When I was 19 the whole hell broke loose.
That October 1992 I started my college here at Belgrade University. I broke up with my high-school sweetheart and found another boyfriend. Lectures seemed interesting. I had my friends, I had my little Australian parrot who was my greatest love and friend. And the future looked bright.
But something was off.
In the morning I started feeling stomach discomfort, soon after I had horrible diarrheas, and I had to wake up a few hours earlier to regulate my intestines before I run to the bus.
Each morning, I was shaking while the lectures were held, and each afternoon I was horribly tired while our college practice was going on. I started to sleep for 12 hours straight to keep myself going the next day.
But when I think of it now, it didn’t start then.
When I was 16, I fainted one morning in front of the toilet doors. I managed to stand up after a while, went in, and then I don't remember a thing until I sensed my mother trying to raise me while the bathroom mirror was scattered on the floor and all over me.
She took me to bed, she called an ambulance, and they were more interested in the fact could I be pregnant. I wasn't. I was a virgin at that time. All I could say is that I felt sick after I had my breakfast. And my breakfast made my mother combining fruits, and nuts floating in lemon juice. That was some extra-healthy breakfast she read about somewhere, so she made a promise that she will improve our lives.
Two months later, I was in a Children's hospital in New Belgrade since I was a minor. I hated that place. I hated it when I was three and they cut out my tonsils. And I hated them, even more, when I was five when they operated on my appendix.
I didn’t hate the doctors, I hated the whole hospital and all those crazy children there. In those years, mothers weren’t allowed to be in the hospital with their children and that was truly traumatic.
Ok, I am 16 now. The hospital rooms are crowded with children. I have to share the bed with a little girl who is bleeding from her mouth each night while she sleeps. On the other side, there is another girl my age, who tried to kill herself, and there are many more. Drama, trauma, all around.
Nurses are horrible, I think that jail keepers guard convicts in a better way and doctors don't care. For the first time in my life, I went to the gynecologist. And I was afraid.
He told me to undress and lie on that awful thing, and then all of the sudden he pushed his hand into me. I screamed, he yelled, I cried. I felt awful. But then, I had it in writing. I was a virgin.
For two weeks, they did all sorts of tests on me, but in the end, they could only find that I have low levels of cholesterol. Even my blood pressure which was usually very low was very high there. I told the doctor assigned to me that this is happening due to stress, but he didn't believe me.
He wanted me to stay longer so that they can search for… For what?
I signed to get out of the hospital. Two weeks later when I returned to pick up some documentation, he checked and my blood pressure was low… As usual.
In the summer of 1990, the civil war began in Yugoslavia. I was with my mother in a mountain hotel at that time. That evening, we watched the news announcing that Slovenia stated they are not part of Yugoslavia anymore. And then it was this whole mess around the army, local police, and everything in between. Little did we know that it would turn out into a huge mess resulting in blood flowing all around.
But there, on that mountain, I felt like something is off. I had some severe sunburns, and I didn’t understand.
I lived on coffee and cigarettes. My mother already knew I started to smoke. Yes, we had the fight, and another one and another one, but I couldn’t hide and lie anymore.
The war in Slovenia started threatening to expand toward the south. And we were at the south. But I was young. I was 16, I just had my first boyfriend, a real jerk, I had a heartbreak, I was "mature" with my coffee and cigarettes and life felt just interesting enough.
Or, it could have started earlier?
