I do not envy Russian women, to whom these rapist creatures will return - a psychologist who provides assistance to raped Ukrainian women

According to the NGO "Ukrainian Medical Mission", since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine, more than 3,000 cases of rape of Ukrainian women by Russian soldiers have been recorded.  This figure, according to Ukrainian and international human rights activists, is actually much higher, because many victims were afraid or embarrassed to declare the fact of abuse against them.  And some will not be able to do this, because the invaders did not limit themselves to desecrating the body. They also took the lives of these people.

 

Psychologist, EOT therapist Kateryna Gurina (pictured) was once the victim of an aggressive attack herself. She spoke about this in a conversation with a journalist from Espreso.West.

 

A stranger in broad daylight in the city attacked Mrs. Kateryna with a knife. The psychologist calls the experienced traumatic experience her “tool”: "It helps me a lot as a specialist, because I know the problem from the inside: how a person feels and how she will feel later, how much time she may need to deal with the traumatic experience, and what are the stages of this process?"

 

"Now we are all experiencing a collective trauma", states the psychologist. "The war actualizes the traumatic experience of all people, without exception, who once had it, not counting how old it is: whether it happened 10 years ago, or in early childhood. All episodes of psychological and physical violence emerge in our memory. Being in "hot" information field, listening to and watching news about cases of murder, torture, rape, people subconsciously transfer it to themselves, perceive it as something that can happen to them personally. A healthy person is very hard going through all this, then what to say about a person who has a traumatic experience? In this case, everything is multiplied by 10. Plus it is multiplied by the experience of generations - someone in the family who survived the Holodomor, genocide, occupation or deportation during World War II. This birth trauma is also putting a lot of pressure on people".

 

Do the people of Europe also have this trauma? The Poles, for example, are very afraid that World War III will start.

 

Oddly enough, the Europeans now feel the same as we do. They also had a war. In the Balkans, for example. That is why they help us in whatever way they can. That is why our refugees are so warmly welcomed. I am now a witness to this, because my children and I are internally displaced persons. Many of them also had some experience - personal, related, since World War II. All this is now being updated and people are also very worried. They also have panic attacks, fears, and insomnia. Many people. This is a mass phenomenon.

 

In countries hosting our refugees, medical personnel are advised to interpret every Ukrainian woman fleeing the war as a potential victim of rape. How can we (not doctors or psychologists) suspect that a woman has experienced sexual abuse?

 

It is the task of physicians (a doctor or a forensic expert) to establish the fact of violence and the degree of damage. But indeed, there are some signs by which we can assume that a person has experienced sexual abuse. She becomes withdrawn, may be horrified by loud sounds or silhouettes of people (mostly children behave this way), do not make contact or, conversely, behave too excitedly, talk a lot. That is, we notice that a person's behavior is atypical, often aggressive. Women and girls mostly close on themselves. They don't have the strength to talk about what happened to them.

 

If a person in the first hours or at least in the first days did not receive support from loved ones, then most likely we will be dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. A person does not immediately realize the scale of what happened to her. She believes that what happened did not happen to her or may not remember some moments or cannot connect individual events in time. You may feel guilty about what happened.

 

What do rape victims need and what exactly do they not need? What adequate assistance can we provide them?

 

A very important point, if we are dealing with rape, is to give a person a sense of security: that with you at this moment, in this environment, she can feel safe. You need to look into her eyes and say: "I hear you. I believe you. I'm with you". This crisis intervention should be done immediately. Wrap a person in a warm blanket so that she feels the boundaries of her body, physically feels warm. Next, you need to show respect for the person in every possible way, and take care of her. And you need to start providing such assistance already in the first hours.

 

As a rule, women already have a subconscious feeling of guilt: "If I hadn’t gone there, if I had behaved differently, this probably wouldn’t have happened to me. I somehow provoked the rapist by my actions, by the fact that I exist at all". But this is complete nonsense! It cannot be that the victim provoked the rapist. The one who attacked, who raped is always to blame. By no means a woman - no matter how she was dressed or how provocative she behaved.

