As part of the project «Ukrainian youth is changing the world», we collect and distribute stories of proactive actions of young Ukrainians with different educations, beliefs and lifestyles. Today, young psychologist Marta shared her story. She works with people’s problems such as anxiety states, panic attacks, relationship problems, eating disorders, money issues, searching for self-identity, crisis states. Quite often, people who suffer mentally because of the war turn to her.
Tell us a little about yourself. How old are you? Where did you study psychology?
Well, my name is Marta Repina. I am 21 years old. This year, I finished my undergraduate studies at Vadym Hetman KNEU, majoring in social and economic psychology. I have also completed the first degree in gestalt, and I am currently studying for the second degree. I specialise in working with trauma. I practice as a psychologist. In my free time, I do acrobatics.
Why did you decide to choose the profession of psychologist?
Because many years ago, just in my teenage years, at the end of high school and entering university, I came to therapy myself as a client. After that, I underwent great personality transformations and realized that it was really about improving the quality of my life. It was then that I realized that I could be useful to other people in this.
Can you tell me who a gestalt therapist is?
Yes of course. A Gestalt therapist is a person who works based on the client’s feelings in the here and now. It is about returning to reality and taking responsibility for your life. We also work based on the sensations in the body that arise during the session. Our method is interesting because there is always room for creativity and depth.
As I know, you are a freelance psychologist, and you also work on various psychological help platforms. How long have you been doing this, i.e. what is your work experience?
I have been working for more than a year as a psychologist. I always have such an interesting contingent of clients. That is, usually people come with something very complex, serious, and not superficial. Of course, not everyone has the strength, desire and willingness to continue working with it. But each client is unique and incredible.
Do you consider yourself an empathetic person? (Empathy is a psychological process, as a result of which the emotions of one person are adopted into one’s own perception)
Yes, I think so.
Do you think empathy hinders the psychologist’s work, or does it help?
Well, you know, it’s like looking from which side. It is impossible to be «a stone» in this area, of course. But this empathy needs to be balanced with some inner stability, so that you understand for yourself that here it is my responsibility, and here it is not. To take everything to heart, but to worry about someone else’s all the time – this is incorrect in relation to oneself, to say the least.
How to understand that it is time to consult a psychologist?
Well, it’s individual. The most important thing is for a person to realize this on his or her own. It should not be an opinion imposed by the environment, advice from a friend or relative.
It is necessary to apply at the moment, I believe, when the understanding comes that something needs to be changed in life. That some old mechanism is broken and you need to look for a new one. This is when you should contact a psychologist.
What to do if the person next to you during the alarm feels strong anxiety or has a panic attack. How to help in such a situation? Can you give me some tips?
If a person is having a panic attack, you can use basic grounding techniques. For example, «now count first five or ten green things in the room, then red.» That’s how, by switching, getting distracted and concentrating on something else, you can track where you are. The most important thing is to breathe.
The help of loved ones is also important. It can be some kind of touch, or if a person holds your hand. It is also effective. The main thing is to concentrate on the sensations in the body, breathe and rest firmly on the legs.
Can you share how you met February 24? What did you feel?
Yes of course. I remember that day very well. At that time, I was not yet immersed in psychological practice, I was just starting. At that time, she worked at a permanent job at McDonald’s. I live alone, at that time I also had a cat living with me.
Woke up from loud explosions. I live in the city of Brovary. It was quite loud for us from the first day. Looking at the cat, who is usually quite calm, I realized that something was wrong. The animal is terrified, and they feel quite aptly and subtly.
I heard explosion after explosion. It was five in the morning. I went to Telegram and saw that two people were typing messages to me at the same time. Moreover, one person was abroad, my close friend, and the other is my sister, she was in Irpin. Well, I thought that if something happened to them too, then it’s no joke.
A friend told me that her parents, who live next door to me, called her and said that a war had started (ed. a full-scale invasion).
I was numb. I did not understand what to do at all. Ira, my friend, since she was in Poland, could think more soberly because she was not directly in the middle of all this horror. She ordered me to get up quickly, collect things, look for documents.
