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Everyone feels the claws of war on their necks differently: it can strangle you or scratch, or even go deep into your throat – but no matter how it manifests itself, any of these manifestations is devastating. And mental wounds hurt just as much as physical ones. This story is just one more fragment of the great tragedy of the impact that war has on the psychological aspect of human life. This story is about one girls concerns caused by her parents changes.

On February 24, accompanied by explosions that shook the ground, she and her two younger sisters were sent to the village – their parents said that there it was much safer, while deciding to stay in Mykolaiv themselves, because they had to “work” and “earn money.” Not only did the responsibility for her sisters fall on her shoulders, but she was also overwhelmed by the fear of being separated from a part of her family.

Weeks of separation dragged on like an eternity, and they managed to return to the city only in the spring, but… the joy of the reunion was overshadowed by a very noticeable change: her parents had fallen into something like a… sect? At first glance, it was nothing serious: just a bizarre group on Viber, just strange prophecies from its founder recorded in voice messages, just prayers. “It’s strange, but not fatal. It’s just something they do because of stress, nothing critical is happening”, she thought, taking it more as a joke and a small annoyance that would pass with time.

But then… the girl realized the full extent of the problem: her parents not only believed in strange predictions – they listened to the voice of the “seer” every night, clinging to every word she said or wrote.

This was how the long spring and the hopelessly dark summer passed; every week the situation only got worse, and their beliefs became more and more absurd. Seeing people who were not very religious before the full-scale invasion reciting prayers every day at the times determined by the “seer,” believing in a mixture of God, cosmic higher powers, fate and the predictions of this crazy woman felt like something unreal. What at first seemed like a comedy soon turned into a real nightmare.

Even waking up in the middle of the night from the heavy thuds of a ‘Uragan’ multiple rocket launcher and sitting in a dark corridor, pressed against the wall, was not as scary as hearing the Psalm 90 prayer recorded by the “seer.” The girl’s parents turned on this voice message every night, over and over again, and the words: “For we are consumed by Thine anger, and by Thy wrath are we troubled. Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee, our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance,” invariably accompanied a series of morning, afternoon, and evening explosions.

A long spring, a hopelessly dark summer, and finally the opportunity to leave hometown to study… Phrases like: “You ought to stay at home, you have a distance learning anyway,” made her heart freeze, because they sounded like a verdict. So she left as soon as she could, and now she doesn’t want to return.

She incredibly misses the warm and cozy Mykolaiv landscapes, but even the thought of that atmosphere at home makes her anxious. The fact that she left her younger sisters there also drives her to despair. Still, she realizes that she must take care of herself first. It may be selfish, but what would you do in her place?

This story is just another fragment of the great tragedy that everyone experiences; just another reminder of how important it is to take care of mental health – your own and your loved ones’; just an example of a difficult but correct decision: if you cannot keep your family from falling into the abyss, you should at least take care of yourself and not let your condition reach this absolute point of no return, which forces people to take a step towards a phantom salvation.