 

Many girls keep the experience to themselves because they feel dirty (that's why their first desire is to wash), spoiled second-class people, and substandard. Such a trauma as rape destroys not only physical boundaries, but also a sense of one's own identity, value, female dignity. These feelings will need to be restored, and this takes time. However, the first aid is this: to restore a person's sense of security. Immediately! Show respect and never ask for details. This is exactly what you shouldn't do. If a person wants to speak out herself, that's good. Say, "I really appreciate you telling me about this. It means a lot to me.I really feel for you". It is not necessary to be said by a crisis psychologist, because there are not enough crisis psychologists for everyone. Such words may come from a doctor or someone around. But it is very important to do this so that a person does not feel condemned and is not subjected to accusations that she could somehow provoke it.

 

As a rule, women already have a subconscious feeling of guilt: "If I hadn’t gone there, if I had behaved differently, this probably wouldn’t have happened to me. I somehow provoked the rapist by my actions, by the fact that I exist at all". But this is complete nonsense! It cannot be that the victim provoked the rapist. The one who attacked, who raped is always to blame. By no means a woman - no matter how she was dressed or how provocative she behaved.

 

Can you say as a psychologist: does it make a difference whether a woman was raped by one man or by a group of men, and does it make a difference when it happened - in peacetime or wartime? Injury, depending on this will be more or less? Maybe its scale depends on other factors? For example, has the woman experienced such a traumatic experience before?

 

It doesn't matter if you were shot in the head with one round or several. You've been shot. That's all. It is still a severe injury, despite the number of its participants.

 

But subjective perception is also very important. The traumatic experience can result in both post-traumatic stress disorder and panic attacks. Anything if a person's personal space has been violated. Even if there was no direct sexual intercourse (the attacker did not succeed, because the victim offered strong resistance), but it was an attack. It is also an attack on security and therefore a person may lose a sense of security, a sense of their right to life.

 

The scale of the injury depends, among other things, on the reaction of others and on how quickly the person received help, felt the support of the environment, or, conversely, heard accusations against him. If the raped woman experienced episodes of domestic violence in childhood or adolescence and did not deal with that trauma before, then the consequences will be horrifying. Up to the isolation of parts of the personality, depersonalization, etc. Post-traumatic stress disorder will definitely be there.

 

Does it make a difference how minors experience rape?

 

It does not matter who is injured, a child or an adult, the algorithm of assistance that we must provide is the same.

 

The first task of a child crisis psychologist is to give the child a sense of security, a sense of the boundaries of her own body: wrap her in a blanket, say "I'm with you, everything is fine, you are protected." It is very important that the child subsequently tells (if she can do this) exactly how she perceived what happened to him. But since children still do not have enough verbal means to describe what they experienced, it would be useful to use art therapeutic means: sand art therapy, animation, playing with dolls, dancing.

 

Then for a year (at least) it is necessary to monitor what is happening with the child: how she behaves, how she makes contact with other people, how she communicates with her peers and with adults. Many people should be involved in this: relatives, close ones, everyone who cares about the child. In the absence of adequate correction, the consequences of the experience can manifest themselves in very different ways: isolation, lag in physical or mental development, lethargy or, conversely, aggression, atypical sexual behavior. It can be anything, but it can be corrected in time with the help of art therapy. In the game, psychodrama, the child can express even what she is not aware of.

 

British Ambassador to Ukraine Melinda Simmens said that the mass rapes committed by the Russian invaders are a "deliberate act of subjugation" of the Ukrainians. Obviously, this was not the will of individual soldiers. Such an instruction should have come from senior management. Is the rape of a woman (especially of the men, children, parents present) by the invaders not only the satisfaction of their sadistic needs, but also an element of the oppression of the people?

