Ekaterina Netchitailova

Echoes of a Multilingual Mind

Anna’s vampire saga

What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?

I think I would love to live a long life, for a simple reason that I love living, despite marching against all odds with my bipolar disorder.

I have lived in four different countries, speak four languages, and worked across many different fields. I had to restart everything from scratch multiple times, which made me super resilient. With a label of ‘bipolar disorder’ above my head, I never stopped from pursuing my dreams and aspirations. Some of them I am still pursuing, and I never give up.

The heroine of my new book I am writing at this moment, is a vampire. Her name is Anna S. Slabodsky and she was turned by a de Angeles vampire in 1917, in Russia. I think that by having chosen to write about vampires, I kind of answered the question about my thoughts on a long life. I would love to live a very long life.

Anna, the vampire from my book, is struggling, however, to place her experience in relation to the meaning of life. Why do we live, what is its meaning, and what is happiness in our current world? I struggle to answer these questions, and my heroine too. Our society has become very cynical and very judgmental. Creativity is stiffened by those who can’t think outside the box, and our general cultural level is in a big decline, especially in Europe. People hardly read anymore, and don’t know how and where to address the existential quest to find some meaning, because without it, life is extremely boring and not rewarding.

The heroine from my book ‘Vampire of Oldehove’ finds answers in literature (mostly, Russian), culture and different languages. She speaks the same languages as me: Russian, French, English and Dutch. As me, she actually lived and integrated into different cultures, and this experience does help when one feels down. In Russian culture, for instance, it is totally fine to dwell forever upon existential questions of life, and spend a lot of time on it. In Belgian culture, it is okay to love life and enjoy it. Their joie de vivre is contagious, and helped me a lot in my own journey. In Dutch culture you know that it is rare when someone stabs you in the back, while in English culture, they know how to laugh, and laughing and finding humor among misery is the best thing in the world, and especially when one battles with mental health and psychiatric diagnoses.

If you want to know more Anna, the vampire, follow me on X (@Chitailova). She is eternal.

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Ekaterina Netchitailova

I am a Doctor of philosophy, a university lecturer, writer, and a lover of cats, fine wine, books, theatre, and human eccentricity. Despite my last name ‘Netchitailova’ which means ‘unreadable’ in Russian, my greatest passions in life are reading and writing.

6 responses to “Anna’s vampire saga”

  1. Steve Wolf Avatar
    Steve Wolf

    Anyone who tries to suppress or crush individuality, originality, creativity, truth and tenderness is a spiritual psychopath who isn’t worthy of anyone with a heart.

    But increasingly society generally is ceding to a species of collective psychopathy. Although is that actually a development, or merely a distillation of what was already there?

    I think so many people with what gets labeled as “mental illness” are simply canaries in the coalmine, sensitive and receptive people that despite absorbing the false narratives don’t have it in them to be liars and haters.

    When they betray and deny their vision they become dangerous: implode into self-destruction or take their rage and thwartedness out on the world as the very damaged monsters they were scapegoated and trained to be.

    I don’t care what misunderstanding, stigmatisation, ostracism or marginalization gets meted out to me or anyone else I love who deviates from the norm and can imagine something better than glib banality: sovereignty and standing in truth is so much better than desensitisation and heartless expedience.

    As for your vampire saga, I’m looking forward to reading it! I imagine it’ll have a spoonful of whimsy to make the medicine go down.

    In terms of longevity, I do worry about that. Psych drugs — especially antipsychotics — are notorious for taking several years off people’s lives. I want as much more time as possible: when your backstory is one of unusual pain, confusion and incoherence, but only now have you woken up to a self-determining joy, understanding and self-acceptance, then you want as many remaining productive years alive as possible to be as alert, creative and generous as possible.

    Reply
    1. Ekaterina Netchitailova Avatar
      Ekaterina Netchitailova

      Dear Steve,
      Thank you so much for your thoughtful and so profound response to my post!
      I agree with everything you say.
      I am worried of course about antipsychotics but since the current meds I am on seem to be somewhat working (keeping me away from psychiatric hospital), and I am on my own, raising a son, I can’t risk and afford any change that would affect my ability to function. I need to raise my son and maybe find a good man.

      Reply
  2. lecox Avatar
    lecox

    Living a “long life” is an irony on this planet. We are all immortal spiritual beings, yet most of us are unaware of this fact.
    And we are unaware of this fact because we are trapped on Earth by a system that wipes our minds every time we die so that we forget that we have lived before.
    The people who run this prison are basically criminals who have stolen from us, so it is important to them that we forget so that their crimes will go unpunished. This is a major reason that anyone forgets.
    Life and living are what we make of it. Here we have reduced ourselves to beings who live in (about) 75 year cycles, or less, and can’t remember what we started before. Well, a lot of us started a movement to be free, and that movement was crushed. So that’s about all life is about. Some just want to play games and others (less fortunate) just want to destroy games. It’s interesting, but rather sad.

    Reply
    1. Ekaterina Netchitailova Avatar
      Ekaterina Netchitailova

      Yes, you are right, we are immortal beings and souls don’t die.
      I do remember who I was in previous lives.

      Reply
      1. Steve Wolf Avatar
        Steve Wolf

        Really? I don’t. I wish I did. If I had have had a sense of a continual, coherent narrative it might have saved me a lot of trouble.

        But that “forgetting” cauterises the very knowledge of the impetus that made you incarnate in the first place.

      2. Ekaterina Netchitailova Avatar
        Ekaterina Netchitailova

        No, I don’t remember myself the details. I was told by someone else who I was previously for one life, and internal, deep conviction about another life. Knowing it gives me more sense and understanding as to why I am again here, but, of course, you know how these beliefs are treated nowadays and I am stuck with the psychiatry.

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About Me

I am a doctor of philosophy, a university lecturer, and a lover of cats, fine wine, dancing, theatre, and human eccentricity. I was born in the Soviet Union (Moscow). I am fluent in four languages, and have spent all my adult life studying (except from 18 to 19) working and living throughout Western Europe. Despite a surname-Netchitailova- that translates from Russian into English as “unreadable”, my greatest passions in life are reading and writing. My personal struggles have made me appreciate the manifestations of weirdness that exist everywhere.

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