Natalia was teaching at her school in Kyiv when the mother of one of her students began shouting at her. The confrontation did more than interrupt a lesson. In Natalia’s mind, it brought back the harrowing experience of being in an interrogation room where Russian men were screaming in her face, demanding that she admit to being a spy.
In a later counseling session over Zoom with Ukrainian-American psychotherapist Viktor Dlugunovych, Natalia described how the classroom confrontation made her feel as though she had fallen into a pit of fear. Even so, as memories of her interrogations began to surround her, she interrupted them by closing her eyes, pausing, and reminding herself that she had survived captivity and could get through this encounter, too.
She opened her eyes and calmly told the mother that the conversation would continue in the principal’s office.
The principal, who knew about Natalia’s captivity, later told her that she had expected Natalia to resign. Natalia replied that she had no intention of leaving. Teaching mattered to her, and so did discovering that she could face a frightening moment and decide what to do next.
The incident prompted her to ask once again, “Have I recovered? How do I know when I’ve recovered?”
Dlugunovych explained that distress and progress can coexist. Her flashback was distressing. Yet she was also able to step back from it, set a boundary with the student’s mother, and choose how to respond.
Holding On to an Identity
Natalia is a mathematics and physics teacher with 35 years of classroom experience. She said that during the Russian occupation, authorities kept accusing her of espionage and subjected her to repeated interrogations.
In the interrogation room, she drew on an important part of her identity: her authority as a teacher. Somewhat to her surprise, her young interrogators began treating her with the respect they might have shown one of their own teachers. Their attitudes toward respected authority figures from their past seemed to carry over into how they treated her.
She noticed that the roles seemed to be switching, with her asking questions as a teacher might, rather than simply being questioned and intimidated.
Natalia believes that this respect helped spare her the beatings she said other prisoners endured.
However, captivity still took a severe toll. Natalia described 10 months of sleep deprivation and hunger. Her captors withheld the medication she needed for high blood pressure. They also subjected her to unrelenting verbal abuse, including the shouting that can still trigger flashbacks.
Progress and Pain Can Coexist
Now home and teaching again, Natalia expresses joy at being free in Ukraine. “Children give me such strength,” she said. She also intends to speak publicly about what happened rather than remain silent.
Those signs of purpose coexist with moments of nearly disabling distress. She described crying or struggling to breathe even when, as she put it, “in my head everything is OK.”
Incidents like the confrontation with the student’s mother remind Natalia that being back at work does not mean the healing process is complete. Today, she lives in two realities: the teacher who handled a confrontation and the survivor who still experiences almost disabling flashbacks.
What Can Progress Look Like?
In her conversation with Dlugunovych, Natalia keeps asking how she can know that she has recovered. Rather than asking only whether all distress has vanished, Dlugunovych suggested looking for improvements in how she handles difficult moments in daily life.
When the mother began shouting, memories of being screamed at by soldiers still came back. Even so, Natalia was able to pause before responding. Moving the conversation to the principal’s office meant setting a boundary. She recognizes that her response was more deliberate and effective than it would have been when she first returned from captivity.
She also recognizes that being able to work and appear composed does not mean she no longer needs help. She continues taking her prescribed antidepressants and says she feels herself making progress, bit by bit, toward no longer needing them.
With Dlugunovych’s guidance, she sees that she does not have to declare herself fully recovered to recognize that she is recovering. She found particular comfort in something he said at the end of their Zoom session. They had been talking about feeling alone in the darkness of depression.
“If you find yourself alone and in the dark, it doesn’t mean you are buried,” he told her. He offered another possibility: she was planted, like a tree whose roots descend into darkness while its branches reach toward the sky. The darkness was part of her story, but it did not have to determine the direction of her growth. Natalia’s recovery is still unfolding. Steadily, she is reaching toward the light.