 

If a person has already begun to attack and rape, then it is likely that he will not stop. Therefore, I do not envy those Russian women to whom these creatures will return. Let them meet. They will certainly be in for the same thing, because when the rapist gets a dose of adrenaline, he can get addicted to it, like a drug. If a person is prone to violence, everything is addictive.

 

I am not a military psychologist to say something professional about this. But. If a person has already begun to attack and rape, then it is likely that he will not stop. Therefore, I do not envy those Russian women to whom these creatures will return. Let them meet. They will certainly be in for the same thing, because when the rapist gets a dose of adrenaline, he can get addicted to it, like a drug. If a person is prone to violence, everything is addictive.

 

How often do raped women have suicidal thoughts? How can you somehow help a woman so that she does not dare to take such a step?

 

If a woman experiences support and respect (primarily from her inner circle), most likely she will not commit suicide.

 

Who gets suicidal thoughts? Those victims of physical or emotional abuse who have no one to share their experiences with and are forced to carry all this horror by themselves. Subsequently, the woman has a feeling of guilt for what happened. Therefore, it is very important to say: "You are not to blame". For a sense of guilt, as well as a sense of loss of one's human, female dignity and public condemnation can lead a woman to try to commit suicide.  It's no secret that the attitude towards what happened to the victim can be different.  But not now! Now it's not even mentioned.

 

If a person receives help and support, then most likely she will cope. She will cope, she will survive and the specialists will help her with this. She will not have a devastating injury.

 

Is it possible to accept what happened? Any way to come to terms with this?

 

Possible. Our psyche has a lot of resources for this, and there is a lot of technology. Each psychological school has its own tools, exercises to help a person cope, deal with this experience. But this takes time. For some people, it takes two months to regain a sense of their own worth, dignity, to pull themselves together and begin to live a normal life, not to react painfully, it takes two months, and for some a year or even two. It's all very individual. However, you have to work a lot: in groups or on your own with a specialist, because it does not go away by itself. The trauma remains, it hurts, and with each memory, emotions will rise, interfering with normal functioning.

 

It is impossible to completely forget the experience. But human nature is such that we recover. Our psyche has very powerful resources for this: both external (people, organizations, the help of specialists) and internal (primarily the goal of life). A person who has a goal, who knows what she lives for, it is much easier for her to recover. It was not I who said this, but Viktor Frankl, a famous Austrian psychologist who went through a concentration camp, the founder of a new direction in existential psychology - logotherapy (healing with meaning). He survived because he had a purpose and because his neighbors in the concentration camp survived, with whom he practiced this method. If a person finds his own meaning of life, he will be able to survive even in such a terrible place as Auschwitz, where the Nazis set themselves the task of destroying the personality of a person, reducing him to zero, turning him into a biorobot or an animal.

 

Today we can also draw on Frankl's experience, but there are many other methods that work well: body-oriented or emotional-image therapy, which allows you to very carefully go through this traumatic experience, express your emotions and subconscious fears, go through certain stages, adapt and return to normal life. Each of us carries a rich potential and a lot of strength. The task of specialists is to reveal this potential and launch the mechanisms of self-healing. We cannot cross out this traumatic experience. But as for me, for example, it no longer bothers me, does not hurt, but rather helps. I have a very cool family - a beloved man, three kids. I have normal sex (smiles). I live a completely fulfilling life. The attack that I experienced helped me to clearly sort out what is important in my life, what is worth living for, and what is not worth living for. All life swam before my eyes.

 

After any terrible event in life, even after the loss of a child, our psyche has a resource to recover. But it will happen faster and more gently if we use the help of specialists. You have to work with yourself, because a person cannot heal herself from such an injury. It's impossible. It's like a surgeon operating on himself. Outside help must come.

 

The consequences of this, of course, were: both post-traumatic stress disorder, and panic attacks, which "covered" me for about six months. Despite the fact that I received support from relatives, despite the fact that no one condemned me, they did not say that I provoked the attacker.

