KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Sleep plunges the soldier back into the horrors of the Ukrainian battlefields. He can hear bombs falling again and imagine explosions. He envisions himself running frantically, trying to save himself and others. The nightmares are so vivid and terrifying that he begs his doctor for help. “He’ll blow my mind,” he warns. “So do something.”
“Very, very, very stressful,” says Witalij Miskow, 45, of the night terrors he combats with tranquilizers and therapy at a mental health treatment center for soldiers on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
When peace finally returns to Ukraine, many thousands of other soldiers are likely to return home like Miskow with a condition known as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Psychologists, veterans affairs officers, and veterans who have struggled with nightmares, harrowing memories, and other PTSD symptoms are already working to prevent a potential mental health crisis among soldiers and their families since the particularly frighteningintense and devastating war.
Whether it’s increasing awareness and funding for mental health care or training counselors to help soldiers talk about psychological trauma, the goal is to prevent potentially destructive PTSD-related problems, including suicides, from family violence, alcohol and drug abuse, take root.
Former paratrooper sergeant. Maksym Pasichnyk says civilian life was “very complex” for him after years of fighting pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine and once Moscow then launched its full-blown invasion., now in its tenth month. His long exposure to combat, death and destruction left the 28-year-old with a variety of PTSD symptoms. He fears that many other military members and his families may suffer as well.
“The repercussions come later. You have a noise in your ears, you start vomiting, you come home and you have constant changes in blood pressure and you attack your family members, your children, your wife, ”he says.
“You constantly think someone is watching you, you think too much, you abuse drugs and drink, you lose yourself,” he adds. “If you want help, they put you in a psychiatric hospital, where they turn you into a vegetable. If you show flashes of anger, they give you tranquilizers and you just sit there.”
Pasichnyk saw his last combat at the beginning of the invasion on February 24. His unit was inserted by helicopter at night to defend an airfield on the outskirts of Kyiv. The shootings and the long journey back to the capital destroyed his feet. The bleeding, bruising, and bone fractures were so severe that he was discharged from further service.
Outwardly, the muscular veteran sports a healthy image. But physical integrity can hide the inner suffering of soldiers, warns Pasichnyk.
“They look good,” he says, “but they’re not.”
On November 12, Pasichnyk returned to the damaged Hostomel airbase where he fought, a return that again triggered memories of the events he endured there. starting from the gutted remains of what before the battle had been the largest aircraft in the worldran a half marathon to raise awareness about PTSD and fund the costs of treating 10 veterans with symptoms.
Pasichnyk says he is not only concerned about the risk of traumatized soldiers taking their own lives, but also that they might shoot others and “might resort to terrorist acts.”
Ukrainian Veterans Affairs Ministry spokeswoman Iulia Vorona says that statistics on suicides and PTSD among veterans and their families are not made public during the war for security reasons.
But speaking five months before the invasion, Veterans Affairs Minister Yuliia Laputina said there was already “great demand” for psychological support from military families as a result of fighting since 2014 against backed separatists. through Moscow in eastern Ukraine.
The minister, who has a Ph.D. in psychology, he expressed particular concern that many are returning to “remote villages where there is no psychologist.”
“We must build a system where emergency psychological assistance works in the most remote corners,” he said.
In an interview later this month with The Associated Press, one of his deputies, Eugen Kotyk, said the ministry is “actively working” on a suicide and alcohol risk reduction program.
Based on figures from previous conflicts, around 20% of troops exposed to heavy fighting in Ukraine could develop PTSD, estimates British psychiatrist Neil Greenberg, professor of defense mental health at King’s College London, who previously served as an officer Royal Navy medic for 23 years, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the aftermath of the Russian invasion, he also conducted online training for the Ukrainian military on handling traumatic events.
Unlike soldiers who fought in afghanistan either US troops in the Vietnam War, Ukrainian soldiers are fighting in and for their homeland, with clear public support, a clear enemy, and solid goals and justifications. All of that could help lessen the mental health consequences of Ukrainian veterans, says Greenberg, who describes it as “a psychologically good war for Ukraine.”
But a victory for Ukraine, the subsequent good treatment of returning soldiers and rebuilding will also play a role in determining whether psychological illnesses cause “massive casualties” among veterans “or just large numbers,” Greenberg adds.
Anticipating that many will need help, Ukrainian psychologist Andrii Omelchenko is training volunteers (300 so far and aiming for a total of 2,000) to provide counseling to soldiers.
Omelchenko also provides practical advice to troops in the field and continues that work online when he returns to Kyiv, speaking to them about battlefield trauma over video calls from his 17th-floor office. One recent call was with a front-line commander. who suffered from debilitating panic attacks, after having seen a missile attack that seriously injured three soldiers.
Russia’s heavy reliance on artillery barrages is taking a psychological toll on Ukrainian soldiers, says Omelchenko. He says that social media is another psychological stressor because it shows soldiers that while in the trenches, their loved ones and friends may be enjoying a relatively normal life.
“It’s really painful,” says Omelchenko. “Civilian life has many good things that should not be shown.”
On the other hand, Omelchenko says she also receives calls from families asking how best to deal with soldiers who return from battle changed: morose, distant, nervous and in their own worlds. Omelchenko experienced the same thing with his grandfather, who fought when he was a teenager in World War II.
“My grandfather never smiled,” says Omelchenko.
At the Forest Glade rehabilitation clinic on the outskirts of Kyiv, Miskow continues his recovery. In addition to pharmaceuticals, the facility uses yoga, acupuncture, soothing sounds, and other therapies on its 220 patients.
“I’m happy, I’m still alive,” says Miskow.
Still, she later cries when talking about an artillery attack that killed several of her friends.
“I’m getting used to these feelings, but it’s still very, very difficult,” he says. “If you’re not here, you don’t understand anything, you won’t understand.”
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