Eleven-centimeter beige heels

Today is January 19, 2024, and I am 40 years old. Today is the day when I celebrate life because I am alive! Today I want to talk about the day when, as before, it will never happen again; and it is not February 24, 2022.... That February 24 came later....

I was standing on the deck of the ship, it was September 2019, in a dark blue dress with a deep neckline, which emphasized a thin waist and an athletic physique. I was wearing eleven-centimeter beige heels, in which it is very difficult even to stand, no matter what other girls say about the convenience of such shoes. My long, natural-colored hair, which was blown by the wind, brought me back a little to the here-and-now moment, to at least capture something. For the first time in my life, I felt terrible and could not understand what was happening. It was difficult to keep my posture, there was no balance in my body and I swayed from side to side, I reassured myself that it was because of the ship's swing. There was a complete fog in my head, all people's faces were blurred, and there was no clarity and focus. Such a terrible feeling as if you are about to lose your consciousness and die. I didn't remember much from that evening, but the one thing I'll never forget was how I tried to play my image game, so that no one would notice that I wasn't feeling well and that I was behaving strangely. I drank coffee, and then one more, and more, because usually when I was tired, that worked. But not this time.… Because it was not fatigue…. Blurred faces of people in gray-black color, framed by fog, that's how I saw everything that day, scared me. I understood that only I see this way, and all other people have a normal and focused vision. I held on to the handrail so I wouldn't fall, but I didn't take off those damn heels, because I had to keep my image, to play that game.... That time my image was still worth so much to me that I couldn't show even a crumb of my weakness, and imperfection, because I so sacredly believed, that the image created by me was me, and without it I would be nobody.

In the morning before this "strange evening," I went to the beauty salon to do my hair and makeup. I always did this before big events. The city was still sleeping. It was very early. I was walking along a dark, deserted passage on Besarabska Square in Metrograd, until suddenly my eyes became completely dark, my legs could not hold me, and my hands began to shake.

"Yuliia, hi!"

It was my master who did my hair and makeup. I barely went to the salon and told her that I wasn't feeling very well.

"Don't worry, you're just overtired. You work a lot. But everything will pass. Do not worry."

I felt nauseous, my entire stomach was paralyzed, my legs were cottony, and my body was cold and sweaty. Then tremors and vomiting were added. There was no focused picture in front of my eyes, everything was in a fog. I sat down on the balcony and holding on to the crossbar, I tried to inhale and exhale deeply, but nothing helped, it was very difficult to breathe. My master tried to do my makeup and hair, but I couldn't stand it. I went home with unfinished makeup, and for the first time in my life, I didn't care, I only cared about one thing: "What's happening to me?". I went home and took the day off until the evening, I couldn't miss the evening event, because I organized and coordinated everything, as usual, and again, I was sure that no one but me could do it RIGHT. By the evening, the symptoms subsided a little but did not go away.

That event on the ship seemed endlessly long and exhausting, and I couldn't wait for it to be over and I would return home. Thoughts were confused in my head: "I have some incurable disease", "Something is wrong with my brain", "I need to do an MRI", "I am dying", "I am losing my mind", "I am going crazy".... There were a lot of thoughts. Fear, panic, and anxiety spasmed my body. "Lord, at least no one noticed that I look strange. I have to control myself." The more I tried to control myself, the more my consciousness turned off and I flew away somewhere. I heard conversations only superficially, maybe individual words and phrases, I almost didn't see people, only their contours and bodies, my spine was cracking, aching and it seemed that it was about to burst into pieces, there was not enough oxygen for me. It was difficult for me to be inside the ship, for the first time I felt that I had claustrophobia, but there was nowhere to go. I remembered a simple technique - monotonously and continuously pricking my thumb with one of the sharp sides of the pin. Thanks to this "trick" consciousness returned at least a little and I could be "here and now"....

