“Field wives in the Northern Military District are called iguanas”: post-traumatic syndrome is off the charts

mk.ru

11 min

September 22, 2023

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A year ago, partial mobilization was announced in Russia. Then, by presidential decree, about 300 thousand Russian men went to the Northern Military District.

We found out how the families of SVO participants spent this year, what mental problems they had to face, and what kind of psychological help they received from specialists.

One of the main problems that veterans of all military conflicts have to face when they begin to return home en masse is how to re-acclimate to the world from which they left. And the world - to them.

Photo: freepik.com

Anxiety, insomnia, constant flashbacks, survivor's syndrome, feeling guilty about the dead and, at the same time, a tendency to take risks with oneself: this is all about those who have experienced post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD.

The changes in the psyche that many military personnel have experienced and are experiencing - regardless of whether it is the Afghan campaign, or both Chechen campaigns, or the Northern Military District - concern not only men, but also their families who remained in civilian life.

It’s just that few people talk about wives and children in such a situation. It is usually the privilege of the stronger sex to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. And the beloved women just have to be strong.

“The body reacts immediately”  

“People with flickering psyches” - from aggression to self-destruction - is one of the coolest definitions of PTSD that I have read recently. It was expressed by political scientist Anatoly Nesmiyan. Very figurative and very accurate. And no one will say in what phase of switching a person is now. What can you expect from him, what are the manifestations and symptoms? On or off?

“When my husband left, a continuous cough began. I didn’t know what to do, I was literally suffocating. I thought it was Covid or pneumonia, or even COPD, in which the lung is removed. They spent more than nine months looking for the cause - it turned out that it was a neurogenic cough, psychosomatics,” says 45-year-old Elena, whose husband Evgeniy volunteered in October 2022.

Moreover, she emphasizes that both of them seemed to know what awaited them; in the 2000s, her husband had constant business trips to Chechnya, but she had never experienced such a state before.

“Perhaps at that time we were still young, we didn’t believe in bad things, but now the body immediately reacts to what you constantly drive out of your thoughts,” the woman reflects.

Scientists of the National Medical Research Center PN named after. V.M. Bekhtereva conducted a study several months ago that showed that participants in SVO with a probability of 3 to 11% will experience post-traumatic disorder; If a soldier is wounded or injured, the risk of encountering psychological problems increases to 17%. Other scientists estimate the chances of PTSD in combatants to be even higher, at up to 33%.

It is known that the severity and duration of the condition is also influenced by the length of stay in the hot spot.

Psychiatrists have found that when staying in a combat zone for six months, the risk of developing psychological and psychiatric problems is 15%, and after 1.5 years - already 29%.

And if psychologists are supposed to work with men in the same hospitals, then the women who remain in civilian life are left to their own devices all this time.

“Maybe tomorrow, maybe in a month”  

I asked to conduct a survey in a closed “for our own” chat of military wives about how their relationships with their loved ones have changed since they left for military service. The women promised to answer frankly.

Basically, they say, relations remained the same as before, and for some they even improved. “He is eager to come to me, I am sure I am waiting for him. We are the whole world, we breathe each other. It breaks where it’s delicate,” Svetlana from the Moscow region talks about her feelings as romantically as in a Russian series for housewives.

But there are also those who honestly admit that they are going crazy from uncertainty. “We haven’t seen each other for a year. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in a month... For me this is the most painful thing,” says 27-year-old Oksana.

Some admit that big money worsened their relationship with their husband. “Before, my husband worked on repairs, and we lived from loan to loan. They say money is good, but now I’m not sure about it,” says 30-year-old Masha. – We constantly fight because I want to save up for a new apartment and pay off loans (yes, there are currently credit holidays for SVO participants, but sooner or later they will end, and then what?), and some nonsense is important to my husband: either a fancy phone that he’s dreamed of all his life, or he’ll transfer 50 thousand to a child for pampering, or he’ll spend another hundred on a friend. 

Moreover, where he serves, the prices are quite high, commensurate with the payments. And it turns out that he doesn’t get that much, because he also spends a lot and doesn’t listen to me at all. What kind of love is this?”

