Oleksandra Rymsha

Author: Oleksandra Rymsha. Time of Logotherapy, Issue 2, 2025, pp. 119–121.

First published in Issue 2 of the journal in 2025. The text reflects the author’s experience at the time of the original publication.

Each of us has someone who becomes a guiding presence in life, a role model. For me, that person has always been, and remains, my dad. He never made grand speeches. He simply lived as he believed was right, showing by his own example what responsibility, dignity, and love mean.

When the full-scale invasion began, he did not hesitate for a moment. On 26 February 2022, just two days after the war began, Dad returned from Poland, where we had lived for seven years, to defend Ukraine.

But war turned out to be nothing like the films. It is real, painful, and far more frightening.

On 18 October 2023, Dad went missing. We only found out a few days later.

After that, life came to a standstill. Months passed, and I did not know how to go on. Meaning disappeared, and so did my sense of solid ground beneath my feet. But one day I realised that my pain could become more than a burden: it could become a source of strength, if I could turn it into help for others.

That was how I decided to study psychology. On 31 July 2024, I returned to Ukraine and enrolled in a master’s programme. I also looked for an approach that resonated with me. I explored many schools, but none was “the one”; none was what I was really looking for. Then I remembered that early in the war I had bought two books: The Choice by Edith Eger and Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. As soon as I began reading Frankl, I was struck by the fact that he had not simply survived a concentration camp: he had developed Logotherapy before his imprisonment and continued to practise and develop it. Logotherapy is an approach that helps people find meaning in life even in extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

That was how I found my path and the things that give my life meaning. I began studying Logotherapy and realised that this was my calling.

It has been more than two years since my dad went missing. People say that time heals, but that is not true. I have simply learned to live with this pain. Every day.

Thousands of Ukrainian families live with this pain. Each has its own way of living through this uncertainty. My family has chosen to keep reminding others, to keep fighting, and to keep remembering. My mother is one of the organisers of an association of families of missing persons. We take part in rallies and meetings so that the world remembers those who have still not returned home.

Viktor Frankl wrote that meaning can be found even in suffering. My story bears this out.

It is about help and support, about those who stand beside us in the hardest circumstances. It is about love that holds us up and lives on despite everything. This love gives us the strength to keep living, acting, fighting, and supporting others who find themselves in a similar situation. Within it lies meaning that is born even amid pain, fear, and uncertainty.

Helping people cope with emotional waves of fear, hope, pain, and waiting; supporting them in moments of exhaustion when they have almost no strength left; finding ways to care for themselves and replenish their inner resources: this is where I see the meaning that grows out of pain.

I am now actively studying psychology and Logotherapy so that I can help myself, my family, and other families living through the trauma of uncertainty. I know very well what it means to live with uncertainty, because it is part of my own story. That is why it matters so much to me to create a space where people are not left alone with their pain.

To support people and families whose loved ones are missing, I offer individual consultations. During consultations, we talk about pain and uncertainty, seek inner support and the strength to move forward, understand and accept our emotions, and gradually regain calm, balance, and a sense of meaning, even in difficult circumstances.

I know how important it is for our experiences to be accepted without judgement, and how important it is to talk, share, and be heard.

Even when we cannot change our circumstances, we can always choose our attitude towards them.