How War Rewires the Soul
This isn’t a story about war. It’s a story about what happens inside a person when the war never leaves them.
People think war is about explosions, about sirens, chaos, fear. But the truth is — war is mostly about waiting. Waiting for something to fall, waiting for the next sound, waiting for morning, though mornings bring nothing new. You sit in the dark, counting seconds between distant booms, and at some point, you realize you’re no longer praying for safety — you’re praying for speed. You just want the rocket to come fast, to end it quickly, to make sure no one suffers long under the rubble, in the cold, in the dark. That’s when you understand how deeply war rewires the human mind. It teaches you to see mercy in death, silence in horror, peace in destruction. It breaks you quietly, not with blood or flames, but with a slow, invisible pressure that never lets go.
And the hardest part isn’t even surviving — it’s learning how to live after. How to go to a store, smile to a stranger, or plan next week, when your nervous system is still trapped in that basement, waiting for the sky to fall again. No one talks about what it does to your psyche — how your body forgets what calm feels like, how the sound of fireworks makes your lungs freeze, how your mind starts confusing fear with normal life, because fear has been your only constant. You think you’ve made it through — you’ve crossed the border, found a safe place, maybe even started to laugh again. But every time a door slams, something inside you closes, too. You don’t even notice how much of yourself you’ve lost — piece by piece, silence by silence.
People say, “You’re strong.” But strength in war isn’t a choice. It’s a reflex. You don’t want to be strong — you just want one night without imagining roofs collapsing, without thinking of those who didn’t wake up. War doesn’t end when it ends. It stays under your skin, between your breaths, inside your dreams. It becomes part of your nervous system, your identity, your silence. And the truth is — some parts of you never come back. Maybe they’re not meant to. Maybe the only way to honor what’s lost is to keep living, broken but still breathing.
