How I use books to self medicate: family, friendship, and immigration

At some point in my life I started associating book reading with a form of escapism, more over as a way of battling depression and anxiety: loaded topics that had not been discussed or made the headline in the late 20th century, or at least not where I lived (Israel). On top of my ‘stoic’ Jewish/Israeli background (because we endure) my Ukrainian ancestry came into play, and in Ukraine we don’t complain (or suffer from depression, for that matter) — we power through like a T-14 Armata, because that’s what we do (Eastern Europe is not for the weak of body or spirit): we PRIDE ourselves for being tough. But reality is that I was born an anxious, sensitive child, and although I do not wish to be pat on the head or given special treatment, I have to be honest with myself — if it were not for books I do not know where I would I have been today, or if I would have been at all. Books were my therapists, they were also my antidepressants.
My parents are immigrants and theirs is the classic and not so classic immigrant story. Let’s just put it this way: they are used to working hard, and working relentlessly. My mother hails from a single parent family. Her mother was born in 1933, with her family nearly escaping Poland to save themselves from the Nazi Death Camps. She — my grandmother — was one of the three children out of eight who survived the war. Her upbringing boarder-lined cruelty and such religious rigidness that she was eventually banished from her maternal home for marrying (eloping) a goy.
My father, on the other hand, had a pretty indulgent childhood growing up in one of the new high-rise complexes (all the rage at the time), in a mid sized city in central Ukraine. Both of his parents had education and thus worked in factories as engineers. They both later relocated to Iraq to work for a construction contract. Despite their respective differences in socio-economic class, religion, and ethnicity both my parents had happy childhoods growing up in the Soviet Union; riding bikes, hiking, reading books… Doing all those childish activities kids all over the world did. In a sense they experienced Ukraine (and the world) in its glory days. There was no unemployment, global warming was a non-existent issue, the US was Rambo technicolor dream world where everyone drank Pepsi and wore denim. China was the mystical orient, and Europe was the place where all the Russian Oligarchy and upper crust escaped to before and during the Bolshevik Revolution, in a nutshell the world was VERY SIMPLE.
I came along in 1988, about three years before the inevitable fall of the USSR. My mother used to read to me all the time, sometimes I think she did it more out of her own love for book-reading and story-telling than for me (insert a slightly guilty laugh). I could not remember the plots, but I did remember the illustrations and titles. Our house was always filled with books and my parents were always reading something or other. Russians and Ukrainians love reading: books were consumed indiscriminately, like vodka — anything from the latest translated classic from the coveted WEST to the locally concocted detective thriller. With that being said I have to admit I took books for granted at the time. I was even named after that classic tale of Alice in Wonderland: books were not companions, or even valued commodities. For me they were always there, even if I didn’t acknowledge their importance to my survival and the development of my character. Food was there, oxygen was there, mom and dad were there, my two older cousins were there with their parents, my grandmothers were there, books were there. I lived in a very safe bubble as the country I was living in was crumbling around me at an astonishing speed.
To be fair I don’t even remember how I learned to read (in Russian). It just happened, however, and in all honesty, it probably didn’t just happen: I’m sure my poor and frustrated mother driller letters of the alphabet into my lazy child brain with the vigorousness of a Roman army general. And one day I could read, although I didn’t see the point as my mother was always the one who read to me: I loved looking at the pictures more than at the text and preferred studying the colourful covers than the rigid Cyrillic shapes on the pages. Regardless of anything it was one of the greatest bonding experiences of my life: my mother (as cheesy as it might sound) is my best friend.
While I didn’t remember any of the storylines (and I still don’t), I do remember the titles that were read to me: Alice in Wonderland (naturally, and oddly while the world seems to be obsessed with this particular title I never liked it and found it weird), Winnie-the-Pooh, Mary Poppins (I don’t know why, but I had a great aversion towards the book and Poppins herself), Karlsson-on-the-Roof, and The Golden Key. Since I was little my parents tried to install a love of the classics in me, which sometimes worked (I did love The Hound of the Baskervilles), or failed epically (could not stand Treasure Island as it bore me to d.e.a.t.h). You see, classics were revered and exalted in the USSR: a territory priding itself with an abundance of great and influential writers.
Contemporary books from the West (translated, as it was unheard of for someone to actually understand English or any other foreign language unless they were diplomats), were impossible to buy at bookstores, or to get at a library (LOLZ, that was nonexistent). One had to be well connected to get their hands on Western novels, wait in line, offer a bribe. It was funny and sad at the same time to see the lengths people were willing to go to acquire The Godfather, but hey, at least they got acquired it eventually. My mother would often stay up late in the wee hours of the night reading The Exorcist while my dad was engrossed in Beyond Good and Evil. In our house someone was always reading something.
