EXTREMITY AS A COMPONENT OF THE MILITARY IDENTITY OF TEENAGERS IN WAR CONDITIONS

Abstract

War leads to constant tension, emotional changes, massive human suffering, and a decrease in the level of psychological well-being.In addition, for more than two years now, the key information in the information field has been data on the consequences of the war, which shock every Ukrainian. It has been proven that war is a way of forming a consolidated Ukrainian identity, and not a competition between different identities, so it is worth preventing violent processes of identity construction and focusing on the formation of a temporarily consolidating military social identity, which will become an important factor in the survival of the nation in turbulent times of war, especially for today's teenagers who have had to live at the turn of the eras, be participants in a terrible, bloody war, a pandemic, and a struggle for survival. When studying the effects of polyvictimization or cumulative trauma (i.e., multiple instances of trauma), a strong link has been shown between the number of traumatic experiences in childhood and the likelihood of developing post-traumatic stress disorder or other negative mental health outcomes in adolescence. PTSD, toxic stress, and chronic life adversities that affect people during wartime often, and especially in adolescence, lead to so-called extreme behaviors. Problem behavior is often an extreme form of normal or typical behavior, however, in war conditions, under the influence of chronic, often toxic stress, non-violent trauma and post- traumatic stress disorder caused by the cumulative effect of various traumatic factors, it causes more severe, long-term consequences, such as extreme behavior, non-suicidal self-harm, aggression and self-aggression, while the harm from problem behavior can be caused by the teenager both to others and to himself. We note a moderately pronounced level of post-traumatic stress disorder and a low level of resilience of younger and older adolescents, probably due to little life experience, the need to survive in extreme conditions - the COVID-19 pandemic and the current Russian-Ukrainian war.