Portraits of Russia: Polina, psychologist

To cope with her own psychological trauma, Polina decided to become a professional psychologist. Today she lives in St. Petersburg and counsels difficult teenagers, victims of domestic violence, treats drug addicts, and in her free time she hitchhikes and plays in the theater. According to the girl, all this helps her find peace of mind and get rid of personal complexes and fears acquired in childhood.

About childhood, childhood traumas and choice of profession

I had my own traumatic experiences as a child. I wanted to get rid of it and that's why I became interested in psychology. Most psychologists, by the way, choose their profession this way. I know how to capture the emotions of others well, since I myself have experienced a lot and know how it happens. And I wanted to help people somehow.

My parents met on the Solovetsky Islands - it used to be fashionable to go there to work as volunteers and restore the monastery. But I almost didn’t live there. We lived in Arkhangelsk for a while and then moved around a lot; I finished school in Kirov. I had the illusion of a good family - my father worked as a journalist, at one time he even received the Golden Pen award, but he drank heavily. Mom managed to hide it carefully. He always went to work, everyone thought “a normal guy, normal children, a normal family.” But one did not interfere with the other...

Because of family problems, I was very quiet and downtrodden at school, constantly blending in with the wall, looking at everyone from my corner. They never asked me verbally, since I was silent anyway. But then I turned 16, and I thought it was time to change something. First of all, I went to a theater studio - I was looking for a place where they would teach me not to be afraid of people. There they really taught me how to speak and smile. Suddenly I started going to the board and getting A's.

While everyone at school was listening to cassettes, I was listening to the radio, since I didn’t have money for cassettes. One day I was very impressed by the song “Chizha” about bells in my hair and came to school with a bell. At that time, I really liked one girl, Ksyusha - she was also quiet, and I felt some kind of spiritual kinship with her - but I was afraid to approach her. And so I come to school with a bell, and this Ksyusha comes up to me. She turned out to be a hippie and responded to the bell. I return home, go to the library, find a book about subcultures, look for hippies - I identified them, read how to behave, learned the entire dictionary. A couple of days later, looking normal, I come to the school library, where Ksyusha’s friends, Beatlemaniacs, gathered on Thursdays. They say: "Who are you?" And I: “Well, you know, such conventions as name and age don’t really matter...” And I immediately became one of my own.

About hitchhiking and retraumatization

Thanks to Ksyusha, I started hitchhiking. We were sitting in class one day, and she whispered: “Today is the Aquarium concert, shall we go?” We leave English, go to the bus stop, and suddenly she says to me: “I didn’t tell you, but it’s not in the city.” As a result, we hitchhike 25 km.

During this first trip in my life, I learned all the basic rules of hitchhiking: that you should always sit at the door (if something goes wrong, you open the door and get out), that if you don’t like the driver, say that you feel sick and ask to stop car. And one more no less excellent rule - do not talk with the driver about football, politics or music - you may not agree on tastes. Well, you shouldn’t say right away where you’re going, it’s better to say “in such and such a direction.”

After the first trip, I realized that my main task as a passenger was to chat non-stop. Truckers, as a rule, therefore hire stoppers to entertain them with conversations and not let them fall asleep.

And then I started traveling alone and anywhere. Hitchhiking has become an alternative training for me in communicating with strangers. There were, of course, unpleasant situations. One time, the driver put my friend and I in the car, locked the doors and began to engage in self-satisfaction while driving and ask some other questions so that they would pay attention to him. I couldn’t stand it and said: “That’s it, we’ve arrived.” He lets us out and goes off into the bushes, where he remains for some time.

There were also direct offers, but I said: “Sorry, I’m not interested, I’m married.” The most interesting thing is that in the city I don’t even get into a taxi alone and don’t go into an elevator with strangers. This is what I'm afraid of.

Why am I doing all this? Maybe I’m trying to do some kind of retrauma for myself. Let's say there was a girl, her dad got drunk and beat her badly - a traumatic situation occurred for which she was absolutely unprepared. Now this girl doesn’t trust people, expects a dirty trick from them, and she herself tries to get into circumstances where such a situation could happen again - so that this time she can be prepared for it: “I had a bad experience, I need to go through it again in order to since everything ended well."

