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What principles define how you live?
On Kindness To acquire a sense of life, one needs to live a life full of meaning. And each path in life asks one to abide by certain principles. They can be found in the Bible, and so I won’t reflect on them, but I would like to explore a bit the concept of a… Continue reading
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Black page in history. Princess Anastasia
Princess Anastasia was a Grad Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, born on the 18th of June in 1901 in Russia. She was executed by Bolsheviks on the 17th of July 1918, together with her family. Her dad, Nicholas II, was a Tsar of Russia. The tragic event happened after the horror of the Russian Revolution in 1917,… Continue reading
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I miss my mother
We used to argue all the time with my mum. It is often the case in a close mother/daughter relationship. My mum had a big temper, and I couldn’t stop and learn not to provoke her unnecessary. She would jump, put her fists into the air, grab her keys and say that she wouldn’t come… Continue reading
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The Scream
Let’s have a look at another painting in relation to ‘madness’ by Edvard Munch, named ‘’The Scream’’. There are a lot of interpretations of this painting, including the one that accuses the painter of drawing ‘anxiety’. I disagree (anxiety was just one aspect of his ordeal). Munch drew this panting after his sister had been… Continue reading
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Mental Asylum
On the painting called La Salpêtrière (1795), Tony Robert-Fleury depicts how ‘madness’ was dealt with during the age of enlightenment. The ‘mad elements’ of the society were institutionalized in asylums, together with criminals. If you had nothing better to do on a Sunday, you could go to the asylum and watch the ‘mad’ for a… Continue reading
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What is Happiness?
What are 5 everyday things that bring you happiness? Happiness, the concept of it, has been imposed on us, here in the West, as some sort of a guru mantra that could solve all our problems. In reality, however, it is pretty much impossible. We can get these glimpses of occasional happiness, but they are… Continue reading
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I started to trust my psychiatrist. I had to.
Describe one positive change you have made in your life. When one has a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and totally unexpected, the natural reaction of any person would be a negation of it. And in all honesty, I am still not sure it applies to me (my diagnosis), but one thing I did learn during… Continue reading
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One bipolar morning everyday
What are your morning rituals? What does the first hour of your day look like? Those who know me, know that I am an early riser. I wake up at 5.30/6 to the singing of the blackbirds, and try to enjoy the moment for some time before getting up and going downstairs. My cat is… Continue reading
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I just believe
Do you believe in fate/destiny? From an early age I have always believed in something. I remember how on a walk with my mum, in Moscow, I would look into the sky, up above me, and ask myself whether there was more to this world and our universe. Moscow is a city of high buildings,… Continue reading
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A job and bipolar disorder
Do you enjoy your job? I love my job, and in general, I love working. But it hasn’t always been easy, in fact to get where I am now, it took me massive efforts to achieve. I teach at universities, and try to navigate it around my bipolar disorder. I have vulnerability to psychoses. I… Continue reading
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.