The guardian of sorrows or what to do to parents if the child considers himself a creature from another world

We very much ask you to help us! Do something at least! We all thought it was somehow, the psychologist once told us, and it was not. We are already told in the high school: pay attention and do something, it is strange, it interferes, we cannot tolerate it and not notice it, but we do not know how to respond correctly, and we need to consult with someone and take some measures. And we ourselves are in trouble: is it normal at all or how? I want to know and do something, but what? Here we came to you...

Mom, Grandma and Grandpa. Everyone talks loudly, long, interrupting each other. And most surprisingly, there is no gram of information in their triple monologue. I listen polently and attentively to the three adults for a few minutes, and as a result, I know nothing more about what is happening in their family than when they just entered my office.

The girl Milosevic - daughter and granddaughter - with them. Sad, narrow-armed, big-eyed - sitting on a chair, pushing palms under lean hips, and silent. What is it against them! For Milosevic 10–11 years.

She will soon be 12 years old! I accidentally catch the first concrete information from the flow of parental pronouncement.

I wonder what should I do now? Say to them: and now let’s do it again, first and specifically? Or ask them to silence and speak to the girl herself?

Now you ask her: Who is she? Grandpa cries out loudly.

Well, the proposal is not worse than anything else, I think and obediently ask:

Milosevic, who are you? Waiting to hear something like “cat”, “white”, “Winx fairy” and so on.

A girl’s escape into fantastic or literary images from such active relatives seems quite natural to me. True, it is somewhat confusing to mention the high school and school teachers. She is, and in school appears to be a white cat, cuddling or nuts bites?

“I am the keeper of sorrow,” the girl responds quietly and calmly.


Here is! The grandfather accusedly pulls the nodular finger toward the granddaughter. Do you see?! to

Mother and grandmother roll their heads like Chinese bulls.

“Please go out, everyone except Milosevic,” I said. When necessary, I will call you.

* * * *

Specific information had to be extracted from the girl. The extended is quite surprising, but it seems perfectly consistent with her inner reality.

Milosevic believes himself to be a guardian.

Everyone has something they’re here for, right? I have this. Do I like it? I do not know. Probably it is neither good nor bad, just yes. It is bad when a man does something that is not his.

All human sorrows, according to the ideas of Miloslava, live in a separate country. This country is pretty beautiful, but of course melancholic. In the middle - a large beautiful lake with islands, around - a colorful autumn forest. Over the forest sky. Sometimes the land of sorrow is clear and sunny, and then the trees are reflected in the water like in a mirror. Sometimes it rains and the wind blows, then the water runs and even wraps with waves, and the forest is terribly noisy. These are the birds that live in the forest. They are different. Through the lake swim huge and graceful sorrow labyrinths. There are sorrowful catches in the camels. There are crushed and crushed crows. There are small singing birds, each of which sings its own song at dawn and at sunset. There are quite fantastic, not found in our world of sorrow birds. All the inhabitants of the forest in their own way are charming, compassionate and not very smart.

Milosevic is the guardian of the forest.

What is the guardian’s job? To provide the sorrow birds with a pleasant and varied life in their native forest, to talk, play, admonish, persuade, not to let them into our world, and those who have yet to break, to return to their native penates. There is also a separate problem: having long entered our world, sorrow birds tend to form pairs in it and get nested. This cannot be allowed under any circumstances. Otherwise right here, in our world, sorrow can multiply uglyly: our world is not at all suitable for their puppies, and they grow up just terrible and can no longer return to the homeland of their ancestors.

After listening carefully and discussing in detail all this lyric and (cannot be denied!) As a talented psychedelic, I sent Miloslava to the corridor and called the bored parents, immediately warning them that they would speak in turn and only on my team.

When asking questions, I received the following information:

My mom and dad have been divorced for a long time. No bad habits, alcohol, drugs, psychiatry and so on. They separated because he was “blessed”, he didn’t earn money, he wasn’t interested in the family, he now lives with his mother and a speaking poppy, he communicates once a week with his daughter, he teaches somewhere, he studies the parliamentary arrangements of the 17th century. Miloslava's relationship with his dad is good, but talking to him about the fact that the girl has a problem is useless: he does not see any problems.

The idea of the "guard of sorrows" appeared long ago, now it seems to them that it was before school. Exactly remember that in the first class they went to a psychologist, who said: do not touch her, all children fantasize, there will be new school impressions, everything will pass. has not passed. Now they regret that they listened to that psychologist and "did not stifle all this ugliness in the embryo."

The fantasies of Miloslava are not good in themselves: what are these “tristes” of her? Why should she be sad if she has everything: parents, all the goods, school is good? Parents worry: if it is now, what will happen next? Will the veins start to cut off or jump out of the window? You know what they are now. Do you read the internet?

But this is half trouble. Stupid fantasies, yeah well. But she probably didn’t tell you what was being done in school.