About "Rainbow" and group therapy

In the summer, hippies go to the Rainbow, a secret festival just for their own people, which takes place in a new location every year. My first “Rainbow” was in 2004 in the Pskov region - I received the card purely by chance from some hitchhikers whom I met on another trip. I was 21 years old then. Many people at that age have already finished going there, but I just started - I finished my second year, quit my job and went completely alone.

“Rainbow” is the same group therapy, only instead of 12 people there are 700. Everyone gathers in one clearing, holds hands and chants the “OM” mantra. And you feel how your whole body is filled with this powerful energy. Everyone there is like one family - some girls are standing, flares are spinning, someone is dancing, everyone is kind, everyone is friendly. But now there are a lot of drugs there, and I don’t go there anymore.

About working with children

Initially, I worked at a social center for helping families and children. Working with children is generally more interesting than working with adults. Mostly children from disadvantaged families were brought there. Many have “dependent” parents. As a rule, it is very difficult for such children to express their feelings. They do not know how to recognize them and often sit on an emotional swing - either boundless euphoria or hopeless depression. And anything in between - excitement, anxiety, slight trepidation - is already difficult for them. Many of them disguise their problems very well - they are excellent students at school, do everything, go to all sections, enter universities - this is all in order to protect the image of their family. There are clown children who amuse everyone - a very common case: if dad comes home drunk, you need to immediately relieve the tension, otherwise he will beat mom. There are also lost children who hide all the time, know how to blend into the wall, they are neither seen nor heard. Again, this is done in order to somehow protect yourself. And finally, the so-called “difficult children” - they serve as a lightning rod in the family. Dad can blame everything on his son: “I don’t bother anyone, but my son is a bully. And his mother is sick because of him.” They are really great guys - they bring the problem to the surface. But when a child develops such an aggressive form of protest, it means that everything is completely bad in the family.

At the help center we talked with them, played, and drew. Everything was basically done through the game. I had “non-contact” once - a four-year-old girl came in, post-divorce, very traumatized. She was very afraid of me, refused to go into the office without my mother, and never said anything to me. Apparently they had a hard time getting divorced...

There was one 14-year-old girl who was severely beaten by her stepfather. Her class teacher brought her to us. Moreover, I would not be surprised if he not only beat her... But children rarely tell anything themselves. In such cases, we contact the guardianship authorities and say: “Did you go there? Please go.” But, as a rule, they don’t go: guardianship goes only to places where things aren’t so bad, and where there’s real trouble in the family, they don’t stick their noses in there—they’re afraid.

Once I wanted to adopt a child myself, everything was so bad. When we met, this girl was 12 years old. There were two sisters - their mother could lock them in a wooden house in winter and go away drinking for several days or weeks. And these two little girls (one was three then, the other one and a half) somehow managed to survive - they ate raw potatoes. Then the girls were finally taken to an orphanage; the eldest soon turned six - a distant relative took her under the wing. So the girl ended up in St. Petersburg. She had problems with her health and vision, and at some point a relative realized that she couldn’t cope and sent her back to the orphanage. This is probably the most terrible story in my experience. The girl had very little trust in the world, and now, I suspect, she has none left at all.

After all this, I’m very scared to have my own children - I’m scared to be a bad parent. I've seen enough of them. I don’t know how to educate correctly, I only know how to educate incorrectly.

About working with drug addicts

Then I started working with adults in a drug treatment clinic. Essentially, these are the same children - stuck at the age when they started using. I conducted group therapy - in general, addiction is always treated only in a group, there you need a lot of support, since a breakdown is almost inevitable.

Most often, relatives bring drug addicts to the clinic. Denial is part of addiction, so they never come. For many, the priority is to use rather than to recover. There are guys who try to escape, tear down the doors, one guy, when I asked him to follow the rules, poured hot tea on me. There are those who only return for detox or come every month to reduce their dose. Everyone already knows them, they are preparing a special ward. One such patient, who constantly visited us, died before reaching the detox ward. Didn't have time. They all have hepatitis and HIV.