 

After any terrible event in life, even after the loss of a child, our psyche has a resource to recover. But it will happen faster and more gently if we use the help of specialists. You have to work with yourself, because a person cannot heal herself from such an injury. It's impossible. It's like a surgeon operating on himself. Outside help must come.

 

Psychologists working with trauma, crisis psychologists know how to help a person first restore the boundaries of his body, then feel his worth, dignity and return all the resources that were once destroyed by trauma.

 

This process is very individual. Some will really feel guilty for years, and some will experience it faster and the person will be able to find herself in helping others. The faster a person returns to any activity, helping other people, the faster she will recover. But, probably, some kind of program at the state level will be required. I am ready to participate in it, if there is one.

 

Usually, in order to help women, I share my experience with them, but sometimes it’s enough just to listen to a person - and she already has a resource, and feels better. Because when it happened, she didn't even have anyone to tell about it. I could not tell my parents, my husband, because I felt dirty, unworthy. It can be fixed with one sentence. I tell everyone: "My dear girls, listen, this is very important. In Soviet times, there was such a thing as iconoclasm. Do you remember? When the holy icons were thrown in the trash, they lay in the mud, but the faithful collected them, cleaned them, placed them in a place of honor in the house and worshiped them as shrines, because neither for a moment, nor when this icon was in the temple, nor when it was thrown, polluted, it has not lost its value, its sanctity. As it was a holy icon, it remained. Person is the image of God. I tell women: "You are also an icon. You cannot become less valuable, less holy because you have been conditionally polluted. No matter what happens, you can't lose it, because that's your essence. Anything can happen from the outside. But you still have your humanity, your essence, your dignity, your feminine nature. No one and nothing can destroy them. They will always be with you simply because you appeared in this world as you were born. "That's what I'm trying to convey. The value of your life, no matter what happens to you. You can always rely on it. You can't be deprived of it"..

 

How many women and girls who have survived rape come to you?

 

Now there are a lot, and many with whom a traumatic event happened several years or even decades ago. But they hurt like it happened yesterday. The injury, if not dealt with, remains relevant. We put the experience aside and pretended nothing had happened. But it turns out that it still hurts, burns, and such a woman needs help, as if this had just happened to her.

 

If there is a real threat of rape, but there is a chance to survive after this, what would you advise a woman? How should she behave?

 

We have three natural subconscious defense mechanisms that have been programmed for millennia: fight, flight, or freeze responses. What does a person do if he is attacked? Tries to run away. If that fails, he can fight. If this fails, he freezes. He acts as an animal would act in the wild.

 

How you will actually act when you are attacked, no one can predict in advance. It's very cool if you own some self-defense techniques, but for me, for example, this did not help. The man who attacked me was armed. He put a large-bladed knife to my throat. It is difficult to assess by eye whether this person has attacked, is mentally ill or not. Moreover, you cannot know what is going on in his head. So it's hard to predict anything. You should rely only on intuition. If you can scream, call for help and there is someone to help, this, of course, should be done. If you manage to fight - very good. A physically weak attacker can quickly run out of steam, and let go. Some advice to disgust the attacker - to puke or crap one's pants. I don't know if this will work or not. Everything here is very individual, it is very difficult to recommend anything.

 

How to work with a child who witnessed the rape of a loved one: mother, grandmother, sister?

 

There are some peculiarities in working with children. It is very important to find out what exactly the child decided for himself at that moment, how he explained to himself what was happening to him. Because there are many different options. Next, you already need to work with the child in order to return him a sense of security, the feeling that adults take care of him.

 

As a result of rape, a woman became pregnant or contracted some kind of venereal disease. How can I help her deal with this?

 

As for pregnancies as a result of rape, even under the very strict laws of countries where abortion is prohibited, there are exceptions. When it comes to rape, a woman has every right to get rid of an unwanted fetus. I personally support the opinion that it should only be the choice and decision of the woman herself. She should have the last word.

 

If the attacker infected a woman with a sexual infection, you need to inspire her with confidence that this is being treated and she will be able to regain her lost health.