Every Night I Am At War­

24-year-old Ukrainian refugee Aleksandra Veresova is building her new life in Denmark while living with war-induced PTSD.

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The skating hall is cold, but Aleksandra Veresova is taking her sweater off. She’s putting one foot in front of the other, and her skates are drawing figures in the ice. “This is the one place in the world where my mind is completely quiet,” she says. “You might have a thousand problems, and all of them disappear when you’re here.”

Aleksandra is breaking in her new skates, and she is focused, fast, and precise. She’s practicing spins and turns with her friend Barbora. Their skates cut through the muted Relax, Take It Easy playing in the hall. It’s the end of their figure skating lesson, and almost everyone is off the ice. The hall is emptying. 

Suddenly—a bang, and Aleksandra falls. She covers her ears with her hands. Barbora rushes to her side. Aleksandra is lying on the ice in a fetal position. The world is gone, and the war is back. 

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Helicopters, police and ambulance sirens, kids shooting fireworks, loud bangs in construction sites, sudden sounds in rock songs, someone suddenly clapping or shutting a door, a scream, a pan falling on the floor, all things loud and unexpected—all things that trigger Aleksandra’s PTSD. This time, it was the pop of the sound system after someone disconnected a device.

Aleksandra is Ukrainian. The 16th of March 2022 was her last day in Ukraine before she fled the war and took refuge in Denmark. She is one of 7 million Ukrainians to have registered for refuge abroad since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. As of the latest Eurostat figures, over 4 million people who fled Ukraine have been granted temporary protection status in the European Union under the EU Temporary Protection Directive. In Denmark, there are over 40 thousand Ukrainian refugees under this directive. 

The world slowly comes back. The skating hall is now completely silent. Barbora helps pick Aleksandra off the ground. They take some deep breaths and decide to carry on with their practice. They have the whole rink to themselves.

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Usually, Aleksandra is in the rink as early as 6 in the morning, when there’s nobody else there. She likes the silence and the distraction. She skates for a few hours before rushing off to class or work. She also skates on the weekend or in the evenings, in between taking care of her horse Pony, studying, and the occasional volunteer work.

Aleksandra is never anything but busy. Now, all of these things help to keep bad thoughts away, but she has always been active. When she was a child, she attended skating classes with her dad, and later did horseback riding as a teenager. She was very successful and was even on Ukraine’s national team.“When I was a kid riding horses, the doctors knew me by name,” she says when recalling the physical trauma indured while horseback riding. However, she never felt like herself at home and struggled to find friends. She says that Barbora is her first best friend ever. 

She grew up in a middle-class family in Poltava. Her father had a business, and her mother worked with insurance. She lived with her parents, grandmother, and her little sister, Ksusha. 

Her family is still in Ukraine, and she worries about them a lot. Ksusha, 19, now works in the military and is training to become a drone pilot. Aleksandra says that she is very proud of her. “All nations have a sort of inner strength, and I think she embodies that Ukrainian strength. We had a tough life, and despite all of that, she decided to protect her country.”

Aleksandra and Ksusha’s father is of Russian descent, which caused a lot of turmoil in the family after the war, especially with the younger sister going to fight for Ukraine. “It’s hard because I love my dad so much, but every time we call, he spews Russian propaganda. And that really hurts,” says Aleksandra. 

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Before coming to Denmark, she always called herself Russian. Growing up, her father didn’t allow her to speak Ukrainian or to learn about Ukrainian history and culture. Aleksandra didn’t read the news and was not informed about politics. Before the war started, she had no idea there had even been signs of a conflict brewing. Only after starting her own life abroad did she realize how much Russian propaganda she had grown up with. She started reading the news and learning Ukrainian. Now, she speaks Danish more fluently than Ukrainian, but she makes an effort to avoid speaking Russian. 

Oftentimes, Aleksandra finds herself on a tightrope of identities. A Russian identity she’s leaving behind, a Ukrainian one she’s only learning about now, and a Danish one that she is working hard to make work. Sometimes, she feels guilty for leaving Ukraine while her family is still there, but she loves Denmark. 

“I present myself as Ukrainian, but at the same time, I’m doing my best to be as Danish as possible. It feels very natural to me. I feel good in the Danish skin,” she says. But sometimes she gets stuck in between. There are moments when she feels excluded from Danish conversations or circles because she’s “not Danish,” so she just “doesn’t get it.” At the same time, she also feels pushed out of the Ukrainian community for being “too Danish”.

