Living in the War: Living in Two Realities—A Grounded Theory of the Psychosocial Experience of Ukrainians Enduring Ongoing War in 2022–2024

Existing research predominantly examines the aftermath of wars and refugee experiences retrospectively, thus there is a significant gap in understanding the ongoing lived experiences of individuals enduring the war. The current study addressed this gap by exploring the experiences of Ukrainian adults (N = 13, 12 women, aged 28–50) enduring ongoing war from 2022 to 2024. The study employed a grounded theory approach to build the theoretical framework of perceptions of war, vulnerability, resilience, emotional responses, and posttraumatic outcomes. A central theme that emerged was the concept of “living in two realities”—the inhumane, authoritarian reality marked by extreme violence, cruelty, and sadistic pleasure in inflicting pain, and the humanistic reality characterized by humanity, empathy, and meaning-making. The study identified processes of posttraumatic growth alongside posttraumatic depreciation, supporting prior research that these phenomena coexist and are not opposite ends of a single dimension. Additionally, the findings highlight the central roles of core belief disruption, deliberate rumination, and meaning-making processes as experienced by Ukrainians between 2022 and 2024, offering insight into how individuals reconstruct their worldview and identity in response to ongoing war trauma. A dual framework of vulnerability emerged, highlighting vulnerability as both a precursor to trauma in the face of brutality and as a pathway to deep connection and resilience in the presence of empathy.