There were no bedtime stories in my childhood. There were lectures. There were no hugs in my childhood—there were "edifications." My parents believed they were saving my soul when they broke my body. They said, "Whom the Lord loves He chastens," and every blow of the belt or my father's heavy hand was accompanied by verses from Scripture.
To the neighbors and parishioners, we were the perfect family. My father was an exemplary believer, my mother a meek woman. I was an excellent student in a long skirt, my eyes perpetually downcast. No one saw the crimson stripes beneath that skirt. No one heard me pray in the dark for only one thing: that tomorrow they would forget about me and just leave me alone.

For a long time, my "God" was like my father—cruel, demanding unquestioning obedience and punishing for the slightest mistake. I was taught that any thought of freedom, any attempt to ask a question, was the devil's whisper. Violence was served up under the guise of care. They beat you not because they hate you, but because they "want your eternal salvation."
This is the most terrible trap: when the aggressor hides behind a higher power. You can't be angry with your parents, because being angry with them means going against God. This is how a paralyzing sense of guilt is born, rooted deep within.

My epiphany didn't come immediately. It had been building for years. But one day, after a particularly difficult "educational talk" when I couldn't get up from the floor, I looked at the icons in the corner and suddenly understood: the Creator of this entire world couldn't want His creation to be destroyed like this. If God is love, then what's happening in that house isn't God. It's simply violence. Ordinary, dirty, human violence, disguised with beautiful words.

That day, I stopped fearing hell after death. Because my personal hell was already here, on Earth, in my own room.