We have talked a lot about PTSD in the past few days. I.e., Post-Tropical Storm (Stress and) Depression. Here, first-hand, back from our recent travel in-land to protect ourselves from the first hurricane land-fall of the season are some of the factors that can precipitate PTSD:
HYPE: The Weather Channel / Media Hype / Tension / presentation "as if" yikes! help! we are all going to get washed out to sea and never be seen again;
WAITING: unlike explosions, tornadoes, motor vehicle accidents and other disasters that HAPPEN - BANG! and are OVER, with hurricanes we have WAITING:
WAITING for the next Storm Track Update,
WAITING to see if it is coming in two or six or nine days ... (or more), (or fewer)
WAITING to see if it is coming closer to us, or is it going to go further away,
WAITING to see the next set of pictures from "our local TV reporter on-scene in Kaka Waka Island just off the coast of So. Carolina" … it seems like he relishes showing the chilling destruction, the bloated bodies, the houses and cars floating down the out-of their-banks rivers;
WAITING ...
RE-CAPS: helplessly surfing from one channel to another seeking a respite from the on-rushing disaster, only to find that RE-CAPS of the 1891 Storm of the Century, the 1906 Building-Buster Hurricane and Tornado, the videos of the 20xx (fill in any date you like) Monsoons, Cyclones, Tornadoes and Volcanic eruptions around the world ... followed by the talking heads saying that The Committee to Scare Your Pants Off has predicted that what will hit us could probably be even worse than all of these put together; RE-CAPS could be avoided if we were at home because we would pull out a DVD of James Taylor / Carole King live performance to soothe our souls and calm our nerves ... but we are at the house of a "friend" who keeps flipping from one news channel to another and hasn't yet installed the DVD player that their kids gave them for Christmas last year, so that relief is no where in sight;
VERBOSEST HOSTESS (nervous chatter): Rather than just admit that the Committee has succeeded in actually scaring our drawers right off our Bee-Hinds, our hostess rejects all rational conversation to divert us from thoughts of the storm and rattles along incessantly (when did she take a breath in the three days we were there?) about her son, his new wife, their marriage, their honeymoon to Italy, where they met, how they both work in the film industry and myriad other details about a raft of people we don't know from here to California and back; and the words all come in TV-like 30-second spots, intertwined with a genuine Flight of Ideas and repeated offers of food of all sorts, the offer (e.g., of pumpkin muffins) being immediately followed by her jumping up and running out to the kitchen, returning with a Thanksgiving-sized turkey serving platter filled with said muffins, before she even heard "no thank you" or "pumpkin makes me break out in hives" or "my best friend choked to death on a pumpkin muffin so I kind of don't eat them any more;"
NON-RESPONSIVE HOST: having heard all the stories from the hostess 'til he could repeat them all verbatim, the host does his: "She's the Shakespearean Foil to My Helen Keller's Deaf-Mute Brother Impression." Fixed, immovable, seemingly untouched by the almost-visible shotgun blasts of polysyllabic verbiage being fired at us, he sits in the only comfortable plush Lazy-Boy recliner and dozes, slipping in and out of consciousness, unaware that we even exist. When he snores I am soooo close to ... well, never mind so close to What ... I didn't do anything, but I sure was thinking about it. The question is: did I not do or say anything by using my superior will power, or was I just soooo enervated by that time that I couldn't move?
SLEEPLESSNESS: (And we didn't even get to wait it out in Seattle): Everyone should stay overnight in someone else's house once a year ... one night is plenty. But once per year is mandatory. That one-night stand will convince you to go back home, lay down on your own guest bed and honestly appraise the quality of sleep you would get if forced to sleep on it yourself. There is nothing that makes coping with PTSD during the acute exposure than really lousy, partial, interrupted sleep;
Aside from the bed you may end up in during a sleep-over, there is the potential for an additional eerie experience: to wit, sleeping the the bedroom of a recently-deceased live-in relative (e.g., mother, daughter, son). On the vanity were all the personal items (e.g., hair brush (with hair), comb, personal health and beauty items partially used, various items of clothing all washed, ironed, folded and stacked, ready to either put on or put away in the dresser) … a Kleenex on the floor behind the waste can … two white (probably aspirin) and one, small red pill (unknown drug) sitting patiently on the bedside table with a small water glass (empty). The whole room looking like the rightful owner of the items could walk in at any moment and indignantly blurt out “Who are YOU and what are you doing in my bedroom?” I tried to ignore the whining wind and rain pelting the windows and tried to doze off, but kept waking up thinking about what I would say if the person actually showed up;
As for the bed itself, you can be sure that it will not be like home. Our Scandanavian Queen-sized bed is barely 18” off the floor, has a TempurPedic mattress and, from the hospital where I used to take night call, old, super-soft sheets that I rescued from the laundry discard pile before they could be burned. Those sheets were originally 600-thread-count, but had been washed and boiled and steamed and run through a flat mangle ironing board so many times they are now pushing 200-thread-count and see-through-soft against one’s skin. No way anyone’s guest bedroom is going to sport anything even close to that kind of comfort … it’s the comfort you long for every time you roll over in the night and are awakened by the sand-paper stiff, brand new sheets scratching off another microscopic layer of your skin;
The Guest Room bed is roughly 36” off the floor, has a mattress like a brick, was the bed the hostess slept in as a child and is barely wide enough for one kid, let alone two adults. And those two adults are known to turn from one side to the other all night long, which posed a risk more immediate than the storm itself and the 12-to-18 inch diameter tree branches that hang over the roof of the house … more specifically … hang over the roof of the Guest Bedroom. If a branch falls, at least we had the roof and ceiling structure to break the fall. If one of us rolled “over-and-out” we would have been picking solid Oak hardwood splinters out of our face for weeks.