My wife doesn't understand and she's far away. Who's close? And here, too, there is nothing new - military field novels, classics of the genre. A new hobby fills the gap in the soul. This has always been the case.

No longer a wife

“I call them iguanas,” says a friend of mine who served in Lugansk. I don't know, maybe it's a common name. Or maybe he himself came up with this idea about women who are looking for a mate in the Northern Military District.

Women come to front-line cities, get jobs and begin an active search.

This happened during the Great Patriotic War. And in 2014 in Donbass. 80 years ago they were called PPZH - field wives. Now, it turns out, iguanas.

The iguana has bright colors and resembles a small, attractive dragon. The iguana is considered a harmless herbivore, but under certain circumstances it can attack.

Free and courageous “real men”, with sky-high testosterone and adrenaline, are found in large numbers in hot spots. Also in 2014, a rare Donbass volunteer returned back to Russia to his former family. It also played a role that those who rushed to save the Russian world were usually people whose personal relationships were not going smoothly anyway.

“This is what these iguanas use,” explains my friend. – There are a lot of young guys, most of them are from the outback. And with a big salary. Married people still need to be divorced first. When he is not married, he is persuaded to propose marriage. According to the law, they must be completed within 30 days, but if there is permission, then we can do it in a shorter time frame.”

And this is also actually a manifestation of post-traumatic disorder.

In conditions of mortal danger, I really want to love. The instinct of life triumphs all the same. But it is not a fact that new love is real and forever.

“In general, if the guy is normal, then we explain to him that such relationships are not always the only ones, that maybe she doesn’t like him, but his salary,” said my friend. – Mostly they don’t listen. Everyone wants to think that their story is somehow special.”

And a faithful wife is waiting at home, who suddenly finds out that she is no longer a wife. Experts warn that this is quite common. Having experienced a long-term mental crisis associated with a threat to life, a person often breaks with all his previous surroundings and begins a new life. But what about the former beloved?

May come back a different person

“My husband’s departure to the NWO zone is a loss associated with anxiety. The wife is left alone. She still bears all the household responsibilities that her husband used to do. Children, work... And also fear about whether he will return. And in this case, you need to understand that one person left for a special operation, and a completely different one may come, and with this others it will be necessary to establish new relationships, and this does not always work out in reality,” - at a round table on the topic “Legal issues of interdepartmental interactions in the provision of medical care to participants of the Northern Military District" within the framework of the Army-2023 forum, the monk Cyprian, Hero of the Soviet Union Valery Burkov, now the head of the Scientific, Practical and Educational Center for Counseling and Rehabilitation, Psychological and Mental Health in honor of the Icon of the Mother of God "of All Who Sorrow" spoke Joy".

Therefore, as the monk Cyprian emphasized, timely preventive work with women is very important.

Professionals who can work with mental problems in families in general who have undergone SVO have recently begun to be trained. Yes, they always talk about the need for them to exist, but in many ways these are still projects. The State Duma recently complained about this.

Last year, an algorithm for psychological assistance in working through the life situation “Loss of a breadwinner” was developed, which included, among other things, daily monitoring of the psycho-emotional state of a child whose father died.

It is clear that here it is necessary to interact with the family as a whole. It is necessary to find out how much contact the mother has with the child, or whether she is fixated on herself at the moment of grief. This must be a joint effort. But in general, such methods are most likely developed specifically for schools, since they already have trained psychologists. What if there are no schoolchildren in the family? Then where should the woman go?

Amulet for return

There is no such mass voluntary habit in Russia - to run with your troubles to a certified psychotherapist. Especially in the provinces. At best, they cry into their friend’s vest.

The church could help here. But for this there must be a tradition of visiting it not only at Christmas or Easter.

So they go to fortune tellers and healers in order to predict their future fate. Since the beginning of partial mobilization, a huge increase in interest in services of this kind has been recorded and, consequently, an increase in the income of self-employed people in this area.

“My sister takes at least 10-20 thousand a month to a fortune teller, because she reassures her and says that her husband will return, that’s enough for her and nothing will convince her not to pay,” Tatyana from the Ivanovo region cites her story as an example.

