PART l To be honest, I can hardly remember how it all began...

PART l

To be honest, I can hardly remember how it all began.

My memories slip away, leaving only fragments of feelings and images. But one date remains etched in my mind — 2015.

At the time, I was studying at university. My life unfolded in a cramped rental apartment with terrible decor, peeling walls, and cockroaches that seemed to rule the place as if they were the rightful owners. The windows were broken, and during the winter, an icy draft swept through the room, reminding me how defenseless I was against the world.

This was yet another time I had to leave home. I felt like I had no other choice. My grandparents, with whom I lived back then, drаnk heavily. The house became a battlefield, where arguments and misunderstandings drowned out everything humane. I couldn’t stay there any longer. Leaving was a difficult decision, but there was no alternative.

My life turned into a relentless cycle. In the morning, I got up early to prepare for my classes, which started at 8 a.m. and lasted until 2 p.m. After that, I headed straight to work.

I was an administrator at a beauty salon — earning a meager salary and working under a boss who seemed like a character out of a textbook on tyranny. She used to be a school teacher, and that past clung to her like a second skin. She couldn’t stop scrutinizing my appearance and behavior, as if I were still sitting at a desk in her classroom.

A white shirt, tailored trousers, and polished shoes. Sometimes, she insisted I wear a blazer, even though it wasn’t mandatory. It was important to her. To me, it was humiliating. But I stayed silent. I didn’t have the strength to protest.

At that time, I was in a relationship with a man who turned out to be my personal labyrinth of pain and dependency. He lied to me often, cheated on occasion, but that wasn’t the worst part. The most damaging thing was how he “educated” me, as if I wasn’t a person but a lump of clay he could mold to his liking. He dictated how I should dress, what I should say, and even what I should feel. I was drowning in a toxic attachment to him, terrified of losing even the illusion of love.

Every word he spoke, every fleeting look of disapproval, pierced me deeply. I lived in constant fear that he would leave me. That fear was stronger than I was, and it made me turn a blind eye to his betrayals, his lies, and his humiliations. I submitted completely, even though I knew I was destroying myself in the process.

By this point, I was already deeply hurt by the world, and  my mom. When I was ten, she moved to another country. I remember that day as if it happened yesterday. We were visiting her friend when she came up to me and told me the news. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay under the blanket, feeling my heart race so fast it seemed like it would burst out of my chest. I knew that from that moment, my life would never be the same.

Now, as I look back on all of this, I think the key moment, the one that triggered everything, was my relationship. It was the catalyst. That’s where it all began.

And perhaps, to truly understand me, I should start with that story…

To be continued...