We all experience the loss of loved ones at some point. There is not a single person who would have escaped this. Although we all would very much like to be such a person. Grieving is natural, but very unpleasant. It seems like this experience will never end. It’s bad for us, it’s bad for the people around us, we don’t know what to do with the feelings that overwhelm us, those around us don’t know how to talk to us, what to do, what not to do. How to survive the loss – and is it possible to really survive it at all?
Survive Loss is the name of my new documentary project. For many years I have been making films about emotional experiences, neuroses, about everything that is worth going to a psychotherapist with, but our people do not go. Let’s at least watch a movie. There are films like Post-Traumatic Syndrome, Panic Attacks, there is a film about anorexia and gluttony, and now Survive the Loss is coming out.
Actually, it was supposed to be a popular science film. But during the filming, I was so captivated by the story of the heroine Katya Vizgalova that it became clear that I would shoot the entire film only about her. No comments, voice-overs, experts. A scary, exciting and touching human story turned into the film “The Blue Gull”.
But since it would be important for many people experiencing grief right now to hear the words of professionals, psychotherapists additionally explain everything in a separate video “How to survive a loss?”. It seems to me that this project can lend a helping hand to those who are suffering from grief right now or who have a grieving person next to them.
I think there is comfort and hope in these films. Consolation, because we see Katya, who goes through a nightmarish ordeal and continues to live. And hope, because after all, grief is not forever, and although it is hard to believe in an acute moment, it will gradually become easier.
At one point, her entire ordinary life was torn out like a page from a notebook. Or rather, they torn out all the pages.
At five in the morning, Katya was awakened by a phone call. She thought: Wrong number. But when the bell rang again, I realized: they were not mistaken, something had happened. The voice on the phone said loudly and strangely: “Katya, come. There was a fire. Nadia and Denis died.”
At one point, her entire ordinary life was torn out like a page from a notebook. Or rather, they tore out all the pages. And what’s next? How? Why?
Denis, Katya’s husband, was with their 11-year-old daughter at the dacha, in his homeland in Beloretsk. He loved this place most of all, so he often came there. It seemed to be the happiest and safest place in the world.
At night, the wiring caught fire in the country house. Denis burned down, and Nadia suffocated.
Katya was seized by some kind of numbness. Everything stopped, quiet, as if she had no thoughts, no sobs. Freeze, shock.
Returning from the funeral, Katya did not understand how she would enter the apartment again, in which she would now live alone. But in the end, at home, she became very well. The apartment was their common world, and when Nadia and Denis were gone, it seemed as if it continued to keep this world in itself.
Therefore, Katya did not change anything. There are no changes in Nadia’s room, it seems to have become a memorial: the girl’s clothes lie neatly on the shelves, on the table in a glass there are a dozen multi-colored pens, pencils and brushes, the entire “Harry Potter” is still in the bookcase.
Four years have passed since his death. There are still three toothbrushes in the bathroom, only Katya threw away Denis’ almost decayed washcloth. Katya is very upset by the changes around: a new traffic light has been put up, now outside the window there is another playground, no longer the one on which Nadia played, new houses are growing all around. Lots of changes. Change threatens memories and makes them harder to keep. And more than anything in the world, Katya is afraid of forgetting something.
Katya often hears from those around her that it’s already enough to grieve, that she “needs to get together”, “needs to hold on”, “needs to live”, she needs to be distracted by something fun, urgently get married and have a baby. You can not get married, just give birth.
In the end, grief is replaced by sadness, and timid rays of joy begin to seep through the dense veil of darkness.
Psychotherapists are sure that those who are experiencing the loss of all this should not be told. But why then do people give this stupid advice en masse? Because they don’t know, they don’t find the right words. Those who grieve react even harder when their grief is devalued: they say, nothing terrible happened. It turns out that it’s not worth it to behave with grieving people. And how is it worth it?
Psychotherapists advise the following. First, do not leave a person alone in grief, especially at first.
Secondly, friends or relatives need to make sure that the grieving person still sleeps, eats and drinks. So that he could express what he really feels: he could cry, shout out loud, get angry, break dishes. And it is also important that contacts with the world do not break off, that a person does not become isolated in his grief, so that one day he starts going to work again, communicating with people. Experts say that at first it seems that it is impossible to survive the loss. But over time it will get easier.
In the end, grief is replaced by sadness, and timid rays of joy begin to seep through the dense veil of darkness.
Katya says that she agreed to star in the film “The Blue Seagull” because it is very important for her to show by her example that life is very fragile and finite. And so it is very important to appreciate those who we have.
Succeed in love.
The premiere of the film “The Blue Seagull” will take place on March 1. Tickets for screening or remote viewing of the film can be purchased .