Community Care After a Crisis
Identifying
dangerous Warning Signs and Trauma Symptoms
By: Dwight Bain, LMHC
A
community crisis can terrorize an entire community in just a few minutes, while
the recovery process to rebuild from the terrorist attack may take weeks or
months to sort through. The more you know about how to survive and rebuild
after this crisis, the faster you can take positive action to get your personal
and professional life back on track.
Since
community crisis events like terrorism, shootings at schools, malls or
churches, or bombing are unpredictable, it requires a different course of
action than the crisis brought on from natural disasters like hurricanes,
tornadoes, earthquakes, fires and floods. What can you do right now to cope
with the psychological impact of a major community crisis brought on through
terrorism?
1. Deal Directly with Your Emotions
This will
reduce the tension and stress on you, which allows you to have more energy to
deal with a difficult situation. However, if you stuff your fears and
frustrations in a major community crisis, your emotions can quickly blow up
without warning. Exploding in rage on your children, your coworkers or your
marriage partner will only make a difficult situation worse.
Community
crisis is a horrible situation full of loss and difficulty for everyone. By
taking action now you can move beyond feeling overwhelmed by intense stress,
anger or confusion. As you follow the insight from this recovery guide, you
will be taking positive steps to rebuild with the focused energy of an even
stronger life for you and your family after the emergency service workers pack
up and go home because your community has recovered.
To best
survive a major community crisis, you need a strong combination of three key
elements:
- healthy coping skills
- healthy supports
- healthy perspective
2. Consider the Health Dangers of Long-term
Stress
A
community crisis affects everyone however; it becomes dangerous to our health
when the stress goes on for an extended period of time. Major stress can affect
adults, children, the elderly and even pets, so it is important to be alert to
watch for the danger signs of STS (secondary trauma syndrome), which leads to
the psychological condition called Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder (commonly
referred to as PTSD), in yourself, your family members and coworkers.
These
symptoms include any dramatic change in emotions, behavior, thought patterns or
physical symptoms over the next few days, weeks or even months. Since community
crisis events are a terribly stressful time for everyone and often remain
stressful for days or weeks to come, there are a number of factors to be aware
of to keep yourself and those who you care about safe.
3. Identify the Warning Signs of Overload
These
signs are indicators that the intense stress from the critical incident is
beginning to overwhelm the individual. The longer the stress symptoms occur,
the greater the severity of the traumatic event on the individual. This does
not imply craziness or personal weakness; rather, it simply indicates that the
stress levels from the storm were too powerful for the person to manage and
their body is reacting to the abnormal situation of having survived a major
trauma.
It’s
normal to feel completely overwhelmed by a community crisis; however, there are
danger signs to watch for in yourself or others that may indicate psychological
trauma. Adults or children who display any of the following stress symptoms may
need additional help dealing with the events of this crisis. It is strongly
recommended that you seek the appropriate medical or psychological assistance
if you see a lot of the physical, emotional, cognitive or behavioral symptoms
listed below in you, your coworkers, or someone in your family or home,
especially if these symptoms were not present before the crisis.
Physical
Symptoms
- Chills, thirst, fatigue, nausea, fainting, vomiting, dizziness, weakness,
chest pain, headaches, elevated blood pressure, rapid heart rate, muscle
tremors, difficulty breathing, shock symptoms, and so on.
Emotional
Symptoms -
Fear, guilt, grief, panic, denial, anxiety, irritability, depression,
apprehension, emotional shock, and feeling overwhelmed, loss of emotional
control, and so on.
Cognitive
Symptoms-
Confusion, nightmares, uncertainty, hyper-vigilance, suspiciousness, intrusive
images, poor problem solving, poor abstract thinking, poor attention/memory and
concentration, disorientation of time, places or people, difficulty identifying
objects or people, heightened or lowered alertness, and so on.
Behavioral
Symptoms-
Withdrawal, antisocial acts, inability to rest, intensified pacing, erratic
movements, changes in social activity, changes in speech patterns, loss of or
increase of appetite, increased alcohol consumption, and so on.
If you are
in doubt about these symptoms in your life, or someone you care about, it is
wise to seek the care of a physician or certified mental health professional.
Better to actively deal with the stressful emotions directly to help yourself
and your loved ones to immediately cope with this crisis because these emotions
tend to worsen and get more intense if left untreated. Remember that there are
many experienced professionals who can help you and your children recover
during a time of crisis.
You do not
have to go through this alone. Take action now to prevent stress from
continuing to overwhelm you or the people you care about. Call a trusted friend
to talk through it, reach out to clergy, or call your family doctor or
counselor. If you don’t know someone to call about these emotional issues, you
can reach out for assistance by calling telephone hotlines which are offered at
no cost to you. These numbers are often posted by local media, hospitals, EAP,
churches, schools, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army or FEMA. If you, or
someone you care about are feeling overwhelmed by stress, anxiety, guilt or
grief, it’s important to make the call for help.
About the Author – Dwight Bain helps solve crisis events and
manage major change as a Critical Incident Stress Management expert and trainer
to over 3,000 groups on the topic of making strategic change to overcome major
stress. Follow him for updates at www.Facebook.com/DwightBain or @DwightBain