WHEN I WAS A STUDENT WITH VINKA SAZDOVA: WE WERE PROUD THAT WE WERE THE SECOND GENERATION AT THE DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY, AS IF WE HAVE CONQUERED A PEAK

Psychology was her study choice. She became fond of it thanks to the inspiring lectures of her psychology teacher. Although she never worked in the profession, Vinka Sazdova used the knowledge of this science in everything that she did after her studies. This is also the case with her novels (“Sometimes Happiness Comes”, “The Last Tea”, “Fields with Wild Daffodils” and “Luna”), which are psychological dramas.

The student days, the student years, for her are living the dream. The dream she dreamt when she was a third year in high school.

– I am sorry that I do not remember the name of the professor, but I remember her face, her eyes and the color of her voice. She was calm, gentle. She spoke quietly, and at the same time passionately and devotedly. And it was precisely that devotion of hers that has lit that sparkle in me. I decided: I will study psychology! Perhaps I, like her, will get to know the secrets of the human soul, I would understand myself, I was saying to myself. Yes, I think that was the key motive in choosing my future profession – to figure myself out! I was 17 years old. It’s an age of many questions, and few answers. And I wanted to figure out the answers. I wanted to understand my own and other people’s actions, feelings… – says the writer and publisher, Vinka Sazdova in her student story told for Fakulteti.mk. Having in mind how well she can tell a story, we left her a room so she can create the structure of the story herself.

To get to know myself

– But, what a disappointment! When I asked around, I learned that there is no Faculty of Psychology in Skopje! Oh my God! But I do not want to study anything else! I will be a psychologist, or nothing! And here we are, luckily, not just for me, of course, already the next year, within the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje; the Department of Psychology was opened. I belonged to the second generation of students, of which I was especially proud. I had the feeling that I was one of the chosen ones, a leader in something new, something big and unknown.
Until I enrolled at the faculty, I did not hesitate for a moment, nor did I think I could study something else. My decision was irrevocable. And as such I conveyed it to my parents: “I will study psychology”! – I told them decisively. To be honest, I did not even have to be so determined when I told them this. They did not interfere in my decisions anyway; they did not impose on me their will. “You know best” – was their blessing, for which I was infinitely grateful to them. And now, after so many years, when I think about it, I am even more grateful. They gave me freedom, and this, along with love, is the greatest gift that a parent can give to its child. And so it was with everything else. I would get a 10 on an exam and I would tell them. “Well done,” they answered. I passed the first year. “Super”. I graduated. “Bravo!” Such were our dialogues that relate to my studies. I suppose, when I’m thinking about it now, I understand why they were so calm. They saw me that I did not miss a single lecture, that I was studying throughout the day, and why should they be worried?

I hated mathematics

There is something very interesting about studying in high school and at the faculty. As if I was not the same. In high school, the grades were not so important to me, I mean, they were important, but I only studied when I knew that they would examine me, and often, I studied during the breaks between classes. I had some threes and fives, many fours, and one two, in mathematics (in the end, at the fourth year I got to having a three). One of the fives was in Macedonian language and literature. Professor Olga loved me; I was the one that always read excerpts from the books in front of the whole class. Back then, I did not know why she believed in me and encouraged me, but, apparently, it seems that she was right. Another professor also believed in me – Slave, the music teacher. “Vinka will become someone,” he would say out loud in front of the whole class. And I was saying to myself: What is wrong with him, I am so ordinary!?

The Macedonian language was my favorite, while mathematics – the most hated subject. And it is precisely this repulsion towards everything that is a number, a mathematical operation, which reduced my grade point average at the faculty. But about that, a little bit later.
At the faculty, I attended every lecture and every exercise. I passed the exams on time; I delivered the seminar work on time. When I was preparing for exams, I did not leave anything to chance. I had to have everything learned, flawlessly. I studied only during the day. (I am a day person, and I stayed like that to this day, and for this I found a support also in “my” psychology). There are two types of people: owls and larks. The first ones work better at night, while the later during the day.
And so, I was getting up early, I would prepare my coffee and move on straight towards the desk, looking at the backyard of the house where we lived. I studied without stopping until 4 pm, when I had a small break for lunch and then I continued to study until 6 in the afternoon. All day silence! No friends, no phone calls. Nothing was to distract me from the subject matter I was preparing. But, therefore, I went out every night; to be frank, until 22:00 because in order to get up early, I had to go to bed early. At that time, it was rarely anyone who stayed out until late in the night, or until the dawn, like now.

