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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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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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Tickets to Taylor Swift
What is the greatest gift someone could give you? Hello! Interesting prompt today by WordPress, asking what would be the greatest gift to receive. I would love to be very ethical and ask for a world peace, but what can I do, as an ordinary human? As everyone else I don’t understand what is happening… Continue reading
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Saying goodbye to perfectionism
What skills or lessons have you learned recently? With my bipolar disorder I have learned in the past couple of years to take it easy. I used to be a perfectionist in the past. I was always achieving something. If it wasn’t for work, then it would be for sport. At some point in life… Continue reading
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Bipolar and writing
What’s a topic or issue about which you’ve changed your mind? I often changed my mind about how I approach my ‘bipolar disorder’. A recent example is when decided to write openly about my diagnosis and my experience with ‘psychoses’. I thought hard about it and reached the conclusion that if I, a university lecturer,… Continue reading
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Stigma and bipolar disorder
Tell us about a time when you felt out of place. I feel out of place quite often. I have a bipolar disorder (I experienced psychoses), something that I don’t hide, and therefore, I often feel like an imposter in the society as a whole. The most difficult moment was after my last psychosis over… Continue reading
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Work and bipolar disorder
In what ways does hard work make you feel fulfilled? Work fulfils me in many ways, and I like working. It’s an essential part of being human. Karl Marx distinguished between labour and work. Labour is when you end up being exploited, like, for instance, in a factory where all work could finish in seven… Continue reading
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Is kindness still a virtue?
What’s the trait you value most about yourself? All people who raised me were kind. And especially, my paternal grandma with whom I spent two years of my life in Donbas and on a farm in the south of Russia each summer. The love I was getting from her (together with my cousins) was unprecedented.… 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.