that you are strong. That you are well done.

And it seems, of course, that what is happening in the world, and what is happening in the apartment with a carpet on the wall and cups in pea in a sideboard is very different things, but in essence they are one thing. A crime against love and humanity. A person wants something, having crossed another.

The dog is trembling

I went with a visiting palliative service for small villages somewhere in the taiga. Giant pines, azure-blue sky and frost is 35 degrees. The houses were heated by stoves, in every house we pressed our hands and cheeks to hot stoves, breathed, warmed up. The locals chuckled, the kids crawled along the ice floors in their underpants. They rarely saw the doctors there, my guys in one corner watched a palliative child, and in the other - a whimpering grandmother. In the evening of the second day, we came to the apartment, rich, by local standards, with heating and water supply.

The neurologist examined the girl with a severe form of cerebral paralysis. The girl was 13 years old. She did not speak, sat with support, crawled on the floor. The neurologist prescribed corsets and tutors to keep her legs from deformations for two hours a day.

Ну уж нет, сказала мама, я ее привяжу как следует, чтобы ноги у нас были прямыми. Будет в них жить.

И вот, все назначения сделаны, мы собрались уходить.

Подождите-ка, сказала мама. Постойте, вы же главного не сказали. Когда она начнет ходить, в каком возрасте? Не факт, что у нее получится ходить, мягко сказали мы. Но можно через фонд купить хорошую инвалидную коляску и кресло с опорой, чтобы ей было удобно сидеть, заниматься в школе. Она ходит в школу?

Нет, сказала мама, так не пойдет. Сейчас я вам покажу, она у меня стоит, я ее научила. Из соседней комнаты она выволокла вертикализатор — железный тренажер с опорами и ремнями, который фиксирует человека на ногах, даже если сам он стоять не может. И вот она ставит ее в эти опоры, изо всех сил затягивая ремни. Девочка выпрямляется с трудом, ее корпус согнут почти под прямым углом, а ноги сведены коленка к коленке так сильно, что между бедрами с трудом пролезает ладонь. Мама протискивает туда ремень и затягивает как можно туже, ремень врезается в промежность.

Девочка висит в ремнях, опустив голову, и стонет. Слезы ее такие крупные, что видно, как они летят на пол. Не ленись, говорит мама, покажи, как ты умеешь.

Не надо, говорит невролог, мы вам верим, вытащите ее.

Сначала скажите, когда она пойдет. А ты стой, учись!

Я села перед ней на колени и начала умолять. Пожалуйста, отвяжите ее. Ей нельзя стоять так, спастика слишком сильная, от боли она усиливается, ей с каждой секундой все больнее, отпустите ее, прошу вас. Мы верим, что вы занимаетесь и не ленитесь. True, true.

Она рывком расслабляет ремни и девочка падает на пол. I get up.

I'm crying. Девочка подползает ко мне по полу и гладит ладонью мои ноги. Благодарит.

Ее мама начинает задыхаться.

И тут дверь открывается, и в комнату влетает крошечная собака, терьер. Она вылизывает лицо девочке и заскакивает на руки ее маме, прижимается к ней всем телом, дрожит. Лижет, лижет, лижет ее лицо — и она снова начинает дышать.

Разрешает дочке смотреть мультики. Провожает нас до двери.

Почему они не понимают, что детям не должно быть больно, рыдаю я. Никому не должно, никому. Совсем забыв, что и сама не всегда это понимаю.

Янка-обезьянка

Годы прошли с моего детства.

Я выросла, мама выросла. Брат вырос. Вырос в огромного кота котенок, которого мой папа однажды завел себе, чтобы кто-то его любил и целовал язычком в уши.

Мама переболела ковидом, с трудом оправилась. Я приехала в гости и увидела, как тяжело ей ходить, как больно нагибаться. Как она переносит вес на руки, осторожно опускается на колено, морщится, опускается на другое. Заглядывает под диван, что-то ищет.

Я и то быстрее, думаю я. Мне смешно, мне весело! Наконец-то, думаю я, она поймет, каково мне было.

А я бы сейчас ей тоже крикнула: «Сама вставай, не держись руками! Ты не обезьянка!».

Как бы ей это понравилось, а.

И тут я сама себя боюсь. И останавливаю. Кроме меня самой, никто меня не остановит.