Post
Katrina Stress Disorder
I
WANNA GO HOME BUT I CAN’T
October 1, 2007
It has been two years, one month
and two days since Katrina ripped through the “dirty south” and the levees
broke. Many say, “I wanna go home but I
can’t.” Where are we now? Are we still homeless? Are we still displaced? Are we still in transition? Have we picked up the pieces, moved on with
our lives and “living better than ever lived before” Mrs. Barbara Bush? Have we received our “Louisiana Road Home”
money? Are we rebuilding our neighborhoods and moving back into our “homes?”
Have we reunited with our loved ones, friends and neighbors? Are we still seeking a sense of balance,
emotionally? Are we having difficulty sleeping?
Are we angry all the time? Do we stay awake all night at the slight
mentioning of rain? Are we missing our loved ones that we have not seen since
August 28, 2005? Will we ever see them
again? Are we too poor (GAS, GAS, GAS) to travel back and forth to maintain
contact with our loved ones? Am I tripping or did gas go from $1.21 a gallon to
$4.50 a gallon when we were seeking shelter during Katrina? Did gas ever go
back down to a dollar? Are we always thinking about going home to visit but are
too afraid of becoming trapped in the city? Are we having similar nightmares
over and over again? Are we taking a
drink to go sleep and taking another one to deal with our daily
challenges? Did we end relationships
with our significant others because we lacked skills to matriculate or cope as
a companion after Katrina? Did you fight with family members during Katrina
because of uncertainty about your intended housing situation or were emotions
so high causing you to lose your balance? How many people did ya’ll have living
in that one room? Are you and your
family back on speaking terms? Mr. News Man, please tell me you didn’t kill
your wife? How much stress can one man take?
Let’s not forget our hard working
Mayor, Nagin. Did Mayor Nagin really ban folk from utilizing the New Orleans’ Superdome
as shelter during a category 5 Hurricane? Was he really still angry at folk for
stealing bar stools during the previous hurricane evacuation or was he given a
directive to not allow black folk back in the dome? Hmm, which is easier to
replace, a barstool or a life?
Leaving indigent folk on the street
is devaluing. Bad decision! Some of us
still cannot believe that bull-sugar!
Unfortunately, Mr. Nagin too, had
his share challenges; he was a black leader under the influence of “perceived
power.” Could this have been his biggest challenge? Or was he crazy enough to
think he was not all bad; just happened to be a black man managing a city with
a host of social, political and economical issues. Nagin had perceived power. He
made decisions that impacted lives, whether good or bad.
But really, who the heck did Mr. Nagin
think he was? Blindly anticipating help and giving directives to the “powers
that be,” Uncle Bush. Get your asses down here; people are dying! Ha! His demand for help equated to wait help is
on the way…in five or more days.
Man closes one door, God opens
another. Ole faithful “Dutch’s” (deceased former mayor) doors were unlocked,
the Ernest N. “Dutch” Morial Convention Center. By the way, who was it that opened the doors
at the Ernest N. “Dutch” Morial Convention Center? Is it true that no one knew people were
trapped there? There were alleged killings, beatings, rapes, thefts and
deplorable living in the span of twenty-four to forty-eight hours.
There are similar questions and
very similar answers. I wanted to stay
where I was (outside of Louisiana and/or New Orleans) but my “Lil Boo
(companion)” wanted to go back to New Orleans.
I am not ever going back! Or, do we want to go home but cannot go
because our minds are not in sync with our desires?
Well, I see the faces. I hear the voices. I hear the silence. I am aware of the violence. I watch you over pack water and food in your
pantries and vehicles just in case you get stranded. I notice the anxiety on your faces. I feel the sickness in my own gut. You look like you are in a state of
panic. Are you afraid to talk about
being afraid? Did you receive mental
health services? Can you believe it….all
those newly erected agencies set up to provide treatment, I know you have
scheduled your first appointment? Did
you seek treatment? Are you taking
medication? Hell yeah, I am on medication….Jack Daniels, Crown Royal, Rum and
Coke, Patron etc!
I know why we do not go to the
psychiatrist; we are worried that they will call us crazy. Hell, they called us
crazy anyway for living in the city of New Orleans. Why are you self-medicating? Every time I see you, you have a drink in
your hand. What are those pills? Are you a pill head now? Why in the hell you can’t leave your
neighborhood? Oh, let me guess… fear of
the unknown. You are still watching the
Weather Channel. Can’t move from in
front of the TV huh? Now why can’t you drive in the rain? Would it be PKSD (Post Katrina Stress
Disorder)? I am sick and tired of you watching the Weather Channel. You are the one watching the Weather Channel
but I am the one leaving to visit New Orleans.
Sounds crazy huh? If I am not worried about the weather, then why are
you worried?
Do not forget about the media. The media pisses me off! If it drizzles in New Orleans, “The residents
of New Orleans might want to seek shelter or they’ll be under water
again!” Those New Orleanians better look
out because they are going to flood again.