This is not an uncommon experience as a refugee. Almost four years after the war, over 60 percent of Ukrainian refugees feel settled and want to stay in Denmark. However, integration comes with its own challenges, and many refugees feel as though they are stuck in a limbo state. They cannot go home due to the war, but they also don’t know how long they will be able to stay due to their temporary residence permits. 

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Nataliia Korchakova, a Doctor of Psychological Sciences, a professor at Rivne State University for Humanities, and a postdoc at the Department of Psychology at the University of Copenhagen, says that this limbo state adds to the development or worsening of PTSD symptoms in Ukrainian refugees. “People can’t make long-term plans. If you decide to change something in your occupational status, for example, to get a new education, you don't know whether it's worth it because you don't know where you will be in a year,” she says. Additionally, Ukrainian refugees face the pressures of learning a completely new language, assimilating into a new culture, navigating the Danish integration, health care, school, and housing systems, and finding new jobs, which usually requires them to downshift professionally. It’s not uncommon for someone who worked as a banker or a professor in Ukraine to now clean dishes in a restaurant. 

Danish municipalities usually push Ukrainian refugees to take Danish classes, to find jobs, and to integrate. On one hand, this pressure can add to the stress, but on the other, it can really help reduce mental health difficulties. N. Korchakova says that refugee adaptation is directly connected to PTSD symptoms. People who are better adapted and have more stability in their post-migration living situation have a better chance of improving their mental health. 

“Because of these language schools, the refugees may experience additional pressure on them. But on the other hand, it's a reason to get out of bed. To contact other people. And contact with other people is an important step in dealing with PTSD,” says the professor. 

After three and a half years of living in Denmark, Aleksandra feels at home. She passed a lot of integrational challenges that refugees face with flying colors. However, she has her biggest challenge just ahead of her. 

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Aleksandra still remembers the call from her father. How could she not—he’s not the type to do phone calls. He said, “Good morning, the war has started.” 

At the time, Aleksandra was staying in a village near her hometown, Poltava, located next to the Kharkiv region. It was one of the first regions to be attacked when Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, 2022. Kharkiv was heavily bombed that day. 

Aleksandra doesn’t remember much of what happened. Her memory is in flashes. A tank on the road, a shelter to hide from shelling, hiding under the bed, terrified. And sounds—airplanes, helicopters, bombs, air-raid sirens, shouting. All of it settled in her mind as trauma. 

She stayed in Ukraine for three weeks. She couldn’t eat or sleep and was constantly on edge. Seeing Aleksandra’s state, her father decided to evacuate her. He packed her up, put her in a car, and took her to Lviv, a town near the Polish border. From there, she took a bus to Warsaw and, finally, a plane to Denmark. She was to stay with her uncle in Northern Jutland. 

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That plane ride was perhaps the most horrible experience in her life, Aleksandra recalls. The sound of the engine was unbearable and panic-inducing. But as she landed in Billund and breathed in the air, she could feel that something about this place was home. And she finally felt safe. 

She lived with her uncle and his wife for a while and got a job as a horse trainer in a nearby ranch. Most of all, Aleksandra wanted to be on her own two feet. As soon as she made enough money, she moved to Aarhus to pursue her dream of studying cognitive science at Aarhus University. It took her three years to finally get in, and she had to take extra classes in mathematics, history, and English, to name a few, while also studying to learn Danish. But she did it. And she could not be happier. She’s in her place, she says. 

While studying hard to get into university, she worked service jobs around Aarhus, some with very bad working conditions. At times, she would go days without eating anything. In August of 2022, she decided to bring her horse Pony from Ukraine to Denmark. She arranged a stable in Aarhus, made sure to have enough savings, and set off to Poland with the help of a friend, who had a horse trailer. Pony was delivered to the border by an NGO working with animal rescue in Ukraine, and Aleksandra picked her up from there. It was a long journey home, and they had to sail to Denmark from Poland. 

Pony, a usually nervous and rebellious mare, was completely calm during the trip. “I could tell that she knows she is getting help,” says Aleksandra. Now Aleksandra works for DSB as a passenger counter on trains. And Pony horses around all day in her stable. 

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It’s a Thursday night, and Aleksandra is waiting to call her grandmother in Ukraine, Paraskeva. She got all the products needed for borscht and will cook together with her grandma on FaceTime. Paraskeva speaks half Russian and half Ukrainian and instructs Aleksandra on what to do. Cut the beetroot, cut the cabbage, the carrots, and so on. She checks in with her granddaughter and is glad she is well, but most of all, she is happy to see Linus.