That evening, I pierced my finger almost to the bone sticking a pin, and also received my "Oscar", because none of my colleagues or clients understood that something was happening to me and that I looked somehow strange, so even in a semi-conscious state, I was a perfect actress. At the end of the evening, I did dare to take off those damn heels.... I didn't know that day, the day of the beginning of the end, that these kind of shoes, like such a glamorous dress, I would never wear again (maybe someday, but when....??? ), as I did not know that I would not do such big events in the nearest future, and maybe I would never do them at all.... I did not realize that day that a new book of my life was beginning to be written.... and I would never have my old life again, it turned out that I said goodbye to it that day on the ship.... And of course, I had no idea that a few years later a real bloody war would begin in Ukraine with a full-scale invasion.... I could not know all this that day.... That day I just wanted this strange state/condition to end, this strange evening to end and everything returned as it was before....

When I came home, I couldn't calm down, my anxiety level kept rising, so I almost did not sleep that night, I prayed and cried, and cried and prayed. I remembered all the prayers I knew, but I also created my own, I prayed until my consciousness turned off and I ultimately fell asleep for a few hours. In the morning, I realized that it was not a dream, my strange condition did not disappear, but it worsened even more, causing me more and more panic....

Beginning from that day I felt worse every day both physically and psychologically, and nothing helped me.... One day I simply could not get out of bed and almost did not walk for five months.... I turned into a vegetable, which in no way could feel like a full-fledged person. I could not accept the fact that now this is so...., that life is like this.... And most of all I was afraid that it would remain so and would not change....

More than four years have passed since that day, and I have gone through a very difficult path through the Dark Days of my Soul and real torture. This path formed in a 110,000 words of my personal story, here and today I share only a small excerpt, the rest I will leave for myself. I regret that at that time in Kyiv I did not write that story in real time, I started writing only in Germany almost two years ago. And this path is about many scars (psychological and physical), insights and reflections, conclusions and realizations. This path brought me back to myself, brought me back home. And the road home is always difficult because of challenges, torture, pain, suffering, and temptations.... The road to yourself requires superpowers, faith, firmness, courage, and strength of the Spirit, as well as inner knowledge that "you should do your own stuff" regardless of external turbulent circumstances. You just stand like a mountain. This journey is full of loss…. Having lost nothing, a person will not return to himself/herself. Losses are an integral part of the journey. Only after losing something, does a person realize true value. Only after losing, does a person begin to ask himself/herself questions and finally look at himself/herself and his/her life. And it turned out that the Light of my Soul became the magic medicine that helped me survive and not break, and for the Light of the Soul to begin to shine, the ego must die.... Only the death of the ego gives life again....

Inner changes and the journey to yourself are primarily about illuminating your dark aspects, about meeting your inner demons through suffering and sheer madness.... This path may not be easy, but it is worth it, it is a very intimate and individual journey of you with you, where no one else is and cannot be....

And now, in 2024, on my 40th birthday, I want to thank for my experience, and for the path I started to follow and will follow for the rest of my life because I have already made a choice. Many people die, unfortunately, even not becoming themselves and going through their path. I thank my fate that in September 2019 it challenged me so much that I had no choice, and the choice was already made for me. Today, I sincerely and deliberately thank for this difficult experience and extremely stressful path, because it was the only way I could stop, hear, see, feel, wake up, and find my way home....unfortunately, there can be no easy way in this case.... This is not a movie or even a book, this is real life....

Now Ukraine and the Ukrainian people are returning to themselves, and this path, as I hope you have already understood, cannot be easy either. No matter how strange it sounds, it is the most difficult circumstances that wake us up and bring us back to ourselves. And I want to wish every one of you, wherever you are now territorially, to WITHSTAND with faith and love in your heart so that this war is not in vain and we are not wiped off from the earth. WITHSTAND means not only holding the front line and reclaiming what is yours, which is, of course, important but WITHSTAND first of all means your inner transformation, without which victory is not possible, when you finally see your darkness, your ego in all its manifestations and refuse to do as you used to do; when finally your internal struggle, confrontation, and resistance will end and you will start to return step by step to yourself, home; and your inner light will overcome your inner darkness. The more people change and become themselves, the higher the level of consciousness will be in the country, and the easier it will be to WIN the external war. Do not betray yourself, and do not betray those who are at the front, it is the hardest for them, they are in hell every day, and they give their lives so that you and I live and build a new Ukraine and finally remember who we are! Do not betray your Soul, it hurts a lot and has been waiting for you for a long time!

January 19, 2024.