My life had become unbearable, not only affecting me but also everybody around me. It is not an exaggeration to say that I was just a ‘moving problem’. My parents were terrified and my brothers absolutely embarrassed because they did not know what to do to help me. All the problems started during my early adolescence. When the Turkish invasion took place in Cyprus in July 1974, I was 14 years old. Though our house was very close to the cemetery, I did not have any problem with it whatsoever. In fact, when I was very young, I even used to play with my friends in or around the cemetery and considered it quite normal.

However, after the invasion which soon took place in Cyprus, things took a turn for the worse. My two eldest brothers were soldiers at that time and on the same day both of them were wounded during the war. I remember the great suffering, the grief and the pain which filled our house as a result. I remember that every day the cemetery was full of people who wept and mourned over their beloved relatives’ unfair death, as a result of violence and war. I was unprepared and did not know how to react to all those unexpected and unforeseen tragic events. That is what usually happens to people who don’t have Jesus living in their hearts and have no hope.

The Word of God tells us that Christ in us is the hope of glory! Having therefore no hope for life, I began to be afraid of death and of anything that was related to it. I could no longer stand to hear anything which had to do with death. If someone happened to say, for example, that somebody had recently died, this very word was enough to fill my heart with deep depression and uncontrolled dangerous anger. I would suddenly get very angry!

I could no longer bear seeing anything that had to do with death. If I happened to see a cemetery even from far away, I would have the same depressing feelings again. If, all of a sudden, I happened to see a hearse or even a coffin, I would have the worst feelings and I would break down and start weeping!

Not only could I not hear or see anything which had to do with death but I was absolutely unable to utter any word that was in any way related to it.

As a result of this behavior, I stopped being social like I was before. I left my friends one after the other, even the people I had been friends with for years. If I happened to meet them I wouldn’t talk to them and when they talked to me I turned away because I didn’t want to talk to them. In my mind I had associated them with cemeteries and death and for me they were just “contaminated and bad!”

In order to avoid them completely, I decided to change schools even though my new school was very far, but at least I would be away from the cemetery, my neighborhood, my neighbors...away from whatever was “contaminated and bad!” However, we all know that running away from a problem is not the solution. On the contrary, it makes it grow bigger and it gets even more complicated. That is what exactly happened. I would not only avoid my friends and neighbors but even tried to avoid my parents and my brothers.

This, for me, was the most tormenting and the most painful thing of all: to have to avoid those I really loved. I couldn’t understand myself, and of course no one else could understand me either. I started to intentionally avoid the people I loved more than anything in the world: the ones who had given me my life!