Natalia S. (LII) — Innocence and Justice

The Longing for Connection

My most poignant childhood memory is a feeling of profound inner loneliness and a longing to find a "kindred spirit." I remember a doll, a large German one; playing with it, I used to wish it would come to life and be my real child. It was a kind of deeply felt prayer, an internal appeal to someone or something higher than myself. And in kindergarten during the winter, we made a snow maiden out of ice and painted it, and she looked so alive. So in the evening, in the dark when no one was watching, I would go to her and talk to her in silence, begging her to come to life and become my friend.

Family Resentment and Injustice

I also remember a childhood resentment toward my mother because she never called me by affectionate names and showed no physical tenderness—no hugs, no touch... And also for the class injustice: if my younger brother did something wrong, I was still the one to blame—after all, I was the oldest, I was supposed to know better!

A Fearless Child

As a child, I wasn't afraid of anything; I had absolutely no fear for my life and would climb everywhere—fences, trees, attics, basements. When I was three and a half, I actually walked off to a neighboring village, a kilometer and a half down a forest road.

The story goes: a little girl is walking through the forest, and a woman comes the other way and asks where I'm going and if I'm not scared all by myself. And I reply that I'm going to visit some acquaintances, and that I have nothing to fear because if Baba Yaga flies in, I'll stab her with my knife. And I show her a super-rusty little knife that I had dug up out of the ground somewhere not long before.

The False Accusation and Broken Trust

There was another incident that etched itself so deeply into my memory that even now, something flips inside me when I recall it. I was about eight years old, doing gymnastics at the time, and I absolutely idolized my coach. Around that time, petty thefts in the locker room became more frequent. During one training session, I asked permission to go to the locker room—I don't remember for what reason exactly anymore. My coach followed me in and began an aggressive interrogation, asking if I was the one stealing.

The very premise of the question threw me into a state of deep shock, because taking something that belongs to someone else is absolutely unthinkable for a LII. I denied the accusations, and the whole situation felt like a dream, a monstrous prank. But the coach kept insisting, urging me to confess; it was simply convenient for her to find a scapegoat and close the matter so she could move on to more pressing business than the pursuit of justice.

Inside me, it felt as though something burned out, switched off from the sheer tension and the impossibility of explaining anything to her or justifying myself. After that, I had a memory blackout—my consciousness went off the charts—and when I came to, I realized with horror that I had confessed to everything just to make the nightmare stop as quickly as possible, even though something inside me had broken.

What remained was a sense of hopeless injustice, of the weak being crushed by the strong, and the impossibility of resisting this in the adult world.

Temptation, Guilt, and Rectification

Regarding "taking what belongs to others," there was one more situation.

I was about ten or eleven years old, the late eighties, a new non-Soviet fashion trend, and a terrible shortage of anything foreign.

So, my friend's older sister came to visit from Moscow, and she had—oh, wonder of wonders!—dark, narrow "breakdance" sunglasses! They were my dream; I walked in circles around them, couldn't resist, and stole them. I brought them home, looked at them, and realized there was no joy in it anymore, that I wouldn't be able to wear them because I had taken something that wasn't mine! I shot back like a bullet, put them back in the exact same spot, and only then did I breathe a sigh of relief from happiness.

Source: How to Raise a Child Without Complexes by O. Mikhevnina