Svetlana Ch. (SEE)

If I get the feeling that I want something… I want it!

I need to catch the flow. I move in that direction, the music is loud, I feel the energy. I can do anything, I will do everything.

I’m in the flow. Already here, when the movement has started, I need it — and I will achieve it. Someone might feel uncomfortable or unhappy, but I will get there. Once it starts, you can’t stop it! Even if people say, “Don’t!” — you’ll still go and do it.

Before, I would rush ahead without looking back. I need it, I want it, I’m carried away — don’t stand in my way! And talking to me like, “You need this — you don’t need that…” — who needs that?! If my parents tried to slow me down, the world would just collapse. I cease to exist, I’m nobody, nothing, with no name! Even my body stops feeling, the stress is overwhelming. I have to “reassemble myself” all over again.

I don’t like bossing people around: “Drop down and give me push-ups!” I like setting up a situation so that people feel it and react. I’m a shadow leader. I need things to look elegant — not harsh, but confident, following the model I have in mind. To do that, I need to prepare the situation the way I want it. And with everyone it’s different: a word for some, an action for others, a personal example, a command. That’s all.

I can help. My people, not my people… I will help. Not everyone, of course.

When you sense that someone needs help, there’s simply nothing to discuss. But you can feel when a person is taking advantage — I sense that very finely — and it causes irritation, and communication fades away. No one clarifies the relationship, but you start keeping your distance.

Before, it was taken for granted: they asked, knocked, the doors opened, and I ran to help. I had to! Where, why, for what — those questions were cut off. A call for help — and everything was dropped: personal life, my own business — everything! I didn’t even realize it. That was my normal state. But when someone “flicks you on the nose,” you wake up: “Maybe I shouldn’t?”

Do I need help in return? I don’t ask everyone for help; I don’t need that. It’s just that at certain moments you realize you’re stronger and can help this person. And when you have a certain amount of experience, you can give it, and it feels great. I’ve fulfilled my mission to help.

Sometimes I think, “Screw it! I’m tired! That’s it, I’m not helping anyone anymore, I’ll just fill my own vessel for myself and no one else,” but nothing good comes of it. It feels bad, sad — I can’t live like that, and I return to who I was.

I often have mood swings, and a lot depends on my interactions with people. You come in, look at someone, and their state is awful — and your own drops to zero as well. If the topic is sad, a feeling like “life hasn’t worked out” washes over you; everything drifts into the negative, and it becomes very hard to maintain a good state.

I go out and meet someone “with a spark in their eyes” — and my mood lifts, my body lifts too.

If there’s melancholy and there’s no one nearby to lift your spirits — it’s bad. You mustn’t allow your state to spiral downward. You have to force yourself to do yoga, read something, go to a concert. If you manage to shake yourself out of that state, you switch gears, the mechanism starts up, and you begin to function. But if you do nothing — it’s awful.

When people come in with a bad mood, I feel bad too. If someone is in a bad mood and mine worsens as well, it leaves a nasty feeling inside — like, damn it, everything was going so well!

During the day, my mood can change.