Ukraine proclaimed its independence on August 24, 1991. The Soviet Union took its last dying breath on December 25 of the same year. After being under the Communist regime for nearly 70 years, experiencing purges, man-made famine, and Nazi occupation the Soviet bedrock of steel and agriculture was finally free. And all of a sudden people could have EVERYTHING. Or so it seemed: if you had money you could, but for most it meant even longer lineups at grocery stores and the lack of basic necessities. The country was wreaked by even more corruption and violence.
As a small child I had zero understanding of it all: we had food on the table, I felt safe, I had my toys, every evening at 8pm they’d broadcast Tom and Jerry, and my mom still read books to me every night. But even my kid brain with its disinterest in adult matters was starting to pick up on some weird things: my uncle would have a new car every single week (he’d crash one every time like clockwork and replace it with effortlessness), my two cousins started sporting fashionable clothes (nothing like the stuff you could find at the local market), my own parents started dressing up nicer, wearing what was clearly ‘Western Clothing’. At some point at that time my cousins’ grandfather passed away. I met the man only twice in my life: to me he was a tall, dark-skinned silver fox. He also had a vast library which put my mother in awe and she’d occasionally borrow books from him. He was a mathematics professor at a university, and the three things I remember about him where that he was highly intelligent, a womanizer, and had a rocky relationship with his son (my uncle). When he passed away he left behind his books and two properties, perhaps as a compensation of sorts for being an absent father. I guess the properties were either sold or given away to pay off debts… I can only speculate. The fate of the books remains unknown either : they could have been sold, or alternatively adopted by his then girlfriend (life partner).
At the time books were hardly on anyones mind, though. My mother continued going to work — one of city’s hospitals — where she didn’t receive any pay, because well, there was no government to pay people their respective salaries. Meanwhile my father was starting to make some money in the jewellery business, like, actual money. A new kind of social class was beginning to emerge in post-soviet Ukraine: the nouveau riche. Tracksuit clad young men came to my dad, and other jewellers, demanding for golden crosses the size of your head to be made for them. Many of these very same young men later on found their death in shootouts or overdoses (drugs/alcohol).
On top of everything else Ukraine was beginning to experience a rise of nationalism. Paired with political instability, gang warfares, and a surge of corruption, the country was becoming a dangerous place to live in. However, there was light at the end of the tunnel: the former borders of the USSR were lifted — those who could made their swift exits. My parents decided to move to Israel.
I don’t know how my parents viewed our new home, but to me it was a paradise play-ground deep in the North, 300 kilometres off of Lebanon. Israel was another politically unstable county; throw in some religious zealots to the mix, along with occupations and never ending wars… Well, the place was not exactly Switzerland, however, it was nothing like Ukraine. I have never seen such opulence of food and stuff in my life, and sure it was HOT, but the seven-year-old me could care less about the weather or the political climate. The only thing I wanted to do was go on and explore my new home: there were actually fields of gold (barely) behind my house. In Ukraine I could never go anywhere without adult supervision, but this, this place was one big amusement park, sadly no one let me be Tom Sawyer for long — I was sent to school.
I started first grade in early November, by that time my classmates knew the Hebrew alphabet and could read and write. None of my teachers spoke Russian, the only other classmate who did was a shy bespectacled girl who kept to herself and hardly uttered a word. I was failing all of my classes and couldn’t care less. I was home every day at four: my parents were away and would only come back around seven or eight in the evening. For a while I didn’t have any friends: the local Israeli kids saw me strictly as Russian, an invader. I was a gangly child with distinctive slavic features, on top of my ‘exotic appearance’ I didn’t understand a word of Hebrew. I was a lost case for my teachers as I won’t stop making awful grammatical errors and have an R that sound like an L.
I could not hide my academic failures from my parents forever: at a parent-teacher meeting (and with the help of a translator they dug-up from somewhere) my homeroom teacher (who I think hated me with a passion) explained to my parents that I was failing school, and if my grades didn’t improve I’d have to repeat first grade. My bacteriologist mother and university drop-out father were appalled. My mother graduated pre-med with honours, my dad was a rowing team champion and a recognized Ukrainian artist (he got a certificate and all), how could their only child be failing? It was unacceptable. At the time my mother was reading less to me: we had no books at home. So I was forced to go to the library. Reading was laborious, so instead I chose illustrated child-friendly encyclopedias about ancient cultures. With the help of my parents I started mastering the Hebrew Alphabet, I also started making friends: fellow children of Soviet immigrant just like myself. We had a language in common and were bullied by the local kids who mocked our dressing style, we were also kind of poor, and it showed. At first I was relived to have my group of friends; we were united against the other children, however, quickly it became obvious that even within this close knit group there was clear hierarchy.
