When it comes to talking about emotions, it’s always been easier for me than telling what happened to me. Yeah, it happens quite the opposite generally. So I’m going to break this too, here. I’ll tell you what’s happened. song

THERE IS NO CERTAIN DATE WHEN THE NIGHTMARE BEGUN

 But we can say it started with the work-life. Before that I’d never had a fancy life, but that is another story. After coming back from abroad, where I studied for my master's degree, I spent 2–3 years in my hometown in ambiguity, with boredom and on the edge of depression. (Look, one more story). We don’t have traditions like leaving home after 18 years old, and especially, women stay with their families until marriage. But the first problem was that our hometown was a small place where you could find nothing to do. The second one was I didn’t want to marry or something. The third one was even though we were bound together with my family, there was a huge generation gap. - Since I’m the last child, and it is both my parents' second marriage-. The last and the worst one was public pressure.

I was the weird one among all the other children; I was genre-busting; I’ve never fit in. That’s how I am. On the other hand, family had no such intentions, like restricting me or imposing what they wanted. All they wanted was safety and a proper future for me. I can get it. Well, briefly, they had to let me go when they realized that I was about to slip through their fingers. I hereby moved to the city for the first job I’d been employed at on Skype or Zoom.

I remember our first day in my first own home with Mum. We did an overall cleaning in a 1+1 apartment and still got exhausted. My sister lived here in the past, and her home was close to me. When we were done, we started to wait for brother-in-law to pick us up, and we were having so much fun because I was telling a silly cartoon to Mom. We were so engrossed in it, yet with our laughter, we tried to get in a stranger's car, thinking it came for us. It made it even worse; we couldn’t stop our laughing, even when we reached the home. I remember like yesterday we were so happy. Mom cashed in her gold bracelets for that. And guess what? I still haven't given them back to her, although she doesn’t have such demand. This happened in 2019.

Anyway …  I knew neither that I couldn’t give them back for years, nor that I would be fired from my new job after 3 months, nor that the house was just a beginning for my personal prison at that time. You know what? The real prison was my second home in the same neighborhood, where I lived for 6 years and couldn’t move because I didn’t have money for it. (Now I live in the 3rd apartment, since I was kicked.) But yeah, first things first. Besides, the prison was with me, not settled in the houses I changed. As to come back to the story, as you heard, I was laid off. (Live on applause!) It was an export company, and I had two foreign languages. They hired me for international operations and terminated my employment for that the Word document on my desktop, which was my personal English dictionary created by me collecting unknown words. They claimed that I was dealing with another job on working hours. The Word document was their main evidence, and the second one was something I said on the phone: “Yeah, I’ll translate it and later.” One morning when I came to work, I noticed that a psycho scribbled in my notebook; probably they did this from the previous day. That day I was laid off.  Sometimes I still think, why didn't I feed them with pages … Oh! There is no point crying over spilt milk! As I learned later, they made up this trial period thingy to not pay workers' insurance premiums. (Dignity must be something like that.) That is one of the first places I want to burn to the ground. (Chronological for sure).

And that takes us to the days that I was all alone with remorse, fear, and panic and performed my first big mistake. And plus to this, a breakup from your bf is the recipe. I met with a boy on metro at that summer just before the autumn when I would start to work. You see? You find a valentine in your favorite city as in the movies, and then you move there for your new job, new home, new life … How lucky it sounds, doesn’t it?

Apparently, it wasn’t. I tell you why. The guy I met on the metro and found me on Instagram utilizing my "Don't let them know your next move", which is showing my account on the opened screen of my phone while he was sitting next to me, was totally different from the guy after I settled in the city permanently. The first guy was texting me romantically and was sincere and caring. The second guy wasn’t like that. Especially after he heard about what had happened to me at my job. I guess he didn’t want to take responsibility. But I didn’t expect that either.

Anyway… We’re getting closer to the first big mistake I did in the past. You can guess how I felt and how I couldn’t handle it with myself. I was proud, and I cut the connection with him immediately. (until coming across on the Street after half and a year, we will come there.) So I told everything to my big sister, who is my only sister. The mistake was that telling it to my sister. Yes, I can guess what you’re thinking. It is more complicated more than it sees, and please don’t judge her. She was afraid of what to do with this girl, just like everyone else was. I admit it. I scared people even if I didn’t mean to. ::::)

The funniest thing was that I was just an ordinary girl who couldn’t fit into the small world where I was born, not a monster. At least I wasn’t then.

Back to the story, Sister told the case to Mom and Dad too. My current double life was born there, actually. I only didn’t know then. Put aside being the problem child throughout the time, losing the chance to prove yourself and whatever. Their reactions scared the hell out of me. I was deadly sorry for their concern and grief, almost even more than mine. They were old (their second marriage for both) and suffered their whole lives and deserved to be happy, not unhappy because of me. They moved in with me until I found a new job, which I did find in 3 weeks, I guess. Was the nightmare over? Oh, no. It wasn’t even a fragment. I alone decided to leave it by myself, keeping them out of this. That was what happened. Since then until now, I’ve been in that nightmare.

There are so many things that I have to say that I can’t be sure how to do. I was like, “This time I woke up” from time to time. But since then something has gone wrong over and over and over again. I’ve done so many things to survive so far. Sometimes I hated myself; wait, not sometimes, mostly. But I realized that I was unfair to myself, and it led me to decide on the atmosphere of part 2.

I don’t know how it works with other people, but for me, I was trying to be a nicer, smarter, better person indeed. Just trying to catch the tail of better, more fair days. Because I knew I couldn’t do that under those circumstances. That’s the deeper instinct hidden behind our fears. But you know, fear is the fear. Here, a question comes up in my mind: then what’s the point of being survivors if we would change so badly?

All you are dreaming about are the normal days that you don’t have to tell lies to your family, that you aren’t running from people not to pretend everything is okay, and that you just don’t worry about the bills. And this, turns you into a paranoid, an angry person of everything, what’s exactly you don’t want to be. I know these aren’t new things, and you’ve probably heard them a million times from the experts, from whatever life coaches, from whoever human psychology researcher, and blah blah. But I’m the lab mouse, not the researcher. I memorized every damn path of that labyrinth, and now I dare to think there might be an exit.

See you in the next part.