After a few years in Denmark, Aleksandra met Linus, and they fell in love. And it was perfect. She thought her life was better than ever. And just then, she started to fall apart. All of the trauma that had accumulated over the years resurfaced in the comfort of a loving and safe environment. An experience like this is common with PTSD and is referred to as a delayed-onset trauma. This is when trauma symptoms don’t appear until months or even years after the traumatic experiences. It often happens because the person stayed in survival mode for a long time and only begins to process what happened once they are safe. When the danger is gone, the nervous system “stands down,” and the suppressed memories, emotions, and reactions surface.

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At first, she thought she was being lazy when she couldn’t get out of bed. But Linus saw through it and encouraged her to seek help. According to N. Korchakova, sometimes, Ukrainian refugees don’t seek help for their mental health issues because of the mental health system they had at home. “The psychological help system in Ukraine isn't developed really well. A lot of them didn't have experience with seeking mental help before the war. But the situation is changing, especially when people share positive experiences about seeking help for their mental health in their communities,” she says. 

Soon, Aleksandra got diagnosed with depression and anxiety and started her journey towards getting better. She started going to therapy, and that was like walking with an open wound. She started having panic and anxiety attacks, chronic fatigue, sleep disturbances, emotional disregulation, and strong reactions to triggers. 

One of her biggest symptoms is the nightmares she experiences every night. She dreams about Ukraine, about her family, about bombings, about getting into car accidents, and about being unable to escape. She wakes up crying daily and barely gets rest. “I am at war every night,” she says.

This year, she is finally starting treatment for her PTSD and is going through a psychological evaluation. Linus is there every step of the way. They are preparing together for what might be a long and exhausting process towards getting better. 

Aleksandra and Linus live together in a spacious flat. They call Paraskeva occasionally to cook some Ukrainian dishes together. Paraskeva absolutely adores Linus. She calls him maladiec, and he walks away victorious. The pair lives in a harmony of their own. There is a constant exchange of peshenka’s from Linus and skat’s from Aleksandra. They both have different levels of ADHD but somehow make it work. While Aleksandra cooks, Linus decides to switch around some furniture or sort out the cutlery, depending on how well it is polished. When cleaning the home, Aleksandra tends to stash things away, and then Linus goes on a treasure hunt to find them. “Sometimes, I find my two socks in three different places somehow,” he jokes. It’s a charming chaos that makes their home ever so lively.

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To be loved is to be known. And Linus certainly knows Aleksandra. Linus has an app on his phone tracking air traffic around Aarhus so that he can warn Aleksandra about incoming loud sounds. He put in a lot of effort to learn the differences between her anxiety and panic attacks, and how to help her deal with them. He recalls instances where a loud sound would happen, and Aleksandra would just run out of the apartment, completely dissociated, or would run and hide under the bed. He has his ways to calm her, for example, by tickling her toes with a paintbrush. “It’s very simple; it releases the tension in your body faster,” he says. And it works. 

As the soup is almost ready, they set the table for themselves and set an extra plate for Grandma on the other side of the phone. They sit and eat, and talk about life in four different languages. And yet somehow they perfectly understand each other. 

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Pony and her stable friend, Trixie, start neighing loudly as soon as they see Aleksandra coming with their food. Aleksandra has been taking care of Pony for over six years now, but only started to really understand her recently. Pony, like Aleksandra, has issues with anxiety and stress. Aleksandra says she’s her mirror. 

“Only when I started going to therapy and understanding myself did I start to actually understand what she is feeling,” says Aleksandra. Pony came into her hands after experiencing abuse with a different caretaker. She was very skittish, didn’t like strangers, and was afraid of any touching. “When we first met, I couldn’t even put a blanket on her,” recalls Aleksandra. She only rode Pony once and ended up on the ground, leaving both of them stressed. 

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They share a lot of emotions. If a helicopter is passing by, both of them freeze and wait for it to pass. Pony gets anxious when her stable friend isn’t in sight and gets stressed for various reasons. Sometimes she freaks out and just runs nowhere, sometimes she stress-eats. Aleksandra says that Pony often mirrors her emotions. If she comes in happy, she can tell that Pony gets happy too. If she comes in tense, that tension rubs off on Pony as well. She says that Pony has her own form of PTSD, both from the abuse she has experienced, and he war in Ukraine. And Aleksandra sees a lot of herself in that. 

