“It's not when he was at war that it's scary, it's when he comes back.” Confession of the wife of a serviceman with PTSD

He did not manage to reach Kherson

Anton, Viktoriia's husband, worked as a welder at the Kryvyi Rih Mining and Processing Plant. “It was a job to keep the pants on, you know,” Viktoriia says frankly. It was only in the army that her husband truly felt his usefulness and importance. He went to the territorial recruitment center on the first day of the great war.

In a few months, he grew from a senior soldier to a squad leader in a special forces battalion of the National Guard. They managed to liberate 4 settlements in the Kherson region.

The man had a goal: to reach Kherson. But he missed it by just one day.

“It was even insulting. He was wounded at night of November 8, 2022, and on November, 9 our guys liberated Kherson,” recalls Viktoria Prokhorenko.

On that day, Anton's unit's positions were heavily shelled — out of 30 people, only he survived. He suffered a severe penetrating liver wound, had broken ribs, and a pneumothorax. His lung had to be punctured because it was already filling with blood.

“Then something big hit. He said that a pickup truck had just pulled up to them. There was a young guy on it, about 20 years old. He raised his hand and shouted: ‘Glory to the infantry!’ At the same moment, the shell hit. Neither the hand nor the boy was there...” the woman retells the story she heard from Anton. She adds that she felt that something had happened to him that day.

I was at home with my children that evening, and it was as if someone had put a concrete slab on me. I couldn't breathe. About an hour later, I video-called him: all pale, with a military fleece over his head and a pipe sticking out of him in a jar. And he was smiling and saying: ‘Please, don't worry’.Viktoriia Prokhorenko, wife of a serviceman

“It was a different person”

Since then, Viktoriia's personal “hell” began. First, it was hospital after hospital. Less than two weeks after his first discharge, Anton was hospitalized again with a microstroke.

“He hardly slept at all. He screamed a lot at night. Every night he was pulling someone out... And so it went for about 2 months,” the woman sighs. “The first night after returning from the hospital, he woke up in the middle of the night, broke off a leg from a stool, and put it under his pillow. When I asked him why he did it, he said: ‘What if the Russians come and I have nothing to defend you with?’”

The post-traumatic stress disorder was evident: it was as if the man had been replaced.

It was a different person. It was as if someone had taken my beloved husband and put his image in. It was just a clot of negative energy for any reason. He didn't seem to notice me. And if he did, I was in the way. I ‘didn't understand’, I ‘didn't know what it was like for him’. We were all ‘at the rear’ who ‘did not smell the war’.Viktoriia Prokhorenko, wife of a serviceman

The worst began when Anton found himself drinking buddies who wanted to listen to war stories. Amid the drinking, the man began to have severe breakdowns. “He would go out in a normal state and come back in an abnormal state,” Viktoriia recalls.

The children, a 12-year-old son and a 7-year-old daughter, who were so eager to see their father, also had a hard time with this change. And two months after his return, they came up to their mother and quietly asked her when their father would leave.

“My daughter started screaming at night — she was so afraid of him. In general, the children tried to avoid him. The son suffered mentally because he was already in his teens and looked older. Under the influence of alcohol, my husband was constantly trying to comment on him: ‘You're like a girl,’ ‘What kind of a warrior you'll be,’ ‘You won't be of any use there at all’. It was very difficult.”

“When the psychologist told me to get a divorce, I went to study psychology myself”

Then Viktoriia turned to a military psychologist. However, 4 months of therapy did not yield any results. And it was out of the question for a man to join his wife. Anton didn't want to listen to anyone then.

“At one point, a psychologist told me to get a divorce, because ‘here would be no point’.”

I took a vow: “For better or for worse”. This is important to me. Then I started looking for all sorts of techniques, tests, and partner communities on my own. He didn't want to, he refused and said: “Do you think I'm crazy?!”Viktoriia Prokhorenko, wife of a serviceman

The worst part, Viktoriia admits, is that when her husband packed his things and left, she breathed a sigh of relief. Nevertheless, she did not leave Anton. Every day, though unanswered, she sent him messages: wishing him good night and good morning, reminding him that she loved him and did not forget.

Eventually, Viktoriia, a former bank employee, decided to study psychology herself. She studied hard for her exams. She was already recognized on playgrounds: she always took a large notebook and a pen with her and then gathered children to organize tests for them. Unexpectedly for herself, she passed the exams so well that she entered the university on a free basis.

About a month later, the man started a dialog: he began to work on the techniques his wife taught him. In another month, he returned.

“I booked a table in a restaurant. I invited our children, whom he had not seen all this time. He began to apologize... He knelt in front of our son, and then our son knelt in front of him... Everyone was crying for 40 minutes,” says Viktoriia. After that, everything got better in the family.