It’s as if we plunged back into the 90s, when people rushed about, charging water from the TV and wondering on the coffee grounds how business would turn out there.

On social networks they offered to make layouts for good luck and buy amulets for protection. Now they are advertising services for tying a serviceman so that he does not leave the family after the SVO, and for his speedy return.

The Russian Orthodox Church condemned such hobbies a year ago, warning that it destroys a person’s personality.

“A huge number of charlatans are appearing now,” says Inna Yambulatova, executive secretary of the Hippocratic Medical Forum. “And when military personnel return if they have health problems, women often also go not to medical specialists, but along the beaten path, to clairvoyants and healers. Women, not realizing that they are causing harm, seek salvation for their spouses. The state should limit this type of service and license the activities of such “rescuers.”

Well, okay, they won’t run to clairvoyants, but what in return? Where else can people find moral support? Who will tell them that “everything will be fine”? Officials and deputies? So they add even more fuel to the fire.

Until the end of the Northern Military District, those mobilized will not return home, there will be no rotation,” Kartapolov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Defense, recently expressed his point.

“I felt abandoned” 

Alas, fatigue, melancholy, and uncertainty sometimes lead to irreparable consequences. Especially when a woman is left alone.

In August in Volgograd, the body of a nine-month-old child was found in a high-rise building in a residential area. The neighbors were tormented by the smell in the entrance; they thought there was garbage stuck somewhere, but it turned out it was a baby. He died of starvation and dehydration.

24-year-old Claudia left her son alone in the apartment and went to stay with a friend for four days. Her two older children were with their grandmother at that time.

Claudia was detained, a criminal case was opened, and the child’s father, an active serviceman, returned home from the special operation for a while.

Neighbors said that the young family moved into a new apartment about a year ago. Claudia did not need money; her husband came on vacation in May - neighbors saw a man walking in the yard with a stroller. They seemed like a perfect couple...

In court, when a preventive measure was chosen, Claudia admitted that she was simply very tired.

“I felt abandoned, there was no help,” said the young mother. “I wish I could take it all back.”

The Krasnooktyabrsky District Court of Volgograd arrested the woman until October. The inconsolable father returned to the military unit after the funeral.

Of course, such cases are still isolated and seem out of the ordinary. As well as the antisocial behavior of those returning from SVO. Recently, a serviceman on leave blew up a flash-bang grenade on the street: he didn’t mean anything bad, he just showed how it works, but there were women and children nearby... These are still isolated situations, so every emergency ends up in the media, but what will happen next if not help these people? And how can I help?

“My specialty is social adaptation and rehabilitation, I have the appropriate education,” said one of the military psychologists on condition of anonymity. – For many years I was engaged in the resocialization of people released from prison. What can I say about PTSD: you can achieve a long-term state of remission, but in addition to rehabilitation and adaptation programs, you also need long-term social support and, most importantly, a prosperous social environment for a person to come to his senses. Working social elevators, social guarantees and examples of veterans achieving success in a peaceful society in civilized ways. Then things will work out.

But it’s not like what happened with Afghanistan and Chechnya - I mean the consequences of these wars for those who returned from there, when people either lost moral restrictions, believing that they could do anything, or became drunkards.

Example - a neighbor was silent and drank for four years after Chechnya; he was a conscript, and he was thrown into the assault on Grozny at the age of 19 - he remained on the other side, in ruins. I can say right away that I couldn’t help him in any way. It was through his example that I felt what PTSD was for the first time.”

The trouble with our country is that PTSD for us is, unfortunately, a genetic disease. Psychologists often talk about this today. It is inscribed in our DNA, they say. Our great-grandparents survived the revolution, our grandparents experienced the hardships of the Great Patriotic War, our parents experienced the collapse of the Soviet Union.

We ourselves absorbed everything that was from them, and added from ourselves, stuck in generational traumas, in an endless stream of dramatic events. Therefore, everyone needs to be treated for the effects of PTSD. Men, women, children, old people, politicians...

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