My family built a wall around me. Not of brick — of silence, sacrifice, and strategic submission.
My mother, Sonya, was the architect. She had survived the war. She had lost family. She understood what the system demanded, and she gave it — outwardly. She became the model Soviet citizen, the woman who followed every rule, who never questioned, who kept her head down. Not because she believed, but because she wanted her children to survive.
And she demanded the same from me.
The commands were clear, repeated, and absolute:
"Nikogda ne govori, chto ty dumayesh." — Never say what you think.
"Dazhe steny imeyut ushi." — Even walls have ears.
And above all:
"Mishen'ka, mozhno i nuzhno vse terpet', tol'ko chob ne bylo voiny."
Mishen'ka, you can and must endure everything, just so there won't be war.
This was not about actual war. This was the Soviet equation: resistance equals catastrophe. Don't fight. Don't disobey. Endure. Terpi. We know what is good for you.
My mother was not wrong to say this. She was protecting me. She was translating the system's requirements into family commands — and in doing so, she was keeping me alive.
But here is the insight that took me decades to understand: Even love can become a cage. My mother's protection — born from genuine love — was also training me to submit. The protective bubble was also a conditioning chamber. She was teaching me the survival skill of silence, which is also the collectivist skill of obedience.
This is what collectivism does to families. It turns love into a tool of compliance. It makes parents into unwitting agents of the state. Not because they want to serve the state, but because they want to protect their children — and in the system's design, protection requires submission.
My mother was right to protect me. She may have saved my life. But the protection itself was evidence of the disease.