How not to give up?

I just put myself in his shoes. I wouldn't want something to happen to my head after the concussion and all the horrors, and I wouldn't want my loved one to abandon me. Even if we were not a family anymore, I would not have left him anyway.Viktoriia Prokhorenko, wife of a serviceman

For both Anton and Viktoriia, this is their second marriage. Although they have known each other since first grade. “Our love story is unusual,” the woman smiles. They grew up together, graduated from school, and even were at each other’s weddings. And then they wiped each other’s tears after the divorce. Until they realized that they were happy together. It is important to preserve this ‘together’ no matter what, Viktoriia believes.

“My grandmother taught me that: ‘No matter how much you quarrel, you should fall asleep next to each other. Even with your backs to each other, even with your butts facing each other, but under the same blanket and together’.

No matter how angry I was and how much I wanted to nail him to the wall with my slipper, I would still come to him and lie down next to him. During a sound sleep, he would hug me and say: ‘My darling’. And he was real then — I knew it. And I could not leave him.”

“I want women to hear me”

Now that she knows the statute of a psychologist, Viktoriia is sure that the previous specialist had no right to tell her what to do.

“And I could have listened to her advice. I could have just left my husband. And what would have happened to him? He would have done something to himself. How would I have lived with that?” the woman is outraged.

Now she recommends that others choose their psychotherapists carefully. And she knows what to say to those who find themselves in a similar situation. There are thousands of such women.

“I would say that the most important thing is to learn to listen to them. Because they really have no one to share with here. Just as we need to share: when we feel bad or tired, we should say so. And not to just say: ‘We're fine’.”

The guys come back not as heroes, as everyone likes to say, not as supermen with a cape that flies in the wind. They come back broken. In their eyes, you can see as if they have lived four lives. For everyone they lost there. You have to try to enter their state to understand. They just need a little more warmth and a little more time.Viktoria Prokhorenko, wife of a serviceman

“Moreover, we need to keep them busy at home, because when they have a lot of free time, they start to indulge,” Viktoriia laughs.

She managed to establish a relationship with her husband, who was suffering from PTSD. Therefore, now people began to turn to her for help:

“Recently, my neighbor's daughter came to see me. She had already divorced her husband, who had returned from the front. He was destroying the apartment and throwing furniture. I told her what could be done about it... And she made up with her husband.”

The future psychologist sincerely assures: “I really want women who feel that they are losing their loved ones because of the war to hear me.”

“It won't go away on its own”

In the meantime, Viktoriia jokingly calls herself an “under-psychologist”. She will get her master's degree in 4 months and can't wait to start working in her new specialty.

“My husband felt that he needed to return to the frontline, and this is his choice. In the same way, I found what I really want to do, what my soul lies in. I am almost 40 years old now, and I wanted to go back to school. In this sense, the war changed both of us: no matter how hard it was, we gained new selves,” Viktoriia is convinced.

This unwanted but valuable experience allowed her to realize her own vocation: now she wants to work with military wives and children.

“No matter what they say, a wife and children are a solid foundation. If a man feels that he needs them, he will join. This is 100%. But first — I know from my experience — it is important to seek help.”

It's easier if a neutral person, a qualified psychologist, helps. Because we usually tell our relatives or friends, “Everything is fine, everything is okay.” No, it's not. For me, it was so physically and mentally difficult that I did not sleep for a year. I was a shadow of myself. I could be compared to a zombie.Viktoria Prokhorenko, wife of a serviceman

She is currently working on her master's thesis on Children with PTSD Parents. Viktoriia is sure that this problem is widespread and yet invisible. She knows many cases when children began to stutter after shelling or pee in their sleep. “It will not go away on its own, as some parents think,” the future psychologist emphasizes. She advises creating a comfortable environment for children and building trusting relationships so that they can share their fears or worries.

“When my children were afraid of something, we used to draw that fear. And then we would add some bows, funny thorns, a smile... Then the fear would go away because it wasn't scary anymore.”

When the children were sitting in the hallway during the air raids, Viktoriia would make up fairy tales with them.

Sometimes the children were afraid to sleep, so I told them: “You know, when children fall asleep, their souls can find their parents in their dreams. So you will fall asleep, and your soul can be next to your dad, supporting him. It can rise like a drone and warn him: ‘Dad, there are enemies further on!’”.Viktoriia Prokhorenko, wife of a serviceman

Every day a new story was born in this way. The children loved to fantasize. Now Viktoriia has another dream: to draw and then print comics based on these stories. She already knows that dreams do come true. You just have to take a step towards them.

Viktoriia Prokhorenko, the heroine of the project “Partners. Mutual Support” project, is currently studying at the Projector Foundation.