Care - Luiza Vasiliu

March 2023.

We have a child and we have to pick him up from daycare. At noon, we had a meeting with a source. We are working on an investigation into the Tate brothers’ links to organized crime in Romania. When we returned to the office, Victor realized he was being followed by some individuals. He managed to take pictures of two of them.

The head of Tate’s bodyguards used to work for the DGPI, the secret service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. And he might also be the godson of the Glina Butcher. That’s his gangster name - he’s not a butcher.

Now I’m standing at the kitchen window watching Victor cross the street and head to the daycare. I text him on Signal that a man is following him.

Half an hour later, the three of us are sitting on a bench near the apartment building, sharing a cake. It’s March 8, Mother’s Day. If you stay in a public space, they say you’re protected.

We walk almost backwards to the apartment building staircase. We lock the door and breathe. The followers return the next day.

The international network of journalists I was part of at the time convinces us that we must leave the city until publication. We pack our bags, take our child, and move into a hiding place. We stayed there for over a month, caught between fear and a terrible desire to return home.

Half a year later, Victor found out who had been following us. It wasn’t Tate’s thugs - it was the Romanian state.

In Iași, after an undercover operation involving a corrupt official, DNA prosecutors opened a case and put Victor under surveillance. Victor - not the corrupt official.

They tapped his phone for two months. They sent teams out to track us for at least 48 hours. Even though they knew from the start that we were journalists.

It’s not illegal - it’s immoral, according to the experts I spoke to about it. A terrible feeling of disgust and violation of privacy.

It’s not enough how hard it is to be an independent journalist in this country - the state also makes your life more difficult. What if they actually wanted to find out our sources? What if they put microphones in our home? What if not everything is included in the file?

Paranoia is with us at home. Thanks, DNA. The meaning of our profession is slipping through our fingers.

2024. Autumn. (Paula3)
I am collecting testimonies about the experiences of women who give birth in Romania. I gather 650. Six hundred and fifty women who tell me what they sometimes couldn’t even tell their families.

It takes me several months to go through all the testimonies for the first time. I can’t do more than a few days at a time.

I have to take breaks. To cry, to stare into space, to stay awake, to do something else. Even I, who have been thinking about this subject for several years, did not believe it was this bad.

One woman recounts how she wanted to throw herself off the building during labor, but she saw that the scaffolding was up and thought that she wouldn’t be the one to die, but that she would kill her child. So she didn’t jump.

Another was raped by her older brother at the age of 14, and when she arrived at the hospital to give birth, she was humiliated and mistreated by the nurses.

“We are like cattle being led to the slaughterhouse,” says another. And a chorus of tragic testimonies proves her right: curses, lies, screams, guilt, elbows in the stomach, lack of consent, children separated from their mothers for days on end, loneliness, panic, the feeling that you are just a baby-making machine. Death.

“You liked spreading your legs, so why are you complaining now?”
Women tied by their hands and feet.
Sewn up alive.

In state hospitals and private clinics in Romania’s big cities. Recently - not 50 years ago.

I’m the only one who knows all this suffering: postpartum depression, how hard it was for them to come to terms with the trauma.

We care about the birth rate, but not about how women give birth.

I read and reread. I try to structure and organize everything.

I have a therapist whom I told that if I can’t cope anymore, I’ll need an emergency session. I learned that exposure to other people’s trauma is called second-hand trauma, and it can push you over the edge if you’re not careful.

I am careful. I am learning to take breaks without feeling guilty. I play with my child. We go to the park. We cook something good. Sometimes we dance at home.

I do what I can.

(Paula2)
For a long time, I believed that journalists were superheroes, ready to intervene at any time of the day or night to restore justice.

That they had no right to a life of their own - always living for others. That they couldn’t take breaks, because bad people never take breaks.

Luckily, lately there has been talk at journalism conferences about self-care. That journalists are people too. That you can’t take care of others if you don’t take care of yourself.

Sorosist scum
You, let cancer eat you alive
Pack your bags, Siberia is calling

These started pouring in after Georgescu won the first round.

Victor and I launched a newsletter where we started writing about Russian operations, AUR, disinformation, and the far right. It’s called Drepturi și strâmbe (Rights and Wrongs), and you can find it on Substack.

“We know where you live, we have lists of you, you’ll see what happens when we win,” a pro-Russian told Victor when he called him to question him for the investigation into Russian money in Romania.

The weekend Potra was caught coming to Bucharest with weapons and lists of journalists, I had a panic attack. I didn’t want to stay home alone.

At night I dreamed of masked groups storming into our house. We had forgotten to take a break.

It didn’t seem to matter what we did anymore. Everything we published was received by an army of scumbags / sold-out journalists / traitors.

When the far right comes, journalists are the first targets. “An organized crime network” - that’s what an AUR leader said about the press in Romania.

(Paula1)
We are all living in complicated times. The transparent walls that protected us until now and made us feel safe are cracking before our eyes.

Where do we run if war comes upon us?
What do we do if AUR comes?
How do we protect ourselves?

It’s not just hard for journalists. It’s hard for everyone.

A moral wound - that’s what I’ve learned to call the feeling of being a powerless witness to the injustice of the world.

And there is a lot of injustice. From the moment we wake up until we fall asleep. And while we sleep, in other parts of the world, other people continue to die.

How do we live with all this?

I’ve ended up building a small defense system against despair, against exposure to other people’s traumas, and against the constant waves of news about genocide, war, extremists, etc.

And I think each of us should build a little fortress to retreat to from time to time.

Let’s fall asleep with a book and wake up with it instead of our phone.
Let’s spend less time caught in the carnivorous algorithms of social media and more time offline.
Let’s exchange a few words with a neighbor, with a stranger.
Let’s remind ourselves that we are all human.

Let’s look for common ground, especially when all bridges have burned.
Let’s focus on what we can control:
a good meal, an outing with friends, a concert.

Let’s support the causes we believe in.
Let’s focus on the little things:
a plant, a cat, a walk, a leaf.

Komorebi is the Japanese word for sunlight filtering through tree branches.

An evening like this.
A continuous exploration of the territories where hope can grow.
Remembering the reasons why we do what we do.

The answer to moral injury is moral courage.
Let’s not give up on building things together.