TPC-Journal-V4-Issue4

The Professional Counselor \Volume 4, Issue 4 320 Living well. Living well incorporated the participants’ perceptions of life before the war. All the participants described their lives as normal and stable, consisting of raising families, completing their education or finding employment. All the participants characterized the former Yugoslavia as a society in which people of all ethnicities lived in peace and harmony. Nikola described the multinational society (1.1) of the country as follows: “This country was a very special combination of religions and nationalities.” Participants talked about the normal, good lives (1.2) they lived, with an emphasis on personal goals. Mira stated that their parents gave them a “comfortable life, and a safe home in which we didn’t lack in anything.” Tensions building. This category emerged to describe the deteriorating situation in the country that created tension between different ethnic groups. Even when the war started in Slovenia in 1991, many participants did not believe that it would spread to the rest of the country (e.g., Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia); it seemed so distant. The situation was rapidly deteriorating, as Nina described: Everything started changing; I could feel that there would be a war, first you could feel it at work, and you had to watch what you said because ethnic groups started talking against each other. We all knew and felt that something will happen. The war experience and its effects. This category contained descriptions of what life was like during the war. The data were grouped into four themes: hardship (3.1), trauma conditions (3.2), the experience of loss (3.3) and escape (3.4). Hardship (3.1). During the war, the civilian population experienced various forms of hardship. Participants described their hardship as displacement (3.1.1), severe living conditions (3.1.2) and loss of freedom (3.1.3). The following excerpt from Mira captures her experience when she was displaced from her home: We didn’t have anywhere to go nor did we know anybody there. With our bags in our hands and more bags over our shoulders, with three small kids in our arms, we were on the street. We were standing on the street like that and we looked around in all directions, wondering what to do. Kristina described severe living conditions after being displaced from their home: We would lie down next to each other, my husband, then my father, and then my mother, we all lined up like that in a line to sleep outside. The rest of the people were next to us, they lined up also. My children were between me and my mother, to shelter them and keep warm; we had no blankets to cover them with. That’s how we slept for a week. Life during the war was disrupted and difficult. Participants had to deal with many shortages of supplies, such as food, gasoline, water and electricity. After being left without work, participants did not have any real source of income. They experienced financial hardship, as explained by Daniel, who was forced into random, odd jobs: I worked as a laborer at the local farms; I didn’t have any other job. One day I would work with one farmer, the next with another. Some paid me and some didn’t. I couldn’t do anything about it, if they gave me some money, I was very pleased. But if they didn’t I would move on. According to the data, males and females experienced loss of freedom differently. Women and children often encountered loss of freedom as an inability to leave the area or an inability to move freely around the city or the