Former paratrooper, now nun and psychologist on how families can help soldiers who came back from frontline

Before becoming a nun at the Greek Catholic Holy Protection Monastery, Sister Anysiia was a paratrooper in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. While at the monastery, she got a master's degree in psychology so that she could professionally help people who had been affected by war.

“If you want to help a person, the most important thing is to hear them. Even if they are silent about their problems, the energy they radiate can tell you about them. You can read a call for help from their eyes, posture, and facial expression. The wounds of war take a long time to heal. They need to be healed very delicately, so as not to kill the person with your words,” advises Sister Anysiia.

A nun, she is now also a psychologist at the Lviv Center for Services to Combatants.

When communicating with veterans, Sister Anysiia does not emphasize her military past. Only if it comes up in conversation. According to the nun, the life experience she gained in the army helps the soldiers recognize her as “one of their own” — this makes it easier for them to communicate.

She comes to the Center dressed as a nun, so people who make an appointment know in advance who they are going to see.

“I am approached by those who do not see any obstacles in my monastic state, and maybe even see it as an advantage. When we start talking, they immediately realize who they are dealing with. They can choose for themselves whether to come to the second meeting or not,” says Sister Anysiia.

We talk to her about the profound changes that a person goes through in war and how to take these changes into account to bring a person back to a peaceful life.

A cubbyhole of an adaptive environment

Is it possible to help every soldier who suffered a deep psychological trauma in the war?

The situations may vary, but at least everyone should be offered psychological assistance. The formats of human functioning in war and non-war are radically different. The psyche cannot instantly adapt to changes. Therefore, the best option is for a warrior to be placed in an adaptive environment after the war, where they can psychologically prepare for life in peace.

What should this transitional environment look like?

It should be safe. With well-organized components to meet basic needs. Comfortable accommodation, food, a bed with clean linen, and the opportunity to wash — these are things that people did not have during the war. Yesterday's fighters should not spend their resources on meeting basic needs at first, but concentrate on solving internal problems.

In an adaptive environment, it is necessary to minimize any external stimuli, because it is physiologically difficult for soldiers in transition to withstand them. Loud sounds, for example, scare or irritate many people. The receptors of the soldiers are destroyed — what is normal for others can be unbearable for them.

They can do, for example, drawing or some other creative work — there are many opportunities for this today. Why is creative work important? Because it is a calming monotonous work with hands, its result causes positive emotions — there is a picture, and something new has appeared. A person notes that they are already creating, not destroying. And this is different from what happened during the war. The negative emotions experienced during the war are gradually changing into positive ones.

Can home and family become an adaptive environment for a fighter?

This requires that the family members also work diligently to bring the soldier back to a peaceful life. You should be well aware of what exactly happens to a person at war — what transformation they undergo in their emotional and spiritual life, even on the physiological level. There are many trainings for military families nowadays — you should not neglect them while your loved one is at war. You will still face these problems when your loved one returns, but then you will no longer have time to study.

The body does not believe in safety

Let's talk now about the changes that soldiers are experiencing at the front. For example, I heard from you about changes in the physiological level. What exactly are you talking about?

For example, at the front, soldiers must use their eyesight and hearing to the maximum extent possible: notice what moves where; and pay attention to certain sounds or their absence. They must instantly react to the sensation of heat and cold, to the vibration of the ground, certain smells, etc. Because all this can warn them of a threat. In war, the corresponding receptors work very hard, and at this time, the perception of the world is transformed at the physiological level. At the front, a soldier is always like a dog with their ears perked up. And when they return home, this “perkiness” — existence in a mode of constant vigilance — does not disappear. This mode will work for the rest of their life and determine their behavior.

The environment will be peaceful, and the body will continue to mobilize to recognize danger. And this is very exhausting for a person. Relatives, friends, and strangers who have not been to the front will perceive this as a strangeness, and will be irritated: why do they get tired so quickly, why do they get alone, why do they not want to listen to this music, and why do they get angry at these smells? And there is a reason for that.

And on the spiritual level? Do you mean some new meanings that are revealed to a soldier in war?

I mean rethinking of values, a change in priorities. So deep that what family and friends care about in everyday life may be outside their value system. The soldier’s wife shoves utility bills at him, and he doesn't recognize these everyday things at all! Because his values are at the level of saving his life, he no longer cares whether he saves or not on heating. And not because he deliberately does not pay attention to it, but because his attention is not focused on it!

Why is this happening?

He realized what is important in the world and what is not important. The experience of war is a good opportunity to understand this. When a fighter has come to this realization, but his wife has not, she bugs him with bills and a cracked toilet. Their value systems might have coincided before the war, but now they do not.

