Ukrainians are entering another winter long before the outdoor temperature drops below zero. Amid ongoing attacks on energy infrastructure and potential power outages, many people's minds paint the worst possible scenarios: no electricity or water, heating cut off, communication lost, and the winter itself turning into an unbearable ordeal. In psychology, this state is known as anticipatory anxiety, where we suffer not only from events happening right now, but also from what we believe might happen in the future.
The Anatomy of Anticipatory Anxiety After Four Years of War
Master of Psychology and psychotherapist Natalia Garina notes that after four years of a full-scale invasion, anticipatory anxiety is a completely natural reaction of the nervous system. She explains that our nervous system has learned not just to wait for danger, but to work ahead of time and anticipate it. The problem arises when household preparations for winter quietly turn into a permanent residence inside a future catastrophe.
According to the expert, even if a person still has electricity, heat, and water in their home, they have psychologically already plunged into a total blackout. They check the news feed dozens of times a day, study alarming forecasts, endlessly replay worst-case scenarios, and buy necessary items, yet still do not feel safe enough. The nervous system becomes exhausted by the constant tension without being able to switch to daily tasks.
The Difference Between Preparation and Fear
At this point, it is critically important to regain awareness of the difference between two fundamentally different concepts: preparing and being afraid. As the psychotherapist points out, preparation has a concrete end. Checking power banks, planning water reserves, alternative lighting, heat, communication, essential medicines, and agreeing on an action plan with loved ones are tangible steps. Once you have done everything within your control, you return to present life. Anxiety has no end; it constantly asks: 'What if this is not enough? What if it gets even worse?'
Therefore, in conditions of prolonged danger, it is important not to strive for an absolute sense of security, which the war simply does not provide. A much more realistic goal is to regain a sense of control over one's own life. To achieve this, the psychotherapist advises dividing daily reality into clear parts.
Managing Reality and Refusing Postponed Existence
One must acknowledge what one truly cannot influence: shelling, the speed of repair crews, or the state of power grids. You cannot wake up rich enough overnight to buy your own power plant or air defense system. Therefore, you should outline a conditional planning horizon — actions for today and the next week, while everything else falls outside your competence.
Another key rule for maintaining psychological resilience is not to postpone one's own existence until the moment when everything around becomes absolutely safe. Meeting friends, buying tickets, planning education, falling in love, celebrating birthdays, drinking coffee on a terrace, and building professional plans during wartime are not frivolity or denial of reality. This is a way to prevent war from occupying all internal space and to provide the psyche with daily visual evidence that life continues.
The Importance of Psychological Resilience Ahead of Winter
The expert concludes that the most important preparation for this winter is not only charged power banks and purchased candles, but a sincere agreement with oneself: to prepare for the difficult period through actions, but not to live through it emotionally in advance. The coming winter has not yet arrived, while today is already ongoing.