After she feeds the horses and cleans their living quarters, she goes to work with Pony. She trains her to come to her if she is anxious, to breathe deep and relax, to be calm when being touched. Riding is off the question; now it’s just about emotional regulation. Aleksandra holds out her hand near Pony’s cheek and signals her to touch. Pony takes her time but eventually touches Aleksandra’s hand with her face. To which she is awarded with a treat and a dygtig, Pony!

When things get hard, Aleksandra’s mind always comes back to Pony. They need each other. “She’s the main reason I kept pushing myself to get a job and to get out of bed. I just think of her little face and how sad she would be, how she would go hungry and lonely, and I could never do that to her,” says Aleksandra. They help each other feel better. In a way, Pony is a part of Aleksandra’s support system.

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The process of getting help for your mental health struggles as a Ukrainian refugee in Denmark can be tricky. First, you need to be eligible for Danish healthcare, which means having a CPR number and a residence permit. Then you would usually go to your general practitioner for a referral to see psychologists or psychiatrists in the public system. Treatment options usually include medication, trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, and EMDR therapy—a method officially recommended by WHO for treating PTSD in children and adults. From there, you have options both in the public and private sectors, and a lot of help is available from NGOs working with refugee mental health. 

One of them is Bevar Ukraine, which offers psychological support and a hotline for Ukrainians in need of help in their own native language. Their lead psychologist, Inna Dolia, says that for most people, the war “knocked out” their support system: home, work, and family nearby. Therefore, they focus on creating new support in social contacts, daily habits, work, education, or hobbies. “In working with Ukrainian displaced persons, we face a unique situation: the traumatic experience has not ended. The war continues, and many people live in a state of constant anxiety for loved ones. Therefore, our task is not just to “eliminate symptoms” but to teach a person to live with stress so that it does not consume their whole life,” she says.

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According to her, the main goal of treating PTSD in Ukrainian refugees is to help a person gradually restore internal balance without waiting for the war to end or external stressors to disappear.

“As a couples and family therapist, I see how compassion, emotional presence, and support from a loved one can reduce the manifestations of stress disorders. Research confirms that stable relationships and secure attachment significantly improve trauma recovery. That’s why we help couples and families build communication, understand each other’s reactions, and provide support without becoming overwhelmed,” says I. Dolia. 

Another important factor in recovery is simply caring for your basic needs: proper sleep, regular nutrition, and time for rest. These simple things create the basis for psychological resilience. When personal efforts combine with system and professional support, the recovery process becomes more effective and lasting,” says the psychologist. 

Through these efforts, Aleksandra has managed to create a stable support system for herself and is on her way to recovery. Now she wants to help others. She volunteers to help other refugees navigate the Danish integration process and institutions. 

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The sea is the only possible contender to the skating hall when it comes to Aleksandra’s favorite places. It washes away her thoughts and makes it all peaceful. She lets it lull her to a place of zen. She takes a moment to appreciate the sky, people’s smiles, and her tote bag with watermelons. 

There are a lot of things she can’t do because of her condition. “It’s kind of a sad thing. I love police reality TV, Secret Agents, and stuff. I just think it’s so fun. But I can’t watch it anymore because of the shooting and loud sounds. It’s the same with music. I used to love metal. Now, if Linus wants to show me a new song, he has to warn me about what kind of sounds there will be, and we can only listen on very low volume. It’s not a very pleasant experience,” she says.

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Aleksandra has to take a lot of extra steps in everything she does to keep her triggers to a minimum. She can’t go clubbing. She can’t fly in planes. She has to wear earplugs to class in case someone shuts the door suddenly or the microphone pops; otherwise, she won’t be able to attend school. Sometimes it’s a choice between hearing the professor properly or risking a panic attack. 

“I could be having fun with friends and playing board games when suddenly something falls, and the fun is over, because I got triggered. Soon it’s gonna be the New Year. We’re gonna have a lot of fireworks. I remember that I enjoyed them as a child, but now I will be sitting home with all of my earplugs and trying not to get triggered,” says Aleksandra and adds, “It’s not really a big deal, but it takes a lot of energy, time, and planning.”

Despite all this, she lives day by day, tries to appreciate her life for what it is, and doesn’t think too much about the future. “I am a bit Danish in that way,” she says. 

As she walks around Risskov, a helicopter flies by. She covers her ears and waits it out. And then walks on.

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The information about PTSD in Ukrainian refugees in Denmark was prepared with the help of Bevar Ukraine’s research and their psychologists, Inna Dolia and Natalia Ben. Additional information was provided by Nataliia Korchakova, a Doctor of Psychological Sciences, a professor at Rivne State University for Humanities, and a postdoc at the Department of Psychology at the University of Copenhagen.