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Bitter cold and starvation...
I spent two years on the streets.
I used to come here with the last bus,
enter the hospital illegally and go to sleep on one of the beds.
Emil Traev, long-time patient of State Psychiatric Hospital "St. Ivan Rilski"
A piece of bread... I didn't eat out of dumpsters, I didn't beg,
but it was very tough.
The pension was 42 leva (21 Euro). Now it's 110 (55 Euro).
I've been surviving 18 years now, thanks to this hospital and its staff.
At first, I was here for a year under an open regime
and after that they voluntarily placed me.
I was never sentenced or ordered to get treatment against my will.
Everyone has problems -
now and then they become aggressive,
nervous, torn in their thoughts and views.
The point is that with us it's just more severe and it's a condition.
That's the thing about our illness -
little by little everyone abandons us
because of our needs, which are,
funny though it may be, a few coffees, a couple of cigarette boxes -
that's what our brain needs, it helps us and comforts us.
Nevertheless, I feel guilty -
guilty for not having a job, guilty for not having a family,
guilty for not being able to function normally like the rest,
guilty for not having children,
guilty for not having their problems, but my own.
This is why communication is so difficult between me
and the rest of people in this small town where I live.
Other people make us ill.
We can exist more or less normally and be part of this society,
but it's very hard.
It's very hard, because society itself has to change.
The sad narrative - success or strength,
the silhouette of importance - victorious fate.
No fights for love, not enough freedom,
a kind of attachment - success or strength.
Special thanks to
the poet Emil Traev
A Bulgarian Helsinki Committee production