The Tree of My Life. A space to help war affected people is working in Zakarpattia

How do we live with what has happened to us? Is it possible to start a new path when everything is lost? And how do you continue to perceive life? People who fled their homes to escape Russian shelling ask themselves the same, but very difficult questions. The Tree of My Life psychological support center is trying to find answers to them together. The space began operating in Zakarpattia after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It is a team of psychologists and psychotherapists who currently provide assistance to more than 100 people affected by the war. “The Tree of My Life operates in Uzhgorod, Mukachevo, and Svaliava. People of different ages and social statuses come to the center. The space also helps military families and volunteers, and in August, they are preparing to accept military personnel. We’ll tell you why it’s important.

When you lose your home, your memories, your job, and everything you loved in its place, or when you lose your relatives in the war and any motivation and strength for your activities, only someone who is going through the same thing can understand you. At the “Tree of My Life”, people can find those who will truly understand them, discuss all their disturbing thoughts with specialists together, feeling supported from all sides. “If a father goes missing in a family or dies in the war, children understand this tragedy as his children, and a woman understands it as a loved one, mother and keeper of the family fire, who is left alone with this unknown and all the responsibility. Only a woman who has experienced a similar tragedy can feel at least similar to what she feels,“ says Lyubov Mykhailiuk, co-founder of the ”Tree of My Life” center.

Art therapy intuitive drawing, body-oriented therapy, and transformational games are held in the space for each support group (both for volunteers and IDPs). All this is done so that people affected by the war have the opportunity to relieve themselves emotionally.

“When the full-scale invasion began, we were all in a bit of a state of shock because no one knew what to do now. The last days of February were the days of adaptation for us. In the end, we had to act and pull ourselves together, which meant studying military psychology in accordance with the realities in which we all found ourselves,” says Ksenia Tarnavska, a psychologist and co-founder of the Tree of My Life center. 

The space has been open since March 1, 2022. The first affected family turned to the center for help in the first days of its operation, and since then, 15 groups (maximum number of participants – up to 10 in each group) of people have been receiving professional help and have the opportunity to emotionally unload in a comfortable place.

Ksenia Teresa has been working as a psychologist for about 15 years, and long before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she was conducting individual sessions. Ksenia attended social projects in different cities, and at one of these events in Kyiv, she met Liubov Mykhailiuk. For the last two years before the war started, she had been working on a project to help students. Ksenia was the project manager of this project and invited Liubov to visit her, thus opening up Zakarpattia to her, where they both work now.

“The space is a place where people affected by the war can find support and help from a team of psychologists, psychotherapists, and resource-oriented counselors, have the opportunity to communicate with people who are also victims of war, and find souls who are related to the tragedy,” say the founders of the center, Liubov Mykhailiuk and Ksenia-Teresa Tarnavska. 

Liubov came to Zakarpattia from Kyiv because of Ksenia’s invitation, after they met at a social project. At the time, Ksenia was leading a social project in Uzhgorod for orphans and teenagers from low-income families. Liubov joined the work and conducted educational programs for students together with Ksenia, but with the beginning of the full-scale invasion, they had to shift their focus to a slightly different type of activity, in accordance with the needs of the times and the new realities of our lives.

“Almost every participant of our support groups tells us that their lives have become better. For example, one of our visitors, who left her home twice because of the war, has been displaced for the second time since 2014. She asks me if she really smiles more often now, and I tell her that her eyes smile too,” says Liubov Mykhailiuk about the results of her work with visitors.

The woman has been rehabilitating Ukrainian soldiers and ATO participants since 2014. She says that her whole life has been slowly leading to this. Liubov is a participant in three revolutions and an experienced volunteer. In 1990, during the Revolution on Granite, she was a first-year journalism student at the Ivan Franko State University of Lviv. The Orange Revolution, in which Liubov participated as an adult citizen of her country, and the Revolution of Dignity of 2013-2014 were a kind of learning experience for Liubov – how to be a volunteer and a conscious citizen.

“There is a notion that children should not be beaten, but it happened. That’s why people took to the streets. If I go back to 2014 in my mind, there was a lot of hatred and anger, and a lot of questions inside me: Why is this happening? How did God allow all this to happen? To find answers to my questions, I entered the Ukrainian Catholic University. I found the answers to my questions, but even more new ones appeared, so I decided to study psychology as well,” recalls Liubov Mykhailiuk.

The founders of the “Tree of My Life” space believe that when a person knows that people with the same stories will be sitting here with them, they will be much more likely to decide to come here and open up, and when a person opens up, they are already taking the first step towards accepting help.

Lyubov Mykhailyuk and Ksenia Tarnavska hope that soon the “Tree of My Life” center will be able to cover a slightly larger area. For now, the center is open to anyone who has suffered because of the war and needs psychological help.

Marianna Chaibynets, student of the journalism department of UzhNU, specially for Zaholovok.com.ua