Lena, Kharkiv/Lviv
I have mental problems. My pills are now sold without prescriptions, and I'm very happy about it: I don't know how I would cope without them. In Lviv, we live in the hostel we were placed in through volunteering. They are threatening to evict us, and we have not been able to find any other housing yet.
My name is Lena, I’m from Kharkiv. On February 24, when it all started, I couldn’t sleep after Putin’s speech, and soon we heard explosions. My parents went to Transcarpathia, my mother and sisters moved from there to Poland, and my stepfather stayed in Transcarpathia. My partner, my best friend and her partner and I spent the first five days of the war in Kharkiv, because my friend started having severe nervous tics, and I had to look for medical help for her. They put her in intensive care, tied her arms and legs for some reason and started dripping haloperidol, three different neuroleptics, on the move and anti-anxiety. Then it turned out that the doctor was using physical violence against her, and we had to pull her out. After that , the four of us got to the station to the sounds of explosions and boarded the first evacuation train. A friend became ill at the station in Lviv, doctors ran to her, took her off the train and sent her to the hospital. Now she’s in Chernivtsi, volunteers and is more or less in order.
I stayed in Lviv. Our distant acquaintance opened the Kharkiv SOS hotline, which helps people staying in Kharkiv to get to the train station, get humanitarian aid, organize burial, get a pension, move to Western Ukraine. I understand calls and talk to people from Kharkiv. At first, there were four of us, now there are about fifty of us — and all volunteers. I was left without a job in Kharkiv, my partner — also. He was a courier at vegan Delivery, which now works as a volunteer kitchen and feeds everyone in need.
I have mental problems. My pills are now sold without prescriptions, and I’m very happy about it: I don’t know how I would cope without them. In Lviv, we live in the hostel we were placed in through volunteering. They are threatening to evict us, and we have not been able to find any other housing yet.
I’m very scared. I was scared in Kharkiv when we spent a few days in a bomb shelter, and I’m scared now in Lviv, where he also arrives. The military says that it will not be here, as in Kharkiv, and that Russian troops will aim at strategic objects, but after Kharkiv and I don’t believe in anything anymore in Mariupol.
My fellow volunteer died on the first of March in Kharkiv. Only recently her body was pulled out from under blockages and identified the corpse. How to live on is unclear, but I live because what else to do? I hope it will get better soon. Experience in technical support and experience working with people helps on the hotline. I am glad that we are helping people, but to be honest, it is very scary and pointless for me. I hope this will all ended
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Nastya Krasilnikova
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