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17 НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ • Листопад 2022 Ksenia in the displaced persons camp, likely at age 4 or 5, wearing an outfit sewn by her paternal grandmother, a well-known seamstress/designer from Lviv who was also in the camp. Many of the costumes used in the theater and opera in Lviv had been created in her atelier. and yell out, “the sand, the sand.” As with my nightmares, I struggled to catch my breath, and my stomach was totally knotted. Basically, I was experiencing a panic attack. Of course, the psychiatrist imme - diately brought me out of the hypnotic state and inquired about my response, but I had no idea. He suggested that I talk to my mother; however, she denied any knowledge of what may have precipitated my outburst. About a decade later, when visiting my cousins, a random discussion touched on the topic of hypnosis, and I related my story. One of my cousins, who is older, said she could easily explain my reaction. She de - scribed how, as we were escaping the war, the cattle-car train in which we were traveling was being bombed. Everyone quickly sought shelter under the train, but there were still casualties. My mother held me in her arms, but when she was wounded in the crook of her arm, near my head, I was immediately drenched in her blood. The man beside her was killed, my aunt was wounded in her legs, and everyone was crying and screaming in fear. The family sought help and shelter in a neighbor - ing village, and we subsequently resumed our escape on another train. Once again, planes flying overhead strafed the train; this time, we were able to find shelter in a nearby foxhole. The soldiers who had previously used this shelter had lined it with sandbags for protection. As the bul - lets and shrapnel hit the sandbags, those cowering inside the foxhole were covered by a shower of falling sand. I was speechless. Here, final - ly, was the explanation for my reaction at the age of 28 to my pre-verbal experiences when I was only 11 months old. Nobody had ever spoken to me about those particular moments of my family’s effort to escape, but the emotional trauma was so severe and the impact so deeply embedded that it was the paramount fea - ture of my past that first popped out under hypnosis almost three decades later. Moreover, this experience has remained a significant factor throughout my life. This deeply embedded and traumatic oc - currence that I was neither able to recall nor able to articulate has contributed to intermittent severe anxiety and depression, as well as to a diagnosis of PTSD. Notably, the very same nightmares I had experienced from the ages of 6 to 12 resumed when russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year, and they continued for about a month on a nightly basis. Without getting into detail, relatively recent brain research has re - vealed that the brain retains emotional and explicit, factual and ver - bally mediated memories differently. Furthermore, emotional mem - ory often does not rely on language and, indeed, typically does not respond to language commands, such as “calm down.” Additionally, emotional memory can be triggered by seemingly unrelated events, such as odors, sounds, lights. We have all heard stories of soldiers returning from war who dive undercover when a car backfires. They are responding with the same terror and fear that they experienced during the initial explosions they witnessed while at war. Given our current understanding of brain functions, we now recognize that their response is not crazy or inappropriate, but a normal reaction to the stimulation the brain receives. I write about my personal experience with the goal of raising aware - ness that the trauma of war not only affects children who can engage verbally, but also profoundly impacts pre-verbal infants and toddlers who can not only sense the anxiety, fears, and devastation of their parents, but also absorb sensory signals from their surroundings. Heightened awareness of this not well-known reality can enable par - ents and professionals to recognize signs of anxiety and fear in the very young. For many, current conditions in Ukraine are such that mere surviv - al is difficult; nonetheless, I hope my story may be helpful in the future, and that we can better understand that assuming infants are unaffected by the chaos and trauma of war is incorrect. When these children sub - sequently exhibit what appear to be inappropriate responses to a seem - ingly neutral stimulus, the adults working with them need to realize that discounting their fears or neg - ative responses, or simply providing verbal reassurance, will not suffice. Rather, prior intervention that could teach the children, as well as adults, how to use intentional skills to help return them to a sense of well-being is critical, not only now during the war but also afterwards, as the sol - diers and refugees return home.
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