Warning this text is not for sensitive and not for underaged people!
The joy of freedom that some people have to fight for
I remember clearly my mum jumping from joy in our small apartment’s sunny kitchen, she was still in her night gown, her dark long hair framing her face. She was laughing and probably singing something, she was the happiest I have ever seen her and so very beautiful. Just a moment ago on the radio they announced that my hometown is returning its original Lithuanian name Marijampolė. Soviet Union renamed my hometown to Kapsukas after occupation as part of their denazification plan in hopes to crush our national identity and history, to erase us as Lithuanians. Even at four years old without truly understanding what was going on, I knew how beautiful the freedom looked. It was 1989, one year before Lithuania Announced independence from USSR.
And then I remember the 13th of January 1991, like it was yesterday. Mostly what’s stuck was the sound of sirens, the noise, people talking on TV, people gathering, crying, screaming… tanks going, then more sirens. Bodies… My dad, and my brother leaving to protect the local post office, I didn’t know why but I knew I didn’t want them to go.
I was so scared.
I just turned six and I already saw the terror of russian politics. I didn’t get why but I knew I didn’t want part of that kind of world. My street was later named after a student who grew up in the neighbourhood, that night he was crushed under a tank next to other people protecting the TV tower and all of our freedoms. I always thought of him when passing his old house, I thought about his parents…
That night left a scar, even if we got our freedom.
The terror of no freedom to go out and get a piece of bread
Right this moment somewhere in Ukraine a child is hiding for the 52nd day. What kind of life she will live with the fears and trauma she is experiencing? I was scared of letting my dad go but she probably witnessed her dad die protecting her… what about a little brother she needs to take care of now that her mum left to find bread but never came back because she was taken away by russian soldiers to rape and torture?
That’s where my imagination goes.
Or is it an imagination?
Even if those details don’t match, there are kids going through literal hell right this moment and asking themselves “Why me? Why are they doing this? Was I a bad girl and that’s why I am being punished? Why are these ‘uncles’ so angry, why they need guns, why can’t we just talk? I’m hungry… so so hungry… And my brother won’t wake up anymore.”
I feel for Ukranian kids because I know the terror of guns since I was a child myself. But I haven’t experienced even 1% of what some of them are going through right this moment. Writing about it is my coping mechanism but also a cry for help.
Someone, please stop this senseless war!
The power of imagination and is there really no such thing as stranger’s pain?
I’ve been living in the self-created hell in the past 52 days. Why I call it self-created? It’s because I am not in a war zone, I’m actually really far from it, safe and protected, but I have let the war inside my head.
First of all, I am not a news person. I have never watched them, never liked them, and found that I am better when I avoid all the negativity that media manages to produce out of sometimes mild cases. But I never lived in the cave, I always knew what was happening in the world, and it was enough for me to support if the support was needed. But I was always a very sensitive person to other people’s pain. My mum wanted for me to become a doctor, but I just knew that I wouldn’t be able to do it emotionally because of my deep routed empathy. When I see someone hurting it feels like I am feeling the same pain. My brain reproduces it inside my body. That’s one of the reasons why I avoid reading about, seeing others hurting, because my mind doesn’t let it go. Fiction is fine but when I know that things are real…
I remember in primary, we went to a transport museum, and they showed us a video footage of moments after the car crashes and very graphic wreckage images (these days it’s not even allowed on late night news, but back then it was different). While we were watching it I almost fainted and they had to take me outside. I couldn’t take the pain.
It’s fair to say that my body has a very good emotional imagination to reproduce any horrors that I see or hear about. I know that it’s not my pain, and I know that people going through those horrors are having it way worse that I can imagine, and yet when I feel for someone, I feel it with all my being.
When the war in Ukraine started I was shattered, because it’s so close to where my family is. I can see the stress and fear in my mum’s eyes when we speak, the anxiety this situation produced for everyone in the neighbouring European countries.
Then the stories of rape started coming in. And my heart just couldn’t take it, but my mind wanted to know more. Why? Probably looking, hoping for some kind of retribution for the victims.
Violence against women and kids is a very important topic to me personally. Not because I have ever experienced the real terror of it but because I am a woman and a mum, and I feel that fear of it ever happening to me, or my loved ones, that scaring that centuries of this kind of treatment towards women left in the female collective consciousness.
I spent hours reading about it, and feeling that terror inside myself, crying for people that I don’t know, wondering… why??? How cruel can someone be?
The sadness of the saying “How does Mother Earth carry these kinds of monsters?”
The story about the baby girl shocked me the most. I honestly was left with so little to get me going… I have a family; I have kids and the very idea that someone can be so brutal in this world… it just makes you question if humanity had any worth at all… I kept on thinking if any of the animals do that to their little ones? I know some kill their own or other males’ kids… but rape… I tried to explain it in some way, because I am a rational person, and I couldn’t. How could anyone?
Some men are beyond evil, and let’s face it, we don’t hear many stories of women raping a whole village of little boys… My insides are crawling while writing this but I can’t hold any of these things in anymore. That’s why I write about it in my books, because of shear unfairness towards the female sex, kids… towards those who are weaker, who have no guns.
The sheer thought of how many lives have been shattered because someone can’t control their impulses, or better yet who thinks that they are beyond any other human being! And then making social media movies out of someone’s terror???!!! I have no words to describe the fear and anger inside me… But those women, those kids, little boys, raped or having to watch their family members being raped. Their parents being killed in front of them. What kind of generation are they going to grow up as? So much pain, anger, trauma. Why is it that those who don’t want anything to do with war are the ones that get hurt the most? It’s really better to die straight away than die in such conditions, with so much pain on the last moment of their lives… Or to live with those images and sounds and that never ending pain. Because how can it end?
