Welcome to Soviet Montessori™: Dispatches from a Childhood Built for Survival
If childhood is supposed to be a time of innocence, comfort, and juice boxes, then mine must’ve been a clerical error. In my early years, “home” was a dangerous place wrapped in abuse by the one person who is supposed to be the sacred nature given safety and comfort. I cherished solitude like other kids cherished birthday parties. I memorized my mom’s work schedule like it was sacred scripture, optimizing every hour she was gone like I was managing air traffic control. Because when she wasn’t there… I could finally exhale.
Growing up in Lithuania—especially in Naujoji Vilnia—wasn’t just hard. It was a full-time job. And the benefits? PTSD and a sarcastic inner monologue.
School? Also a war zone. You were either too smart, too stupid, too pretty, too poor, or too unfortunate to have a knockoff backpack. Everything could and would be used against you. Even your lunch. Especially your last name. Social status was built on vibes and survival instinct, and somehow, even in a post-Soviet block of crumbling buildings where we were all equally broke, there was still a hierarchy. Don’t ask me how. It’s like poverty cosplay with a caste system.
And just when you think piano lessons might offer a soft place to land—surprise! My teacher was a chain-smoking sadist who believed musical talent could be beaten into children. I cried after every lesson. And no, that’s not a metaphor. I cried because she hit me. With her hand. With words. With disappointment. It was like Whiplash, but without the jazz or Oscar buzz.
My grandparents were the one exception. My grandma spoiled me like I was the only flower growing in a crack of asphalt. Her apartment, with its sectional bookshelves and never used crystal dishes, was the closest thing to safe. For a while, she was home.
But even in our apartment courtyard, under the dim glow of rusted streetlamps, the social order of stairwells reigned supreme. Each laiptinė had its adolescent gang. And the turf wars? Hilariously arbitrary. We were all cold, all hungry, all wearing the same hand-me-downs, yet still managed to create microcosms of dominance based on which staircase you crawled out of. Humans are nothing if not consistent.
Underneath it all was this post-Soviet collective trauma: neighbors helped you, but also snitched on you. Adults smiled, but you couldn’t trust them. The legacy of generational survival whispered through every hallway: Don’t get too comfortable. Don't get too close. Because betrayal might one day save you.
Lesson One: Independence, Whether You Want It or Not
At three years old, I was sent to the store to buy groceries. Alone. No older sibling. No hand-holding. And while the store was just down the block, it definitely didn’t feel so. I was crossing real streets—dodging Soviet Ladas like a toddler Jason Bourne with a plastic bag and a mission.
My mom tells this story like it’s her TED Talk:
“My daughter was so independent!”
And people light up—
“Wow! So mature!”
Yeah, no. That’s not what I remember.
I remember the lump in my throat when I had to talk to the store clerks who looked like cartoon villains—drawn-on eyebrows, electric blue eyeshadow, lipstick nowhere near the lips.
I remember the cashier’s smirk that I thought meant, “you’re stupid,” not “aww, how cute.”
I remember the horror of forgetting the change—because of course I always forgot the change—and realizing halfway home, sprinting back in a full toddler panic, only for them to laugh harder.
And then? The cherry on top: the beating I got when I got home whenever I forgot an item or the so said change.
Not a scolding.
Not a “let’s talk about this.”
Nope—just full-on Soviet-style consequences.
Welcome to Soviet Montessori™:
Where independence is mandatory, toddlers are expected to navigate traffic and communism, and your reward for surviving is a lifetime anxiety disorder and a really impressive internal GPS.
Lesson Two: Emotional Regulation is Optional
Crying? Weak. Being quiet? Suspicious. Smiling? Naive. There was no right way to exist. Mom’s moods were weather systems—unpredictable, often violent, and definitely outside my control. One wrong move—mopping the floors without the right “technique,” cutting carrots wrong, not anticipating her hunger level—and suddenly, I wasn’t a child. I was a combatant in a war I didn’t sign up for.
This wasn’t discipline. This was Cold War domestic policy, with me as the scapegoat. I spent most of my childhood walking on eggshells, trying to decipher the shifting rules of what made me a “good daughter.” Not because I loved her, not in the way kids fantasize about maternal warmth—but because I needed her. As every child does. Because what was the alternative?
She used to call me from another room—literally yell my name from the kitchen—to come hand her the TV remote that was lying right next to her on the couch. Like, it was closer to her than it was to me. But if I didn’t drop everything and sprint over like I was on Soviet Family Feud, she’d explode.
In public, things got scarier. If I ever dared to show a hint of independence—or God forbid, try to set a boundary (which was basically a miracle for a shy kid like me)—she’d lean in close, all smiles for the audience, and hiss something like:
“If you don’t behave, I’ll beat you so hard when we get home, you won’t sit for a week.”