What is done there? I ask you.

She gathers sadness.

What does it mean to collect?

In fact, there is no direct. She is the “guard.” And long ago I explained to several classmates how it was all arranged. They told others. And here – I don’t know who thought it before – they write their sorrows on leaflets and give it, repeating some special formula: save my sorrow, let it live as a bird in the magical forest, and something like that, almost in rhythm. She takes those papers, she reads...

What is in them? Do you know?

For example, “It’s a sadness about my dead dog. Her name was Zucca. She was such and such. She was already there when I was born. She’s gone and I miss her very much.”

And then then?

Then she takes a paper, imagines a bird corresponding to that grief, describes it to the person who gave the paper, and says, I will keep your grief in my forest. Go, she’s gone, everything will be fine with her. He almost put his hand on his head. They all say they are getting easier. Sadness is gone – how! And she told me that recently one of their young teachers, who was pregnant and lost the child, brought Miloslaw such a paper about the child, and she made, of course, that sorrow a bird and let go, and one girl heard it all and then overwhelmed. And parents in school are already worried: what is your sect? Do you understand? She will be expelled from high school. By the way, I understand! Who needs that?

Milosevic’s mother cried.

“We went to a psychiatrist, he said it was probably schizophrenia, and suggested hospitalization and examination. And still went to a psychologist in the district center, she spoke with Glory for a long time, and then told me that she has almost no feminists in her self-esteem (she calls herself not a "guard", but a "guard") and that such children often then change gender, and then put out a box, got some boxes and offered to buy a soothing tea from her.

Could hypnosis help? My grandfather asked hopefully.

Or even the pills? Grandma looked me in the eyes.

It was funny and scary at the same time.

What are you all doing? I asked.

“We have two shops,” said Grandma and Grandpa. Her daughter has a very responsible job, she is the head of the sales sector in a large company.

“Your girl is incredibly talented,” I said. It combines the father’s theoretical and dreamy intelligence and your ground-based and practical organizational grip. This is good news. The bad thing is that with talent nothing can be done. He can be killed, he can be helped, but there is no leader for him—you understand me?

“That means you’re not going to help us either,” said the grandfather.

Do you even offer a calming tea? Grandma struck bitterly.

I was already ready to shake my head negatively, but suddenly I remembered.

I will try to introduce her to someone. I’ll call you, then you’ll bring Milosevic here again.

They left with disappointed faces. I understood them.

After the reception, I got my magazines. I have been working for 25 years and I am very poorly documenting, but I still write the start dates of each magazine and always write the contact phone of the visitor. I almost remember the years. And the name is Zhenya or Sasha. Age - 12 to 13 years. Within a few hours I had a list of ten phones. That evening in seven families probably decided that the psychologist from the clinic, obviously, shrunk from the hard work.

I called the number: “Is this the Ivanov family? This is Ekaterina Vadimovna Murashova, a psychologist from a children's clinic. You visited me nine years ago. Can I call Eugene? I need her help. Living separately? Could her phone? and Eugenia? A psychiatrist from a child clinic. Tell me, Eugenia, have you ever been Princess Sumerec? No is? thank you. All the good. Sorry for the worry.”

I was lucky the eighth time.

“Yes, it’s me,” they answered at the end of the phone. and Sasha. Princess Summers.

Sasha, how old are you now? I asked.

and 23. What should I do?

* * * *

Milosevic and Alexander appeared to be somewhat similar.

Over the past few days, I clearly remembered a teenage girl who was all day sluggish, dull and slow, but revived in the darkness, dressed and painted like a princess, could no longer shave, sing, dance, be smart and charming. Parents didn’t know what to do because school was in the afternoon. I managed to defend her then - from pills and all that, I plotted my parents some nonsense about biorhythms and metabolism, and explained to her that we are all in some sense in exile in this profane world, but we need to learn to live in it and at the same time to find our place.

“I am still Princess Sumerek, but nobody, except my relatives, knows about it,” she told Miloslava Alexandra.

“Now you are probably the queen,” she said, looking at the girl with admiration.

“No, let me be a princess for a while, a charming smile, a flash of thick and long eyelids.

Who are you, Sasha? Apart from being a princess.

I am an actress. I graduated from the school and play in the theatre.

Can I go out now? For some reason I did not want to get into this interaction of birds, dusk, princesses, theatre, sadness and autumn forest. I felt too much in it.

— Yes, of course, — Alexandra completely aristocratically swung up with a thin brush, letting me go.

* * * *

I do not know what they were talking about.

Alexander said to me:

She is magical and very strong. Stronger than me then. thank you. It is a memory and inspiration for me.

And Milosevic said:

I understood: it is not necessary to arrange ballagans. If you see a man and see his sorrow, and you are a guardian, you can just imagine him and let him go into the woods.

It was true, I breathed with relief.

I wonder what she will be when she grows up?

I’t be surprised if I was a psychotherapist.