The strength of mind and what it can achieve
The stories keep repeating in my mind, because that’s how I am, a sponge for information. I know I am doing no service to anyone by being broken myself. But I wish I could be of service. I have given away money to charity who will bring contraceptives to girls in Ukraine. What a terrible thing to have to do but being brutalised and then to have a baby growing inside of you. I had been pregnant twice, and I know how joyous that time is. But it had a joyous start. I can’t imagine how torn those women will have to be about their babies if they keep them. I know they can be capable of love but why do they have to? Why weren’t they given a choice? As young as 14 and pregnant… or maybe even younger. Not even matured enough themselves.
So many stories of those women, screaming at me. I am nothing to them but to me they are pain and hope. Hope that everyone gets what they deserve. That was the only thing that picked me up from the ground. When I thought – Universe is keeping count. All of those that have done a horrible act will get triple of that back, and more. I have faith. I am not an angry or vengeful person, and I believe that everyone deserves love in this world. But I also believe that you have to give love before you can receive it. And if you give pain, you will gain pain too.
I have faith that karma will handle the rest. I am sure of it.
Now the only thing I can do is write about it because I am a writer. I am but a small human being, not a head of any states, I have no such power. But I have the power of words. I trust that people can read and feel the pain of others, and then move those who have the power.
The modern war of technology, law, and retribution – modern doesn’t mean quicker
Another question keeps coming up. Why does the modern war have to be like that? Why women who have been raped will have to spend years talking about it with multiple authorities before they can have any closure and see their perpetrators taken care of? Why is it so easy to commit a crime in this society but so hard to be committed to responsibility for it?
We got smarter but did we actually?
Men can go around being free in their actions, and women being forced into silence and shame. And I am speaking not only about war, but any other time we didn’t listen to women because it’s their own fault as a victim of making the other party do the crime. Like men can’t keep their dicks inside their pants because a woman walked by. Those girls were going to get some bread for their families, but came back with something else inside. A trauma, and a new mouth to feed. Or not come back at all.
And how about that one-year-old baby? Oh, I hope her parents weren’t there to witness what happened. I would die from the heartbreak on a spot. I die a little inside every time I am reminded about it.
Just how small your dick has to be, really? Not just figuratively speaking.
I am not an angry person, but those stories collected inside of me makes me feel so much anger, despair for being so powerless, sadness for those poor souls. I don’t care who is right about what in these politics, all I care is that there were innocent people traumatised, tortured, raped, and killed. And they still are, even while I am writing this sentence, all because of people who grew up without moral compass, without empathy, without any conscience inside of them. Will our society ever be able to truly love one another?
You know what else? If this world had 50% of women in leadership positions the world would be a different place. Because there would finally be some naturally intended harmony. But until we get there, that’s what we see. Pain and unfairness. I have hope. I must. Otherwise, what’s the point?
The way of dealing with anxiety, sadness, and powerlessness towards other people’s suffering
I feel anger seeping out of me as I write all this. I will probably go on a couple days of digital detox for the Easter, just to let go of the immediate reaction to read news whenever I pick up my phone. I also spend too much time watching old X factor, BGT and AGT shows trying to wash away the pain the news from the war brought in on me. It will forever be the reminder of the pain I felt and the tears I shed when trying to calm my mind down and remind myself that world is not like that. That world has talent, dreams, aspirations, silliness and so many other things. That not everything is dark and scary, and not all humans are orcs from dark and broken north.
And most importantly, me being broken and sad inside doesn’t help anyone. I can write and hope that words will reach those who can actually help.
So here goes my last part.
An open letter to women who have their own natural instincts replaced with propaganda and fear
I have a philosophical inquiry to those wives that give permission for their husbands to rape Ukrainian women, and those mums who give their sons permission to kill Ukrainian kids. Do you understand that your beloved men, if they are lucky enough not to die on the battlefield or are able to escape the war tribunal, that they will be coming home to you? Sure, they will be bringing gifts – dishwashers, TVs and what not. But just ask yourselves, if they brutally shared a woman with another twenty of their comrades, and probably didn’t use protection all the times, it means they had intercourse with all of them at once. You know where it leads to, don’t you? They might be coming home bearing STDs and who knows what else. And that’s just the easy part, that you completely deserve to receive if you agreed to this, you are at fault too.
But what about the drugs, alcohol, Viagra, and other substances that they are using?
What about that ever-accessible need to rape?
Do you think they will come back the same as they have left?
I have news for you. No, they are not the same person you said goodbye to.
And you will be the ones to watch them break. Break inside, then break you, your family, your kids (who are not at fault for any of this). Do you think your kids deserve to feel what their daddies and uncles were doing to Ukrainian kids during the war, because it’s a mind sickness that doesn’t just disappear!
An awakened beast doesn’t just suddenly go to sleep peacefully once home, it’s inside for the rest of their lives, and you will be harbouring their impossible to satiate cravings, while giving into bestialities, as you will be having intercourse with something worse than an animal.
You are women, how can you not feel the pain of other women? Or is it a normal practice in russia to be raped to become a worthy member of society?
How long can you defend and find excuses for all the violence?
You have the power to stop this! I stand with those who are brave enough to say: “STOP THIS MADNESS!”
Everyone deserves the sight of getting their beautiful freedom back. There is no human who can control a free spirit inside a person’s mind.
You have a choice!
Choose to stand together for greater good. Not for any politician but for a human’s right to be free in their body as well as their soul.
And that’s me getting my peace back with little that I can do. I still believe that all together we can do it all.