Then one of two things happens: either she adopts his priorities, or he adopts hers. The second scenario is more difficult to implement, and often unlikely because peaceful life cannot cause a reverse rethinking of values as much as war, which is a weaker experience. However, a soldier and his civilian environment must agree on their priorities for their interaction to be constructive.

Are emotional changes related to constant threats in the war?

War is not about showing emotions, it's about surviving. If I spend my resources on sadness, crying, and indignation, I may very quickly be gone. A person obeys the task of survival literally at the level of instinct. The emotional component is left for later as if the body is preserving it.

Then the veteran comes home, and this “canned food” explodes: either a headlight blinded him, or he heard a loud sound, or someone said something nearby. It is impossible to predict what will be the trigger for such depressurization; and what will activate the psychological trauma experienced during the war.

The physiological and spiritual changes that happen to a person at the front largely remain with them after the war. However, emotions can be worked with to bring a person back to an acceptable functional state.

Why family is fading into the background

A soldier changes at the front, but his family in the rear has also experienced a lot. The wife and husband find themselves in different worlds. In your experience, what are their expectations of each other?

They find themselves in two different worlds. So when these two people meet, it's like two aliens meeting. They have to look at each other anew: who is this person who is my husband or wife? In general, they have the same expectation: that each party should hear and understand the other.

The wife hopes for the familiar reactions from her husband, that he will be the same as before the war. But he can no longer react in the same way, his new reactions surprise and alarm her. By the way, often the soldier himself is confused by these new reactions.

Meanwhile, the wife herself changed. This moment of acceptance of a loved one who has become different is very important, and it must be mutual. The husband holds the front, the wife holds the rear. It's like two poles of the same axis on which our life today rests. To prevent the family from falling apart after the soldier returns home, they both need to understand that each had a different task during the war.

Families often complain that for veterans, their brothers-in-arms have become more important than their families. Why do fellow soldiers come first?

Here, I think, the experience a soldier gained in the war matters. There is a constant risk of death around you. Therefore, it is important who is next to you, on whom your life often depends. This is more important than weapons, material support, etc. For a soldier, this sense of security, reliability, and safety is strongly associated with his fellow soldiers. The family as a safe environment is fading into the background.

This is how the instinct of self-preservation, the most powerful of all instincts, works. When a veteran feels bad in civilian life, they will reach out to their brothers-in-arms because they have repeatedly received support from them in survival. But with their family, they have no such experience or it has been forgotten, dulled. Together with their fellow soldiers, they experienced very deep experiences, and when they miss the experiences of such power in civilian life, they will turn to their brothers-in-arms, as if to recharge themselves.

The family has to accept this situation and not try to compete with their brothers-in-arms. They need to understand that it was thanks to the support of their fellow soldiers at the front that their husband and father returned home alive. No jealousy, no ultimatums — they will only make the veteran “push” even harder. Brothers-in-arms become family members — then the family has a better chance of turning into a safe environment for the soldier.

A soldier needs to realize that life goes on after the war

Does providing psychological assistance to veterans mean returning them to their pre-war state? But should they return to their pre-war self, and erase their emotional experience of the front line?

A veteran cannot return to their pre-war self, even with the help of a psychologist. But no one should voice this — in some situations, it will be a nightmare for them. They have to accept the fact of changes themselves, to understand their value. We need to help them put themselves back together — to collect what the war has scattered. This is the integration of the war experience. This experience should not be devalued, but it should not be absolutized or overestimated. A soldier needs to realize that being at war is just an episode in a life that goes on and can be different. They should feel that after the front, a new, peaceful stage of their life has begun, with new responsibilities and space.

As a psychologist, what is the particularity of working with soldiers who have been captured by Russia?

The experience of captivity is more traumatic than just the experience of war. This makes it much more difficult to work with former prisoners of war than with veterans — there are fewer points of contact between the world of their experiences and the world of the person on the rear. They were subjected to acts in captivity that were completely incompatible with the concept of human dignity. It is very difficult to listen to their stories, the brain refuses to accept them.

And people were in it, they lived through this destruction of their personality. You have to remember this when a former prisoner comes to your session. It is difficult for them to share something, to talk about their captivity; but they have to tell, to work through their experience with the psychologist, to integrate it into the general experience of their life. Only then can they talk about their captivity with their families. Otherwise, the experience of captivity will traumatize them and their families again and again.

Even if veterans do not like their emotional state, they do not always go to a psychologist. They suffer and poison the lives of their families. What should they do about it?

You can't do anything by force. Everyone has the right to make their own choice and is responsible for their own life. It is only their right and only their responsibility.