‘I knew something was wrong’ – Ukrainian soldiers battling with mental health

Earlier than Andriy Herasymenko began receiving remedy on the Forest Glade Psychological Well being and Rehabilitation Heart, he was getting at most two hours’ sleep per night time – the results of the trauma he suffered combating on the entrance line.

He remembers precisely when his issues began. He had been taking cowl within the trenches on the outskirts of Kyiv, a couple of meters away from Russian traces, when a number of bombs exploded close by. 

When he received out to evaluate the scenario, his commander observed Herasymenko was shaking. That is when he realized one thing was fallacious.

“I do not even understand how I felt the second when bombs had been exploding,” he recollects, “however I spotted I couldn’t stick with it with my duties. I knew one thing was fallacious with my physique. I had complications and numbness of my arms and legs.”

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Herasymenko was recognized with acute anxiousness at a navy hospital earlier than being despatched to Forest Glade, primarily based on the outskirts of the capital, Kyiv. Right here, together with 220 different sufferers, he acquired a variety of remedies together with standard medicines and psychotherapy. He was additionally given the chance to attempt a variety of different therapies, corresponding to tongue drums, acupuncture, yoga and pottery.

Forest Glade is the one medical middle in Ukraine devoted completely to psychological well being. When it opened in 2018, a lot of its sufferers had been civilians. However because the begin of the battle towards Russia, the vast majority of individuals admitted are troopers – though civilians who’ve been held captive or tortured are additionally handled.

Neurologist Kseniia Vosnitsyna, the director of the middle, says the sufferers’ diagnoses embrace PTSD, anxiousness, despair, emotions of despair and survivors’ guilt. She additionally factors to a situation particular to Ukrainian troopers: post-concussion syndrome, attributable to the consequences of blast waves – sudden rises in air stress adopted by an equally sudden drop to beneath atmospheric stress. They’re the results of very highly effective explosions and may trigger traumatic mind harm.

“For Ukraine is it now an enormous drawback,” she says, “as a result of virtually everybody on the entrance line has skilled blast waves. All of them have psychological issues consequently. It is as a result of the numbers of weapons used towards us has been abnormally excessive for the twenty first century.”

The pondering behind the middle’s holistic method to remedy is that complimentary practices corresponding to artwork and music remedy have a therapeutic impact on the physique in addition to the thoughts, which Vosnitsyna says is important for restoration. She provides that trauma is normally concentrated inside muscle mass, which then ends in spasms. That is why the middle locations a powerful emphasis on bodily rehabilitation, together with muscle coaching and bio-suggestive remedy.

For the time being, the government-funded middle is receiving between 5 and 7 new sufferers each week, with every course of remedy lasting three weeks. Docs, psychotherapists, social employees and psychologists work collectively to supply all the assistance the sufferers want.

Andriy says he could return to the frontline, together with different troopers who’ve proven important indicators of enchancment. However these with persistent circumstances turn into medically exempt from navy duties and should obtain additional remedy at different facilities.

However crucial factor most sufferers take away from Forest Glade is the flexibility to acknowledge they’ve an issue and to discover ways to construct belief. And that, Vosnitsynia says, is the important thing to restoration.