Before an exam – a sleepless night, spasm in the stomach

My companion during my studies was Slavko (then my boyfriend, and later on my husband), whom I met the summer before enrolling at the faculty. He witnessed my obsession with psychology. And he still does. At that time I also kept a diary and in it, apart from my love “struggles”, there are certainly thoughts about the student highs and dilemmas. But who can read it now? And before each exam, always the same thing: a sleepless night, a spasm in the stomach and the feeling that I do not know anything. Nothing, really! Until I received the questions. Then as if I was leaving a tunnel. Because I have a visual memory, the answer appeared before my eyes instantly. And I started, first quietly, and then more resolutely. In the end, the professors, with a satisfying nod, would interrupt me and write a nine or a ten in my index.

Yes, I was really a good student. I was as enchanted. Not only did I learn, but I also read books in the field of psychology. I wanted to know more, so that tomorrow, when the day comes, I will help people. That was my dream: to help! And I believed that I have a gift for it. What a youthful frenzy! I ride the bus to the faculty and observe the travelers. I try, according to their facial characteristics, according to their face, to evaluate their personality. This one is such and such… and that one such and such…, I conclude. Funny! A true expert! Afterwards, of course, I realized that one should not rush into conclusions and that the appearances can be deceitful. But that’s the other school. The real one. The School of Experience. Of life.
So, if I studied so hard, why did I have an average of only 9.00? My hatred towards mathematics is to be “blamed” for this. Ro be precise, Psychometry, but that is somehow similar to mathematics. Wherever there were numbers, I would fail, actually, I did not even try to learn something. And so, the 6 in Psychometry reduced my grade point average. But that did not mean anything to me. I did not study for a grade, I studied for myself. And I think that’s okay. The grade point average is for the others, the knowledge is for you. The soul should be nourished, not the ego. The psychologist in me may also say that I have prepared so well for the exams so that I do not feel inferior, insecure, or even worthless, but now we will not go into psychological analysis. We are talking about facts. And one of the facts was, as I said, that I belonged to the second generation of students at the Department of Psychology. And we were all proud of being among the first to enroll at this faculty. It seemed to us that we were among the first to have conquered a peak; unknown and mystical to many.

We did not miss a lecture

That the Department was just established was also evident through the lack of textbooks and professors. The subjects for which we had textbooks were rare, so we wrote the lectures in notebooks. And then we studied from them. This was in some way an advantage: we were encouraged not to miss a single lecture, and we also received a sublimated text for the exams. The second disadvantage was also an advantage. Professors and assistants from Belgrade came, where the Faculty of Psychology had a tradition. Of course, they held the lectures in Serbian, but that did not bother us, not because we were learning the Serbian language in the elementary school, but because almost all the professional books and the fiction that we read were in Serbian language (at that time, very little was translated into Macedonian language).
Among these guests was Professor Predrag Ognjenovic, who taught us General Psychology 2. I remember him by the ease with which he held the lectures, his charm and the pipe that he would light up when he came out of the classroom.
The first professor we met was the founder and head of the Department, Risto Gjorgjevski, who lectured in General Psychology. I remember him by the lesson about the priority of the urges, that if you are hungry and tired, you will rather go to sleep than sit at a table to eat. I am remembering the professor of Genetics, Shopova, by the lectures about the dominant and recessive genes (then I learned that the blue eyes have a recessive gene, which means they will appear in the second generation), Jakov Lazarov by the lectures about the role of the environment on the manifestation of the emotions (what is normal for an African tribe, it is not for a European), Olga Murdzeva-Shkaric, the Professor of Child Psychology, that the child is the father of the man (and we all know that the father of this motto is Sigmund Freud), the Logic Professor, Mitko Ilievski, by the instruction on syllogistic conclusion.

