Iryna Maksymenko, Head of the Psychosocial Support Programme at the international charitable foundation Caritas Ukraine

War brings an immense amount of grief. It multiplies every day, and our psyche is forced to create ever new defence mechanisms. Sometimes, however, these mechanisms interfere with the grieving process.

Today, the experience of suffering is sometimes “heroised”: “You are strong, you will endure.” Yet instead of offering support, this phrase can trigger a genuine inner crisis: “I don’t want to be strong if being strong means having to endure all of this.”

Even worse is when suffering suddenly acquires a “hierarchy.” “Your husband is in captivity? Never mind, hold on to hope – someone else’s husband was killed. Killed? Well, at least he didn’t suffer. He suffered? What did you expect? There’s a war on. Someone else’s son was held captive even longer.” And so it goes, because sometimes there seems to be no limit to such absurdity.

There is also the “romanticisation” of pain, with ideas about people being “made” for war, or those who are “destined” by “fate” to suffer, and so on.

Why do these phenomena arise? They serve to protect the psyche and the mind when a person cannot cope with an overwhelming wave of pain. Explaining things to oneself in any way – even in the most misguided way possible – may seem easier than accepting reality as it is. Although “acceptance” here does not mean resignation.

There is, however, a point at which such ideas and approaches become dangerous. After hearing enough “good advice,” a person may begin to devalue their own grief and compare their suffering with that of others. They may become unable to experience it with respect, patience, and self-compassion.

Complicated grief and severe depressive episodes are direct consequences of losses that have been artificially denied and of a person being denied the right to grief and pain.

Denying Someone the Right to Weakness and Help Is Psychological Violence

Not feeling “strong enough” from time to time – or at all. Becoming tired, no longer being able to cope. Refusing to answer “everything’s fine” to yet another “how are things?” All of this is part of our new reality and does not mean that we have given up. Every person has the right to pain, to moments or periods of despair and weakness – military personnel or civilians, soldiers or generals, children or adults, women or men.

“Being strong” today means, above all, making an inner decision not to give up and to keep going despite weakness, pain, fear, and exhaustion. True strength does not deny the admission that “this is hard for me,” “I can’t cope,” or “I need help.” On the contrary, forbidding someone from experiencing what they are actually experiencing is a form of violence. We are talking about a strength that becomes stronger in weakness.

It is precisely openness to receiving help that makes strength flexible and enables psychologically healthy adaptation to the abnormal conditions created by war. This is not about “gritting your teeth.” Rather, it is about managing one’s resources in a healthy way and finding meaning within the reality that exists – something that also requires strength. Spending that strength on suppressing one’s feelings is, at the very least, counterproductive. Taken too far, it can even lead to self-destruction.

Routine, Humour, and the Art of Small Steps

From time to time, I hear questions such as: “So how do you keep yourself from sinking into all of this?” Nothing new has been invented in this regard. The psyche needs a daily routine – ordinary, familiar, simple actions. It needs humour and positive communication. It looks for small, concrete steps forward. Self-stabilisation skills are also useful, because sometimes we need to regain control of ourselves very quickly.

What can get in the way? Sometimes, for example, people feel ashamed of being tired, afraid, or apathetic. They tell themselves, “Others have it even worse.” Meanwhile, this artificial sense of shame drains the strength needed for living, so it is something worth addressing.

Collective narratives of “superhuman strength” cannot always drown out individual pain, especially during wartime. Personal examples, however, can. Viktor Frankl, for example, demonstrated this in Man’s Search for Meaning, formulating principles for survival in a concentration camp through humour, friendship, and living “here and now.” Those who read Frankl today receive a powerful message about the will to live – but not “at any cost.” Rather, it comes through understanding oneself and accepting one’s own humanity.

Living for a prolonged period in “survive at any cost” mode may exact too high a price in the future. This concerns not only complicated post-traumatic consequences – including what is sometimes called delayed processing of trauma, when the psyche seems to place an experience “in an archive” only to “defrost” it later at an unpredictable moment – but also consequences for physical health. The body, too, becomes exhausted from “holding the line” under constant stress and begins to demand attention.

At the same time, the human psyche has an extraordinary capacity for recovery. Otherwise, the phenomenon of post-traumatic growth would not exist.

On Support and the Language of Resilience

Our public language is gradually developing new emphases. The language of heroism is also becoming a language of care. This is the language of resilience – one that encompasses flexible strength, our seemingly endless endurance, and that sacred Ukrainian stubbornness we simply cannot do without.

Public dialogue is changing as well. Increasingly, we hear “I’m with you, we’re in this together” instead of “stay strong.” “I’m sorry, I want to help you” instead of “come on, don’t be upset.” “It’s safe to cry, I’m here” instead of “you’re strong.” “I’m with you, whatever happens” instead of “everything will be fine.”

Ultimately, when we are exhausted, it matters less that we hear the right words than that we feel accepted as we are. And perhaps the strongest reason not to give up is knowing that there is a hand beside us that we can safely lean on.

Iryna Maksymenko, Head of the Psychosocial Support Programme at the International Charitable Foundation Caritas Ukraine

Articles published in the “Opinion” section are not editorials and reflect solely the author’s point of view.

Source: life.pravda.com.ua