A little about myself: my name is Nika, I am 34 years old. At the moment I have secondary education (I have plans to study further) and live in Greece.

I was born and grew up in one of the Soviet republics, where in the nineties there was hunger and poverty, well, and now not much better, especially if we talk about the thinking (rigid upbringing) of the Soviet times.
I grew up in a family where there were three of us: me, my little brother and my mom.

There was no father, so mom had to be for both parents. She spent most of her time trying to earn more to get us on our feet, and there was no question of bringing us up. She herself grew up unloved, didn't know how to give us that very parental love, didn't understand how to do it. Despite her full employment, we grew up in poverty and in cruel conditions (at least I did) - all the responsibility for my brother, cleanliness and order in the house, lessons, fell on my shoulders for many years. My mother used physical force, and it was hard morally, sometimes to the point of absurdity. Years passed, complexes and resentments grew, I wanted love, understanding, affection and to be free from everything that caused pain.

At the age of 16 I ran away from home and went abroad to work, choosing an illegal (ancient) profession. I experienced a lot of things, both good and bad, but it gave a small impetus - my mother's behavior changed. Three years later I returned home with a deportation.

During my life I often met people who said that I was a very talented and charismatic person. Probably, I could have built a great career in many fields if I had returned at that time, at the age of 19, but! However, after comparing the mentality (of the former Soviet republic - Asia), the financial situation of the country and the family, after a short time, I left again, only now to Greece, choosing a familiar trade.

At the moment I have been living here for less than 15 years, I am still doing the same thing, but I am already preparing myself for a different life. During this time I had time to try on a couple of other countries, my boyfriends-"companions" (of different nationalities) changed, relationships did not work out because they were built on the principle of "rescuer - victim", or I generally bought this "love" and kept men. It is now I realize that I did everything wrong, wrong, how many mistakes I made and the role of parental upbringing, which I did not have. A gap, a failure, a hole. I was patching it up - looking for care and a place where I would feel warm and cozy. In search of love I gave birth to a daughter (I will omit this moment, there is a lot of things that could be written there. Briefly - the child lives with my mother abroad, on my full support, thank God, here brains were enough not to give a damn).

So, in pursuit of Happiness, I once again met a man, a Greek man. After some time it turned out that he had paranoia (at that time I didn't know what it was and what it was eaten with). The relationship dragged on for 8 years (!), built on the previous scenarios, only from his side added more abusiveness and narcissism, which I allowed to be.

At first everything was "good" (now I realize: in reality it was bad!), but every year it got worse and worse. My intuition told me that it was time to leave, to stop, but I couldn't.
The last year was hell, which prompted me to turn to a psychologist. Googling, easily found Katerina. After reading the reviews, I took the first step - I closed the rendezvous.

At the meeting, with my permission, she kept writing something down on a piece of paper, asking leading questions and at the end, without giving any verdict, she gave me a small task (something to think about). It was strange for me: I didn't fully understand whether I wanted to continue or not, because I came with one problem, it seemed to me at the time, it was not touched at all, and there was more concentration on me. But I said to myself: "I'll continue, we'll see.

Thus, meeting after meeting, step by step, I saw and noticed that, working on myself, I was gradually changing, becoming better day by day. It was an interesting and exciting process. Katerina became partly a "parent" for me. It's not for nothing that they say that parents are the ones who raised you: she initially nurtured the seeds in me, the basics, and taught me to understand "what is good and what is bad". This was an important process for me, which later became a strong foundation of my character.

Sometimes I behaved and felt like a little child in my 34 years. Sometimes I was cranky, sometimes I argued, somewhere I did the opposite, I did not have time to prepare for the meeting, but a big Bravo to Katerina - she brought the situation in the right direction, whatever I did, everything somehow leveled out and fell into place. I felt very comfortable working with her: there was a sense of help, support and understanding.

After a few months, the result of the work was:

I learned to understand my emotions, to hear, sympathize and forgive myself, to respect and stand up for myself, to appreciate and love myself as I am. I also began to be more realistic about the future and to see the situation as a whole, with all its pros and cons, to be more punctual, persistent and principled.

From the actions - I broke up with a sick person after 8 years of a toxic and addictive relationship. It was easy, you could say (I had made millions of fruitless attempts before!), I finally left and moved to another apartment. A little bit later I started to study Greek seriously, now I am preparing to pass the exams for the certificate (then I can go to university).

I sorted out my resentments towards my mom, and now I don't look for motherly love in my relationships, but I see many things in an adult way. I now have days off, and now I try to go out into real life more often (before I was just fixated on earning money, I practically never went anywhere outside of "work"), to encourage myself to develop, to encourage myself for my first steps.

In my plans for the future: to learn a decent profession, to get a normal, good job, of course I want to create a family and move my daughter to me.

And the cherry on the cake is that I want to be baptized. I thought about it while talking to Katerina. I realized that my soul calls and asks me to become one with God. I used to feel this sometimes - I used to cry when I went to church, but I had no idea why, they were strange tears. But I still went there... something very important was missing, and what and who was missing became clear only now.

And lastly: Katerina entered my heart as a "parent", a mentor, a guide. I will remember her fondly, I will miss her somewhere, but I know that now I can definitely be my own mother, friend and sometimes LOVED child. I learned it from her, took it from her, adopted it from her. And now I am grateful to God for not letting me get involved with drugs, to be among criminals or even worse - to work for them, to become an alcoholic, to wander wherever, to get into slavery, but gave me health, strength of mind, a head on my shoulders and gave me a meeting that means a lot to me.

I recently read somewhere: "Properly sown seeds give fruitful sprouts" - about me. Hovering in the clouds, in the body of a big kid, I was looking for a solution to problems on the love front.... in the wrong place. But turning to a psychologist, I found my life field and met a person who helped me to prepare the soil and sow seeds that are already bearing fruit.