Overall, I had really good professors; committed to the transfer of one’s own knowledge. Of course, I also had favorite subjects: Genetics, Logic and Psychopathology. The last one left me the strongest impression. Maybe because we went to lectures at the Medical Faculty, and then we had exercises in the Psychiatric Clinic, in the basement, where the most difficult cases were…

I will never work as a clinical psychologist

To this day the patients from the basement are before my eyes. The young man with manic depression, the girl with paranoid schizophrenia, the woman with clinical depression, the high school student with a suicide attempt, the clocks man with neurosis… The exercises were held by Vitomir Micev, then an assistant, whose visual expression intensified the overall drama. As if it was not enough for us, still inexperienced souls, to see before us the young man once in euphoria, and already the next week depressed, the girl with hallucinations, who was given electric shocks, the mother who had forgot that she had children… All of that was very sad. Locked door, grates on the windows, stagnant air, people looking like ghosts.

No, I will never work as a clinical psychologist, I decided. My fragile soul cannot bear these human sufferings. And the question: where is the limit between the normal and the madness? What is insane and what is normal? I believe that still nobody has that answer.
Another experience of mine is very valuable to me: the internship under psychologist Nevena Trenkoska at the Institute for Mental Health of Children and Youth. I learned a lot from Nevena, and I also got a lot of warmth from her, for which I am extremely grateful. She showed me what the psychologist should be like: quiet, calm, compassionate, mild. I would be like that, I promised to myself, I wished. But life had a different scenario for me…

I applied psychology in my interviews

When I think of the student days, there are several scenes before my eyes: a busy city bus with jams like you cannot imagine today, squeezed in a clamp of bodies, cold or an infernal amphitheater, drinking coffee or juice with the colleagues in the student’s buffet. The colleagues … There were many of us, dreamers. We recognized each other and we started socializing. Apart from being wise on topics related to psychology, our conversations were like the conversations of all young people. We talked about music, entertainment, hobbies, fashion… Yes, these were truly beautiful, carefree days and years.
I started my studies in 1975 and graduated in 1980. For one year I postponed the graduation due to the birth of my son Aleksandar. I had two exams left. They were the most difficult exams for me. It is difficult to study when your mind and heart are elsewhere.
Anyway, after graduating, being very eager, I started looking for a job. But two years have passed, and I could not get a job. Everywhere I was the first in terms of the ranking, with highest grade point average, postgraduate studies (yes, I forgot to mention that after graduating I decided to continue with the schooling) without any income (my husband Slavko was in the army), but in vain. I did not have “connections”.

I was (and I always will be) the daughter of Ljubomir and Verka, simple people with high morale and ethics. Two years have passed and like it or not I got employed in the cultural section of “Vecer”. I was responsible for painting and archeology. And I hated journalism, because as a result of it, my dream didn’t come true. Because I thought I would be a better psychologist than a journalist. But even without knowing, I began to apply psychology in the interviews that I did with the artists. I asked questions that penetrated the interlocutors’ hidden worlds. In the meantime, I was also a private psychologist to my friends. I advised them, I interpreted their dreams, ha ha ha…
Then, when I became a publisher, I started publishing the books that I liked. Among them were the “Man and His Symbols” by Carl Gustav Jung, “The Art of Loving” by Erich Fromm, “Civilization and Its Discontents” by Sigmund Freud. And finally, now, in my books, the psychologist in me speaks. All of my novels are psychological dramas, in which I try to penetrate the internal human storms. In love, fear, distances, the breaking offs…
Yes, now I can freely declare: I am a realized psychologist in my own life. Everything I’ve learned from my studies or experience, through myself, I translate it into stories. I am guided by a simple rule: we are different, yet we feel the same. Our reality is different, but our dreams are the same. It’s this revelation that frees me. I can freely express my feelings, because I am not different from the others. In fact, that’s why we are reading. We are looking for ourselves in the other people’s stories. The books are a mirror. We look at ourselves in them. We meet ourselves.