I remember just sitting on the bed, my legs dangling and I couldn’t move. Such fear gripped me. Already later, after 10 minutes, I came to her senses, began to gather quickly, drink coffee in general with a complete lack of understanding of what to do next.
At that moment, the phone rang. My aunt, who lives in Kyiv and is raising a child herself, called. She asked to take them out while there was still a chance. I have my own car, so I loaded the cat. I stuffed it in such a huge bazaar bag and under the explosions we have already reached the Obolon district of Kyiv. I met my aunt and brother there. Ahead was the road to the city of Netishyn, Khmelnytskyi region. We drove for 9.5 hours, instead of the usual 4.5.
It was very difficult, but we were in such a state of stress that we didn’t make a single stop on the whole journey. That is, elementary, no one even wanted to go to the toilet. To the extent that the body accumulated strength, everyone was in a state of severe stress. We were traveling with a child, and even he understood that something was happening here, that it was serious.
Then came 43 days of complete ignorance, and what happened to the house. After all, the Zhytomyr highway was occupied, the orcs were standing, there was no way to go back. My grandmother stayed there, so there were a lot of worries. It is very difficult to stay away from home at all.
Already when you managed to reach Khmelnytskyi region, did you feel safe?
Honestly, no. There was so much going on around us that we didn’t feel safe anywhere.
What did you manage to draw strength and energy from then?
I think the main factor was that my family was together. That is, at first there were 8 of us in the tiny house of my grandfather and grandmother. And then one of the aunts left for Poland with the children, there were five of us left. We got together; we were doing something all the time. We lived more in the countryside. They went to school, wove camouflage nets for 4-5 hours a day.
My grandparents still have a farm. That’s how they got distracted.
Many people have now become accustomed to war, ignore alarms and neglect their own safety. Do you think this reaction of the body to war is good or bad?
It is impossible to say unequivocally whether this is good or bad. To a large extent, this is good because a person takes a lot «on credit» from his body and then it must be returned. That is, such a state of energy saving forces helps not to lose one’s mind, roughly speaking.
It’s bad in the sense that, of course, if you get stuck in it for a long time, a person will stop understanding when it’s really dangerous. That is, there should be no indifference.
In the first days of the war, did you have to provide psychological help to someone? Maybe relatives or relatives?
No, nothing special. Unless, we talked among ourselves, as a family. Everyone was in an equally difficult condition, and there was no question of helping anyone else.
Well, yes, of course, I supported my family friends and they supported me. That is, everyone rallied.
Where do you draw strength and energy to work now?
Well, for one thing, it’s personal therapy. Indeed, working through some of your difficult experiences, stress for which, perhaps, there is no place or time in ordinary life. I do all this with my wonderful therapist, with whom we have been working for 4 years.
The second rather important thing is sport. Just with the beginning of the war (ed. full-scale invasion), I started doing acrobatics. That is, initially it was in an online format, because the coach left for Germany with the child. And then I really fell in love with this sport. This is a fantastic way of living negative emotions, that later I started going to «Spartak» to Kyiv (ed. stadium in the capital).
It turns out that a psychologist also needs a therapist?
Of course, I will tell you even more. To become a psychologist, you need a certain number of hours of your own, individual, group therapy. That is, in order to work well with people, a psychologist needs personal therapy and necessarily supervision from colleagues.
Maybe you wanted to share something that I didn’t ask about?
The only thing I want to note is the importance of the house. On April 6, I returned home to my apartment. It seems that 3 days have passed since the track was cleared.
And when I arrived in my city, it was completely empty. I live in an apartment building. There are 14 floors, 2 entrances. Only 2 apartments were occupied at my entrance, I was the third. The neighbors were very happy when they saw me. We didn’t really communicate before that. But they fed me and asked if I needed anything for my cat. And they say: «Please don’t go anywhere.» I answered: «No. I’m definitely not going anywhere.»
Home is the best place. So I just want everyone to have one. When they lose it, it is very difficult.
Translator: Anna Zyhar