My newfound Russian friends were starting to turn cruel: perhaps they were venting their angers and fears, or maybe it was the frustration projected unto them by their parents… At any rate I’m not child psychologist, so there’s no point for me to try and analyze it, specially not twenty years after. That group of ‘friends’ turned me into the butt of every joke: I was bullied and mocked by the very same people with whom I was supposed to feel safe and welcome. It was at that very moment that I started turning to books. Instead of hanging-out with them after lunch I’d briskly go to the library: I would rather spend my time leafing through encyclopedias then be harassed by a bunch of insecure girls. My grades were gradually improving, and school stopped being such a chore. It quickly dawned on me they were not my friends, and quite frankly I didn’t really need them. Occasionally they’d drop by my house for playdates, and I’d just politely refuse, saying I was reading (and I actually was). Reading made me happier: not only did my grades get better and my pesky teachers let me be, but I was actually learning to enjoy my own company — it was at that moment that books started becoming my friends, and their protagonists were just as real as the people surrounding me.
Several years later my family moved to a city in central Israel. I left my small town friends and small town experiences behind. The concrete jungle blew me away: everything was so tall, it was as tall as it was huge. At my new school I established myself as an ‘outgoing’ academically apt child. Although I was never really all that popular I had a close-knit group of friends. Among them was a boy who tittered between us and the popular crowd, I have no idea what he was pursuing exactly. For his twelfth birthday his mother wanted to throw him a party: me and some of my other friends were at his place when he made the announcement. He followed by adding that his mother wanted ‘no Russians’ at the celebration. ‘No Russians’ meant me, and this one other girl (who he never even spoke to, let alone spent time with). I was flabbergast. This was my friend — we hung out practically every day after school! The other kids just stared at me, some snickered. I didn’t stop being friends with anyone after the incident (I’m not a bitter person), I just opted for heading straight home after school instead of handing out with them as I frequently did before. I suppose it made me more withdrawn, in a way. I realized that to my classmates I was — first of all — Russian, then came everything else. Being labeled as Russian (even if you were technically Ukrainian, Belarus, or Moldavian) was rarely a complement. Most people at the time associated it with a lowly immigration group who could not (presumably would not) assimilate, and was often questioned of its Jewishness. However, and in spite of all of that, I did not want to seek out my fellow countrymen: I did that twice already and that turned into a disaster… So instead I once again focused on school more than anything else, school and Goosebumps.
By the time I was thirteen I was restless, bored, and filled with anxieties. The school load was getting less manageable, and there were no books for me to read. There was no ‘young adult’ section at the local library: I was getting tired of reading R.L. Stine and Clueless novels. Harry Potter was just not doing it for me anymore. I was an angry know-it-all and no one was getting me, or maybe I was just being a hormonal and melodramatic teen… Either way, as sure as the waxing of the moon, I started failing classes. Like, actually failing — just like I did back in first grade. Around that time 9/11 happened, and the Second Intifada was well underway. I’d come home everyday and cry. New material was being shoved into my head without me even absorbing what I just learned yesterday. I avoided turning on the television — there was nothing uplifting waiting for me there: death was the central (and only) theme.
Around that time I started reading The Series of Unfortunate Events: a birthday gift I didn’t have the time to get around to. To my own surprise I relished every page — finally there was someone whose life was way crappier that mine. Sunny, Klaus, and Violet might not have been failing algebra and Arabic, but they had to deal with Count Olaf, he was probably the most disgusting and terrifying villain I’ve met in my life. Oddly enough, I was starting to feel better after ‘living’ through all of the Baudelaire orphans’ misfortunes. My grades were slowly improving and I wasn’t as depressed.
Books continued being there for me all thought high school (Murakami and Salinger, you could not tell from the way I dressed but I was so Emo on the inside it hurt), an array of fantasy YA when I was stuck in a crappy relationship that wasn’t going nowhere in my early 20s… Bottom line is that books where that one concert thing that managed to pull me out of a stupor of depression and helplessness when everything else failed: they provided solace, escape, and compassion; all the way from my early childhood in the USSR to my (later on) adult life in Canada. Paperbacks and hardcovers, they were there for me at the darkest of times, they took me on my biggest adventures, and introduced me to characters that became as dear to me as my own family. I know that the older I’ll get the harder things will be, especially with the state of the world today, and I know that books will be there for me without a fail time and time again.