The story of Iryna Zhuk: saving yourself and becoming support for others

“I couldn’t understand who I was, what I was, and what was happening,” Irina’s psyche tried with all its might to protect her. Then came the first hospitalization in a psychiatric hospital by ambulance. And so on three times a year. Currently, our heroine has a group 2 disability due to a mental disorder. How did this happen?

12 years ago, Irina was a single mother of two young children. Personal emotional experiences, malnutrition, and lack of sleep exhausted the girl and activated the trigger mechanism of a mental disorder. But if you dig deeper, all this was also preceded by postpartum depression, which Irina herself and her loved ones successfully ignored: “It was not customary in my family to turn to psychologists or psychotherapists.”

Irina’s parents came to help with everyday life and raising her sons. However, as often happens, the relationship was not easy. “For me, the important part is accepting me as a person who is not disabled, but who can love, create, and live in this life,” our heroine did not find this component in her narrow family circle. Several years of her life were spent in household chores and forced hospitalizations.

Everything began to change when Iryna opened a Medical and Social Rehabilitation Center within the municipal non-profit enterprise “Clinical Hospital “Psychiatry”. “The Rehabilitation Center is a ray of hope in my life,” there our heroine found like-minded people with whom she carried her friendship through the years, quarantine and full-scale war and organized a Self-Help Group in 2022. There, at the thematic modules of the Center, the girl gained knowledge and skills: “Now it is not the disease that controls me, but I control it.” In the same Center, Iryna met Olena Karetna. Two of them still work together on improving Iryna's life quality.

The fact is that until 2019, the Center for Medical and Social Rehabilitation at the municipal non-profit enterprise “Clinical Hospital “Psychiatry” was developing the “Case Management” program. In essence, each clinical psychologist was assigned a certain number of clients, whom they “led” through life and all its aspects. Olena became such a leader for Iryna.