From the point of view of an ordinary person, Sergei's story smacks of schizophrenia. His parents think the same - people are healthy and prosperous in all respects. They cannot come to terms with the loss of their daughter.
No, Nika did not die, did not disappear without a trace, did not go abroad: it is just that now, instead of a girl, there is a small, well-behaved boy named Sergei in her room, very much like Nika, but stubbornly claiming that he is a completely different being.
Nika changed her sex, and even the state officially recognized her right to consider herself a man. Now former Nika has a new Russian passport, where it is written in black and white that she (that is, he) is Seryozha. At first, everyone asked why Nika did not become Nikolai, because this would be more familiar to both her parents and her (him) herself.
- I'm a completely different person. Nicky is no longer here, and I am happy that she left. We were close together.
- What do your parents call you?
- By the same name, - Sergey reluctantly admits. - They think that everything that happened to me is schizophrenia.
However, from a medical point of view, suspicions of schizophrenia from Nika, who became Sergei, have been officially removed. Such sex reassignment surgeries are generally not performed without a thorough psychiatric examination. You never know anyone who can think of such and clinical psychopaths, and overly extravagant personalities.
The examination is designed to cut off such options, and a few years ago, Sergei, who was Nika, received the coveted conclusion of the doctors that his psyche is in order, it is just that she (that is, the psyche) is not female, but male. It happened so.
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But parents still cannot understand this, and doctors who signed the conclusion are called charlatans. And not only parents. Many of the former acquaintances frown, disgustingly throwing Sergei in the face: "You're crazy." He tries not to be offended - or, at least, does not show that he was offended. I'm used to it.
According to Sergei, he studied statistics and knows that among those who want to change their sex there are many more men who feel like women than women who feel like men. Medicine agreed that schizophrenia is far from always to blame. But the mass consciousness accepts this with great difficulty. Transforms are often confused with lesbians and homosexuals.
- But that's not true! - Sergey says warmly. - Sexual orientation is only partially involved here. The point is different, because the psyche of sex is a broader concept …
- Has it been with you since childhood? Have you always felt like a boy?
- You see, the fact is that from the very beginning there were two of us, - Sergey is noticeably embarrassed by such confessions: the accusation of schizophrenia weighs upon him to this day. -Many of those like me simply do not remember that once there were two or even more, because one of these two was expelled at an early age. Or you can say this: one of the two entities died in infancy, only the second, alien, settler remained. But this is my own theory, and to many of the common people it may seem insane.
Yes, I remember that from early childhood: we seemed to live in one body together, argued over it, even fought. The girl who originally belonged to this body could do things that were absolutely not characteristic of me. And vice versa. She often didn't like what I liked. This is a long saga. I will say one thing: from a medical point of view, schizophrenia of this kind, with a split personality, if it develops from childhood, already by the age of thirty leads to a complete disintegration of consciousness and complete degradation.
Sergei, a psychiatrist by training, studied these things very carefully. Even when for the whole society he was Nika's girlfriend. Indeed, he is already 37 years old, and does not smell of degradation.
Sergei understands perfectly well that no one can call the theory of settlers scientific. And he hastens to add: these words can be considered only images with which our consciousness works. After all, this technique is often used in modern psychotherapy. Although he himself seems to very sincerely believe in what he says.
- Well, let's assume that everything is exactly the way it is. But why is this happening? Why do several personalities - or, as you say, entities meet in one body?
- As a rule, this happens when the original essence is somehow defective. Not entirely viable. Ill either on the physical level, or, let's say, on the energy level. The very Nika who lived in this body had a completely unviable energy, and I, until she left, dragged everything on myself.
- Well, who goes to this very sharing? Why is he being pushed into a communal apartment, and not given a separate body?
- It happens for various reasons. I will not go deeper, otherwise it will turn out to be complete nonsense. I can only say: people like me, settlers - are almost human in nature. But it happens that absolutely non-humans move in. Previously, such cases were called obsessions. They said: the demon has possessed.
- Okay, let's leave this slippery topic. Did you and the girl who lived in this body ever fall in love with different people?
- Happened, - confirms Sergey. - Fortunately, her business was limited to light flirting. I don't know what would have happened to me if she had fallen in love seriously … I remember that in the second or third year I had an unhappy love. I didn't know what to do. By negligence, I confessed to the doctor that there were two of us in the body, and then for the first time there was a suspicion of a mental disorder … However, then the diagnosis was withdrawn, only neurosis was recognized in me.
- And later, when you passed the tests before the gender change, did you say that there are two of you since childhood?
- Then - yes, he did. But I was already at a fairly mature age, and the decay of consciousness did not come. And besides, the doctors who conduct the tests also study us, like they write rabbits, they write dissertations. By the way, I myself can now, at a glance, distinguish a clinical schizophrenic from a neurotic, or just a person with slack. There is an expression "the smell of madness." So: I can smell it, this smell. After all, I myself have dealt with such patients. A few words, a few glances at the patient are enough for me.
- This girl, Nika … did she disappear before or after the operation? Or, in your terminology, died? Did you kill her or just let her die?
- Of course, before. Otherwise, I could not have undergone surgery. Well, let's just say … we agreed with her in an amicable way that she would leave - as if to another dimension, to another planet … Well, we can again consider all this a play of images. However, I was happy when she was gone by my side.
- Don't you miss her? After all, you spent so much time together.
- In no case! It was a terrible communal apartment!
Of course, the conversation looks like sheer madness. However, medicine seemed to agree to recognize Sergei as normal. Again, all of this can really be thought of as working with images - a powerful psychotherapeutic technique. Sergei is very far from the idea of insisting on his theory and convincing others of its truth.
Initially, he did not want to talk on this topic at all - he does not really hope for understanding of those around him. The father rarely speaks to him now, and the mother … the mother could understand if she wanted to. But she doesn't want to. Sergei is accustomed to contemptuous whispering behind his back. Only new people who get to know him as a guy and do not suspect that he was once a girl, relate to Sergei adequately.
Of course, from a physiological point of view, a girl cannot be completely transformed into a man. For example, a transformer will never be able to conceive a child. And to maintain hormonal balance, Sergei has to give injections. Maybe he is really not a man or a woman these days, but some abstract creature? On the other hand, how much do we know about what a person is in general and why he exists on this sinful earth?
- Can you now have a girlfriend, a life partner? - I ask Sergey.
“I thought about it,” he says seriously. - Maybe it will happen. But in any case, first of all, we should be united by inner kinship, we should have a common path.
- Could you marry that very Nick?
- No never! She was completely alien to me!
As the people say, everyone goes crazy in their own way. Although from the point of view of medicine, everything is more complicated here - transformers are no longer considered crazy, and even crazy theories about settlers can be considered just work with images. Modern psychotherapy allows this … And also "there is much in the world, friend Horatio, that our sages never dreamed of."
Lilia KOTSYUBINSKAYA