HOW DOES THE RUSSIAN INVASION AFFECT THE MENTALITY OF UKRAINIANS?
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
Imagine you just woke up. It’s two in the morning. You rub your eyes, the vision still blurry. But it is not what you see, that makes you worried, it’s what you hear. This stridulous sound you know only from old movies or news from distant countries.
The next thing you know, a building next to your house becomes a pile of bricks and burning memories. You remember it, your childhood best friend used to live on the eighth floor.
And then it hits you. A painful realization, so terrifying for every person, yet so real, and so frequent.
It is war.
You may be imagining it right now, but for forty-four million Ukrainians it became reality on the twenty-fourth of February this year. It is not so much about the buildings being destroyed, the forests being burned, or the rivers being polluted. Sure, the material value of society is forever lost, but people can find a way to bring that back. The cities can be rebuilt — with enough determination, strength, and imagination. The forests can be seeded again, the rivers filtered. It will take time, a lot of it, but it is not impossible.
The same cannot be said about the intangible properties.
War is a thief of a different caliber. It purges people of innocence, happiness, and normality. A regular civilian becomes a witness of a murder or a rape — or what is worse — they are the subject of those crimes.
THE SCAR THAT DOES NOT BLEED
War is a synonym for mass homicide and harrowing violence. It dehumanizes — both — the attacker and the victim. It takes away people and memories, something that can never be rebuilt.
A report published by the United Nations states that around fourteen thousand Ukrainians were killed in the invasion so far. All of those people were a part of something. Either a loving family, closely-knit friend group, or a small community. And it is the unjustified violence that took them away from their loved ones.
They were a loss that left a scar on the mental health of anyone that knew them. After the death, there are many emotions present, including grief, anxiety, and sadness. Albeit, in terms of war, there is also the long lasting anger. Suddenly questions such as: “why did it have to be him?” Or “Why did she go out that day, maybe she wouldn’t have died otherwise?” appear.
Later on, the questions transform into unidentified exasperation. Towards the Russians or towards themselves. They start blaming everyone around them, including the attacker. However, what may seem vague, they tend to hold the biggest grudge against themselves.
There could always be something that they could do to prevent the death, at least that is their narration. They are forced to live with this trauma, the ongoing blaming of themselves, all because of war.
This feeling of self-hatred will be present till the day of their own death, which may happen quicker if they cannot cope with this overwhelming emotion. Not only does the death of the loved one transform one’s mentality, but it may lead to the complete collapse of their mental health.
And it is just one of the many things that leave a scar on mental health.
RECURRING NIGHTMARES
PTSD is an acronym for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, it is a mental health illness that happens when a person experiences a severe trauma, which then transforms into a constant state of panic and at the same time emotional numbness. PTSD may happen to anyone who has ever experienced a life-threatening event, which in case of Ukrainians happened not once or twice, but it became a routine — as terrifying as it sounds.
The mentality of a person diagnosed with PTSD changes drastically. Suddenly the way of thinking from a positive — or at least neutral — turns into a series of obsessive “what if’s”. The person becomes jittery, avoids anything that in the slightest reminds them of the event, stays alert all the time.
The war is not only about losing family or friends, it’s first and foremost about losing oneself.
PTSD takes away the happiness from life, it acts like a huge black hole. The light of life is being sucked out, and the only silver lining on the blurry horizon is therapy.
This unsettling feeling stays with people till the end of their life, in a higher or lower intensity, but it will be there. The rest of one’s life becomes somewhat crooked.
Post-traumatic stress disorder can happen because of bombarding, cannonading, or sexual harassment among a vast number of other factors. An estimation suggests that in Mariupol there are only about twenty percent of houses left, compared to the times before the war.
There are also more and more information about recurring rapes, done by Russian soldiers. The women are suffering because even though they might be able to escape the guns and bombs, they are still exposed to sexual violence.
All of those things are components that affect one’s mentality. The recurring nightmares of Russian brutality are something Ukrainians cannot escape even after the war ends.
LOST AND FOUND
In the sea of cruelty and despair there’s a way out. Ukrainians, even though exposed to so much brutality, have enough determination to fight back. The difference between the size of military forces of both countries is huge — Russia has around 650 000 active soldiers more, not to mention the armament. Naturally, this data would usually act as a disincentive, but the admirable mentality of the Ukrainians proved Russians wrong.
As brutal as war is, it can sometimes extract the side of us we never knew existed. The way of thinking not only of the soldiers, but also of regular civilians transformed into the alarmed and motivated attitude.
What was lost — the joy, determination, and dreams — could be found again thanks to the strong mentality of Ukrainians. They were able to support each other in the hardest moments, staying true to their beliefs and never giving up and for that, they become today’s symbol of bravery.
Their mentality, though exposed to many destructive factors, became stronger. So after all, the war affects it greatly but with enough willpower one can find what was lost for a moment — simple happiness.
Sara Siniecka / 05.03.22