ME Survivor (Book 3)

My Life Story (Not a Poem)

Dear World:

            I really hope my story helps someone here. My story is different from everyone's but it has one thing in common; depression. So here we go.

        31.5 years ago, I was born in a country that no longer exists. How's that for a start? No it didn't get abducted by aliens. I was born in the USSR or Belarus now; I'm bilingual (Russian and English). I can honestly say that the happiest childhood I had was between birth and 6 years old. I remember way back to the age of 2; my grandparents' house which my grandpa built with his own hands. G-d Bless him, he'll be 92 years old this year. Though I had/have both parents; my grandfather when I was growing was more of a father then my father actually was and is. Though he lives in the same house as us....he's more of a sperm donor than anything else. I don't care anymore but it hurt as hell when I was kid.

        Getting slightly off track because there's so much to tell. For a long time I wished I had remembered that day in May when I was 3 but now I really don't. I'll do with the story from my mom. Next year on April 26th will be the 30th anniversary of the worst nuclear disaster in the world; better known as Chernobyl to those of you who have brushed up on your history. Well my family and I are survivors of that because 60% of the radioactive fallout fell on Belarus. And the USSR hid it from the world of course and it wasn't until Sweden and Germany sounded the alarm that the rest of the world found out and the USSR was forced to admit to the catastrophe. From April 26th to May 1st, no one knew anything. I was outside breathing the "fresh air". May 1st is a holiday in Europe so my mom kept me outside the whole day. It was the day we found out the truth.

        Pandemonium reigned as people were screaming and crying. Our town had only one Geiger meter and it was at the train station. The line to it was so long, you'd think people from neighboring towns came. Thankfully and luckily, my grandfather was our town's photographer so he knew people. We were able to go to the front of the line to test me. I tested negative. But none of the rest of my family members ever got tested so it always made me wonder if their ailments at any time had anything to do with radiation. My father was working in a different town at an airport on the tarmac as he was an engineer (a prestigious job back in the USSR) and he was working without his shirt because those days were very warm. After the news came down, the whole tarmac and soil underneath was bulldozed because so much radiation had seeped into it. He too never got tested.

        In 1989, we left the USSR just as it started to crumble. We immigrated here to the states as political refugees. We left a very anti-sematic country behind that in a few yrs wouldn't be a country anymore. We got here Feb 8th 1990 (celebrated 25 yrs this year). We went through the immigration process; 3 wks in Austria and 4 months in Italy. No language, barely any clothing, or money. 5 of us came to here to Connecticut that night; Mom, father, grandparents, and me. It was then that my childhood ended and my nightmare in this country began.

        I was never sexually assaulted or harassed that way, but coming to a strange country, without knowing the language, culture, or the style made me a target for the worst kinds of bullies; teachers. In first grade, I got hit on the neck by a teacher in front of the whole class because she didn't understand me while the whole class laughed. I suppressed that memory until after my first suicide attempt years later. ESL helped me learn the language but I was still a massive target for bullies. I was tripped in 3rd grade when I asked to go to the bathroom and the teacher turned the other cheek. I barely had any friends. I used to keep to myself all the time, afraid if I spoke up, I'd get into trouble so I let them call me all sorts of names.....some I can't even repeat because to this day I can't look at certain cartoon characters without cringing.

        In Middle School, instead of eating lunch alone and having ppl point at me and laugh I would escape to the library and play on the computer. I'd also joined the choir in elementary school and I've been singing forever. In Middle school I also joined the drama club. It was fun but even there, I couldn't get away from a particular bully who told me in front of everyone that I was "born ugly". To an 8th grader with zilch self-esteem that was like a knife through the heart. To make matters harder, I had nowhere to hide, I'd come home and have to be a referee to two fighting parents. It was expected of me. The old Soviet method was that a child was supposed to understand adult situations and deal with them. In my case I had to literally get btwn them and shoo them to different corners. When I would come home in tears over a particular brutal day of bullying begging my mom to home school me, my mom would tell me to ignore it.