Margarita, a contract soldier who was in the war in Ukraine, has been in rehabilitation for almost two months. She is seeing a psychologist, taking strong antidepressants and trying to forget what happened to her recently. But she has not been able to forget. Margarita's biggest fear is returning to her regiment, where she says the women in her medical company were threatened with sexual relations with officers. She told Sever.realia.
- Sometimes you get the feeling that someone is walking under your window or that objects are moving. Or as if someone is sitting on me," Margarita says of her condition, "I have nightmares and panic attacks all the time. I was diagnosed with something I don't remember, without any paperwork. They told me it would take me six months to get over it. I can't be alone, even though I'd like to shut myself away from everyone in the room. But even when I'm not alone and I'm doing something, I still have this horror in front of my eyes.
According to Margarita, when she was in the war, she did not perceive the changes that were happening to her, but when she returned to Russia, she realized that her psyche was completely broken. She speaks of what she saw and experienced in a calm and composed voice, but her stories of soldiers killed by their own comrades, of drunken officers abusing their conscripts, and of married women in the medical company who were forced to have sex are all the more horrifying. Margarita herself was never able to break down and "hook up" with anyone, although she tried from day one.
"Polkan's got his eye on you."
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