The media is forever creating a state of panic. They have traumatized, re-traumatized and
continued to traumatize residents and/or former residents of New Orleans. Every weather situation is heightened. They show flooding in the city but fail to
say that the flooding is confined to a one-block radius or to a particular
neighborhood. Some of those
neighborhoods flooded even before the levees broke.
Post Katrina Stress….what is it and
when did it begin? Did it begin with a telephone call? Did it begin after watching the news? Did it
begin after realizing and viewing a bleak depiction of the plight of the City
of New Orleans on every channel? Do I
have Pre-Katrina or Post Katrina Stress Disorder? You know, I was worried about the hurricane
but nobody ever mentioned the possibilities of the levees breaking. Did they
break or did the Corps of Engineers blow them up?
Post Katrina Stress Disorder is
basically PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).
PTSD is an anxiety disorder that
can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave
physical harm occurred or was threatened.
It is severe and ongoing emotional reaction to an extreme psychological
trauma. This stressor may involve someone’s actual death or a threat to the
patient’s or someone else’s life, physical injury or threat to physical and/or
psychological integrity, to a degree that usual psychological; defenses are
incapable of coping (Encyclopedia).
Hurricane Katrina was a terrifying
ordeal that impacted the entire city.
Post Katrina Stress began the day Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the
levees broke, people drowned, family members were unable to rescue their loved
ones, residents were turned around at gun point and discouraged from securing
safety/drier ground, when people couldn’t secure drinking water or their
medication, being trapped five (5) days in one-hundred (100) degree plus
temperature on the roof, leaving home by necessity and not by choice, not
graduating from high school with children you have known your entire life, not
having a job to return to, returning home to find that nothing was there, not
accessing those familiar foods or spices, not seeing family members or friends
that you previously saw every day, not knowing answers to questions that could
once be answered without thought or rehearsal and believing that the city would
never again be inhabitable. Everybody
had the same concerns and similar symptoms.
Where am I going and where will I live?
How will I survive? Did all those
people die? Are they lying about the
death toll? Are my family member’s
safe? What time is it? What’s today’s date? I cannot move from in front of the
television, OMG?
No more Suppers, no more Chez
Helene’s, no more Mike Anderson’s, no more Dooky Chase or Two Sisters, no more
Laffite, St. Bernard or Desire Housing Projects, no more Double D or Patton’s
Hot Sausage, no more Mardi Gras, no more card parties, no more cook-outs and no
more Second Lines! No more, because Shiloh, Illinois does not reflect New
Orleans. Our culture is gone to many of us! What can I do to get my city
back? Will I die if I go back? You say there is no one living in New Orleans
then how is it, they are still killing folk and the city has the number one
murder rate? “I am gonna die if I go
back!” You got to be crazy to even think
about going back! How will I provide for
my family? Where will my next dollar
come from? Are there really jobs in New
Orleans? “The school board fired half
their employees before the hurricane hit New Orleans. The employees that were anticipating returning
home, Orleans Parish School Board failed to tell many of us that our jobs no
longer existed.” You are fired! Roberti
got paid and the District employees got played. By the way, all those still
interested in employment should re-apply via Civil Service. What tenure? Where
do I go to get help? What happens if I
run short? Is the government lying to us
about helping financially? “They only paid my rent six months.” Do I sleep in
the trailer or sleep at a shelter? Am I
having breathing problems because my trailer has asbestos and/or
formaldehyde? Do I rebuild? These questions are common and familiar to
every resident of New Orleans that was impacted by Katrina. These questions are
ongoing and continue to exist in the hearts and minds of many New Orleanians.
Although, many of us reside in safe
secure housing, we continue to be preoccupied with the potential for disaster
that can impact the cities in which we now live. During my displacement to
Shiloh, Illinois, I experienced my house being struck by lightning and losing
use of all electrical appliances that I had recently purchased during my
homelessness, driving into a tornado and my car being tossed to and fro,
getting snowed in and losing electricity for hours and my bed being lifted off
the floor due to an earthquake.
It is because of ongoing threats of
traumatic weather experiences that many of us are paralyzed! We remain totally oblivious of days, dates
and times. We witnessed something very
traumatic but had no clue about how to achieve closure. There was no closure!
There was no mandatory debriefing or treatment for city workers, health-care
workers or the residents of New Orleans. People were geographically transported
but emotionally abandoned. We all present
with symptoms of Post Katrina Stress Disorder. Where are we now? Hmm, where are we now? WHERE ARE WE NOW? Many
of us remain displaced but most of us are silently suffering with hopes that
someone will hear our cry. Only God can help us but in the government we
trusted. Right... ”In God we trust” was removed literally and figuratively
speaking. It was removed from the silver dollar and also from our hearts. Where
are we now?
Deidra C. Thomas-Murray, LMSW
Labels: Katrina
