Post Katrina Stress Disorder

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