For years, those suffering from PTSD have felt abandoned and forgotten while dealing with their traumas. Then came the pandemic and the war in Europe which increased the loneliness and old nightmares they thought they had repressed.
The war had already been over for months, but Zlatko Ljubic was still hearing the sounds of shelling. While lying in bed in his apartment, he was convinced that he heard the sound of shells being fired and flying overhead. He jumped off the bed several times and lay down to protect himself. Once, he sprained his ankle like that and ended up in a cast.
For him, these were the first symptoms that he saw clearly after he had already ignored insomnia and sweating. He thought he was simply not sleepy or that it was too hot in the apartment.
Almost two and a half decades after the war, he learned to deal with trauma with therapy and support. But then came the pandemic and after it the war in Ukraine. He felt great internal anxiety being triggered again. He says that the pandemic did not affect him that much and that he protected himself from infection. But the new war in Europe hit him much harder. He was turning off the TV when the broadcasts from Ukraine started. He doesn’t watch the news at all now.
Symptoms
The rain is falling through the trees in a park in the village of Slatina, near Laktasi, where Mara Milankovic is sitting on a bench, adjusting her jacket before the camera starts rolling. She spoke countless times about her experiences and the problems she faced due to PTSD, in order to raise awareness about this disease and encourage others to seek help.
She was 26 years old when she was wounded as a member of the army in September 1992. Then she spent a large part of her time in hospitals, and then she got married and gave birth to two children.
“The PTSD started in 1997, after the birth of my second child, combined with postpartum stress,” says Mara, adding that she had been carrying the trauma since the beginning of the war.
“Everything started bothering me. When we left the hospital, the crying of the baby started bothering me. People bothered me, voices bothered me. I couldn’t sleep.
I simply couldn’t function. My life was turned upside down. Actually, it had been turned upside down before, but that was when it all came to a head,” she adds.
“A great help in my recovery along with therapists was provided by my family, my children. They kept me alive,” she explained and added that some in her environment could not withstand the consequences of the trauma, so they sought relief in vices such as alcohol or gambling, Detektor reports.
E.Dz.
