What do you enjoy most about writing?
My family name Netchitailova means unreadable’ in Russian and yet, writing and reading is my biggest passion!
I started to write at the age of twelve and in Russian and even won a third place at one writing competition at school but didn’t pursue this passion until the age of twenty-seven when I ended up in a psychosis while living in Amsterdam.
Writing helped me then to deal with something incomprehensible: how come that the most amazing experience where I could see the angels and that healed me from terrible pain in the stomach, is labelled as ‘mental illness’?
And so I started to write. I have a whole book now that talks about my psychoses, but also about Russia and my life in different countries. I lived in Russia, Belgium, The United Kingdom and The Netherlands, and every place where I lived became important, a part of my life journey. I write about that, and I write about mental illness. I don’t think that we have enough books treating this subject in an uplifting way. And so I wrote a novel called ‘Elena: A Love Story for Humankind’. It tells a story about a Russian pianist diagnosed with schizophrenia who is looking for her sister, separated from her in an orphanage in Russia. I wanted to share the story with others and published it on Amazon.
Writing for me is a healing process. It helps me to navigate my bipolar disorder and I wish to help other people diagnosed with severe mental illness. Despite my diagnosis I managed to live a good life. I have a job I love, I raise a son. I look after a cat. I have good friends around, a PhD earned in England and the ability to stand up back on my feet when I don’t do well and end up in a psychosis.
I rebuild my life again and again and writing helps me to do it.
Therefore, writing for me is a need. It brings joy and helps me to understand myself better and hopefully help others too.
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