Photography by Mikhail Ray

From "Ukraine. The Home" series. Limited edition print 1/12 (+2AP) on Hahnemuehle premium photo paper. Hand signed and numbered. Available in different size/edition: 97 x 100 cm Digital photo collage. Photography and post production by Mikhail Ray. Kill the narcissist! Kill EGO! Kill them all! Probably, every adequate person strives for healthy relationships. Unfortunately, no matter how much we beat our heads against this wall, a healthy relationship is not about feelings or a set of new effective rules and patterns of behavior. First of all, they should be equal. Unfortunately, such relationships can only be maintained by psychologically mature people who are aware of their real self within its realistic limits. Our primal egocentric animal nature perceives the whole world as part of itself and cannot comfortably exist without a clear hierarchy. It will always divide the world into those it can dominate and those it must obey. There is always room here for manipulation, physical and psycho-emotional violence. And when it comes to a specialist for help in healing its toxic life, it finds only a new batch of rules, robotic algorithms and simple solutions: escape from toxic relationships, kill the narcissist or own ego, hang the right labels on people, shift the responsibility for its emotional state, assert itself through righteous anger, switch roles with the abusers, and explore their traumas in order to inflict devastating pain in return. In primal psychology, the defense of personal boundaries turns into a final goal, an instrument to dominate and raise self-esteem by devaluing and humiliating others. All relationships and self-realization will be sacrificed to this mania. Unfortunately, Ukraine is clearly demonstrating this. Unfortunately, only psychologically mature people are ready for true democracy. It is our primitive, borderless animal essence that always gravitates towards authoritarianism, so this war is not between specific blocs of states. It goes, first of all, inside every personality anywhere. Between its dark and light sides. In fact, we never get into toxic relationships with people if we don't have those relationships inside us. Aggressor and victim are two sides of the same coin. No tyrant, narcissist, or abuser can take away our freedom and self-esteem, if we really have them. They can only show us what we do to ourselves inside our country. They can only show us what we do to ourselves in our own heads.