But basically they are all peaceful - they immediately begin to flirt: “Look who came in our heels today.” Everything is so cute and harmless really. Very reminiscent of a pioneer camp.

There are families where parents and children use drugs - we had some: a dad on heroin, a son on butyrate. Our father was lying in bed, and at that time our son was “on the cross” - it’s clear why. We agreed that now dad is being treated, then the son comes out and also comes to us. And all the costs of treatment were paid by their grandfather.

There are illusions that alcohol is not a drug, weed is not a drug. Everyone thinks that if a drug addict is a heroin addict, he’s on needles, he’s all skinny, and he’s always injecting drugs somewhere in the basement. And he already took all the things out of the house... But when using opiates and alcohol, the chemical processes are similar, so they can easily switch from one to the other, as a temporary measure. The heroin addict wanted to break, he went to the village, there he would sit on vodka or wine.

About theater and street performances

Having moved to St. Petersburg, I continued to study acting. One of my friends opened her own theater center “Easy People”, and then I was going through a difficult period - I didn’t work, my mother died, and I urgently needed to do something. I thought it was better than heroin and decided to go study with her.

Theater is also great therapy. Here you can react in a way that you cannot in ordinary life. I still don’t know how to speak on my own at any lectures, but if it’s some kind of role with someone else’s text, then you’re welcome.

Sometimes our troupe takes part in street performances - in 2011, we walked around the city in flippers and evening dresses, danced and led the crowd. And in December 2012, director Leda Garina, as part of a street action against domestic violence, asked me to take part in a performance - with my partner, we went to Sadovaya and acted out a scene of a husband brutally beating his wife.

About therapy for psychologists

Every psychologist needs therapy. If there are any “tails” left from the past, then this is automatically transferred to the client. Psychologists actually make great clients because they do it consciously. If you give a psychologist a chair and say, “Imagine that this is your mother,” he will not get up and leave. They understand that this is a certain technique and that it works.

In our profession, emotional release is very important - you need to take breaks between clients: sit, drink tea, cry to your colleagues, sometimes it’s even useful to shout. So as not to carry these emotions to the next client.

There is an opinion that if something doesn’t go well with a client, then there is a high probability that the psychologist himself had a similar injury in the past. For example, it is difficult for me to work with victims of sexual violence. I don’t understand why - I don’t remember this happening in my life. But I can’t do it and that’s it, I can’t help it, I immediately start crying. Now I immediately refer such girls to other specialists.

I’m fine with drug addicts - I had a lot of experience in personal communication, I met with them and lived with them. This, apparently, was precisely my retraumatization. But I can’t work with alcoholics - as soon as I enter the alcohol department, I understand that it’s hard for me. I'm just starting to feel sick.

I am very lucky with my husband; he is not an alcoholic or a drug addict. How miraculously this happened - I don’t know, because before that all the guys were a perfect match... But I was young and thought that there was no problem - I gave them money and fed them vitamins. Codependency is the same disease. And I picked it up as a child. Such codependent relatives, who themselves do not use, but help the patient close his eyes, greatly slow down treatment. People call this “the wife of an alcoholic” - a man drinks, he comes home, and his wife undresses him, washes him, and puts him in bed. Where will he wake up? In a warm place, all clean and washed. He doesn't remember anything, which means it didn't happen. In his head, he walked home on his own, and there was no problem. But she can leave it on the stairwell. And only when he wakes up in a puddle of urine will he understand that there really is a problem.

I myself have quite a lot of experience in using various substances. But my psychotherapist believes that I do not have a chemical dependency. I myself understand that it can occur and therefore now I do not drink anything and never, including alcohol.

About father

I communicate with my dad, he is still alive. For a long time we communicated only through my mother, but then she died, and I had to make contact myself. I don't always like it. He is very good at inducing feelings of guilt, because he is old. He doesn't drink now, which makes things easier. But it really hurts me that he doesn’t remember anything that happened before - how he didn’t pick me up from kindergarten, how my mother asked my friends to leave before he returned, how he didn’t spend the night at home for weeks and my mother ran around looking for him... This everything is very difficult in reality, but it is possible if you really want it.