Notes from a psychologist: the basement

In the third grade, I was “caught” by fear. There were scary, terrifying sounds. We were all lined up and taken to the school basement. In the evening, my mother sewed a gauze bandage with her hands. What was it for? I did not understand. The worst thing was the gas mask. It was like a skeleton for me. I had a hard time pulling it on. It was good that there were not enough for everyone. So during the lessons, everyone put their head inside the gas mask, but we moved to the school basement wearing gauze bandages. I was scared to go down the stairs to that unfortunate school basement and stand there in a line. These are the events of 1982/83, which, for obvious reasons, have taken their rightful place in my current life in 2022.

The basement of my house is more of a cellar for storing fruit, vegetables and preserves. My husband’s parents, who survived the Second World War and built this house when they were old, hardly expected their children and grandchildren to live in this cellar basement. So they have constructed it compactly.

So when we couldn’t get into this cellar in February 2022 because there were too many people, the cellar theory was confirmed – Ukrainians were not ready for war.

It was dawn. The explosions did not affect the sunrise in Ukraine. So, after waiting for the morning, the man went to free the basement from its functional purpose and tried to turn it into a bomb shelter. He failed because the basement would never become a bomb shelter.

We all went to the cellar in an organized manner as soon as I received a message from Kyiv about the sirens. But my son changed his mind about sitting there and tried to escape childishly.

Once, he jumped out, got on his toy motorbike and ran away. Trying to catch up with him, I heard a whistling, strangled noise. Looking up, I saw two ballistic missiles flying over my boy. They were flying very low. The only thing that calmed me down then was the ambivalent feelings and thoughts that they would not fall on my house. But where would they fall? I felt cold and trembling inside. I was afraid, looking at their low flight.

So what was I thinking about in the cellar? Yes, I kept thinking that it would all end! And I was wondering if I could keep my baby in this cellar. So, my husband and I decided not to run to the basement but to stay in the house.

They say that sitting in basements or cellars, everyone was thinking about the same thing – the future. So, everyone who hid in basements or cellars survived. And those who hid in the subway, and only a few in specially prepared bomb shelters, only survived because they were thinking about the future. Everyone wrote their project. And everyone created ways to achieve them in their minds or their imaginations. Life will show us who and what they had in mind. However, not everyone returned from those basements.

Someone will remain there forever – young, old or young.

Someone will never leave the basement in their imagination and will be doomed to live in anticipation of more and more basements.

Someone will wake up from this basement at night less often over time, but they will wake up.

And someone will make a bomb shelter, give the middle finger to the Horde missile and live.

Someone will write a book, a poem, or a song.

And someone will leave their home forever and become a Ukrainian–thinking and Ukrainian–dreaming, but not a Ukrainian–speaking refugee with emigrant status.

There is a place for everyone in life.

The essential thing to remember is that basement thinking is the thinking of running away from reality into the future, with the body in spasmodic tension from auditory stimuli that fall from the sky. So, if you don’t pay attention to this basement thinking, you can never get into your real life, being either downstairs or upstairs in a dreamy state and never staying in the present. It is the drama of the basement or cellar.

Orkestan knows what to do when it loses – to depress you, create nightmares, drive you into the basement…

You fools, orkestans!

Even though we will fall into the basement of our consciousness, there is our incredible power there – a power equivalent to a deathly rise, only so that you, damned Orkestans, will be NOWHERE – neither in the past nor in the future. And our Armed Forces are quite successfully taking care of our present today.

Here comes the basement… it’s worth sitting there again. So let’s sit there, damned orcs. We’ll figure out what to do with you again.