Straight-up Bond villain energy.
I’ll never forget the steam coming off her red face, her claw-like grip digging into my tiny arms, or the ear pulls that left me dizzy. And here’s the kicker—she’d do it all, and then just go about her day like she hadn’t just assaulted her child.
Meanwhile, I’d be standing there, tears streaming down my face in the middle of a store, trying to catch my breath—and people around us would just… smile. Nod.
Like we were part of some wholesome family sitcom and I was just the overly emotional side character.
No one ever said anything.
No one asked if I was okay.
I still don’t know if they were scared of her too or if they just believed her version of the story—that I was “dramatic” or “difficult” or “too sensitive.”
For a long time, I believed that too.
I thought all parents were like that.
That it was normal to fear your mother more than school bullies or Soviet store clerks.
It took me almost two decades to realize it wasn’t.
And another full decade to name her for who she really was:
Not my protector.
Not my role model.
My abuser.
And yeah, sometimes I still catch myself flinching when someone raises their voice or hands me a remote. But now I know where it comes from. And knowing? That’s where the unlearning starts.
Intermission: The Party That Got Me Publicly Executed
Lesson Three: Dissociation 101
By eight or nine, I was zoning out during her rants. My brain shut off like a phone on 1% battery. She’d scream next to me, and I’d hear nothing. Not because I was defiant—but because my nervous system literally couldn’t handle more. She’d have to touch me to get my attention, and that touch was almost always a blow to my head or body. I’d snap out of it and cry, telling her I truly didn’t hear her, and it was true. My stepdad noticed. “She doesn’t even flinch when you yell,” he said once. But to my mom, that wasn’t trauma. That was disobedience. Manipulation. An excuse to hit me harder.
So I became a trauma ninja. Hyper-aware. Memorized the creak of the couch, the jingle of her keys, the way her footsteps changed depending on mood. I was always listening, always predicting, always trying to survive.
That hypervigilance didn’t just fade—it graduated with honors and came with me into adulthood, clutching a suitcase full of coping mechanisms. It showed up in my romantic relationships like an overachieving intern: eager to please, perfectly polite, never taking up space. I was the “cool girl.” The accommodating one. Reading moods like weather forecasts, adjusting myself before the storm even hit. I wasn’t loving—I was managing. Performing. Soothing. Earning my place with good behavior.
But that wasn’t love.
That was trauma wearing lipstick and calling itself devotion.
Lesson Four: Be the Perfect Daughter
In my abuser’s world, I wasn’t a daughter. I was a puppet in her one-woman theater production—“Mother of the Year,” starring her, co-starring my tears.
I performed on command like some wind-up Soviet show pony.
Read poems.
Played piano.
Curtsied.
Smiled.
My report cards? Straight-up academic gold. A+ in every subject, including Emotional Suppression and Advanced People-Pleasing.
And yet—
Still, I was beaten.
Still, I was mocked.
Still, I wasn’t safe.
Turns out, perfection doesn’t protect you when the person pulling your strings needs someone to punish.
So when I wasn’t performing, I disappeared.
Into school.
Into books.
Into daydreams where my name wasn’t known, and no one yelled it from another room to hand them the remote.
And when I finally got out—when I got into boarding school in the U.S.—it felt like I’d taken my very first real breath. Like, up until then I’d just been holding it in, waiting to see if the next hit would land.
That tiny dorm room? With my own lamp, my own pillow, my own books lined up neatly on a shelf, and a couple pieces of art tacked to the wall with dorm-safe putty?
That was my first home.
Not because it was fancy. But because it was mine.
And no one screamed in it.
No one hit me in it.
No one stole my breath in it.
Just me. And the quiet. And the shock of learning that freedom can be this… uneventful. And that uneventful is a miracle.
Final Exam: Redefining Home
Since then, I’ve tried to recreate that sense of home. Through books. Travel. Art. Eleven moves in ten years. I kept searching for safety, often in the wrong places. I made men my home. Even when I barely knew them. Whispered, “You are my home” like it was romantic—not a red flag stitched in childhood trauma.
Turns out, when your earliest attachments are forged in violence, you confuse survival for love.
But now? I’m unlearning.
Lighting candles. Wearing cozy socks. Saying no and not apologizing for it. Letting laughter and trauma coexist like weird roommates.
I’ve come back to Vilnius, to the shop I braved at three, to the window I once hung my legs from.
To reclaim my story. To honor the girl who just wanted to be seen in her little party shoes. To remind her that home is not the place you were hurt—it’s the one you build after.
And I’ve built mine.
With truth. With love. With a wicked sense of humor.
Because if you can survive Soviet Montessori™, honey, you can survive anything.