All things considered, the odds are against your ever reaching anything near Stage 2 sleep … and you can dismiss completely the chance you will ever enjoy refreshing REM sleep until you have been back home for two or three days after the storm.
RECOVERY: Five days now separate today from the exit of the hurricane, the 105-115 mph winds, the flooding and the manic TV newscasters.
RE-CAPS: helplessly surfing from one channel to another seeking a respite from the on-rushing disaster, only to find that RE-CAPS of the 1891 Storm of the Century, the 1906 Building-Buster Hurricane and Tornado, the videos of the 20xx (fill in any date you like) Monsoons, Cyclones, Tornadoes and Volcanic eruptions around the world ... followed by the talking heads saying that The Committee to Scare Your Pants Off has predicted that what will hit us could probably be even worse than all of these put together; RE-CAPS could be avoided if we were at home because we would pull out a DVD of James Taylor / Carole King live performance to soothe our souls and calm our nerves ... but we are at the house of a "friend" who keeps flipping from one news channel to another and hasn't yet installed the DVD player that their kids gave them for Christmas last year, so that relief is no where in sight;
VERBOSEST HOSTESS (nervous chatter): Rather than just admit that the Committee has succeeded in actually scaring our drawers right off our Bee-Hinds, our hostess rejects all rational conversation to divert us from thoughts of the storm and rattles along incessantly (when did she take a breath in the three days we were there?) about her son, his new wife, their marriage, their honeymoon to Italy, where they met, how they both work in the film industry and myriad other details about a raft of people we don't know from here to California and back; and the words all come in TV-like 30-second spots, intertwined with a genuine Flight of Ideas and repeated offers of food of all sorts, the offer (e.g., of pumpkin muffins) being immediately followed by her jumping up and running out to the kitchen, returning with a Thanksgiving-sized turkey serving platter filled with said muffins, before she even heard "no thank you" or "pumpkin makes me break out in hives" or "my best friend choked to death on a pumpkin muffin so I kind of don't eat them any more;"
NON-RESPONSIVE HOST: having heard all the stories from the hostess 'til he could repeat them all verbatim, the host does his: "She's the Shakespearean Foil to My Helen Keller's Deaf-Mute Brother Impression." Fixed, immovable, seemingly untouched by the almost-visible shotgun blasts of polysyllabic verbiage being fired at us, he sits in the only comfortable plush Lazy-Boy recliner and dozes, slipping in and out of consciousness, unaware that we even exist. When he snores I am soooo close to ... well, never mind so close to What ... I didn't do anything, but I sure was thinking about it. The question is: did I not do or say anything by using my superior will power, or was I just soooo enervated by that time that I couldn't move?
SLEEPLESSNESS: (And we didn't even get to wait it out in Seattle): Everyone should stay overnight in someone else's house once a year ... one night is plenty. But once per year is mandatory. That one-night stand will convince you to go back home, lay down on your own guest bed and honestly appraise the quality of sleep you would get if forced to sleep on it yourself. There is nothing that makes coping with PTSD during the acute exposure than really lousy, partial, interrupted sleep;
Aside from the bed you may end up in during a sleep-over, there is the potential for an additional eerie experience: to wit, sleeping the the bedroom of a recently-deceased live-in relative (e.g., mother, daughter, son). On the vanity were all the personal items (e.g., hair brush (with hair), comb, personal health and beauty items partially used, various items of clothing all washed, ironed, folded and stacked, ready to either put on or put away in the dresser) … a Kleenex on the floor behind the waste can … two white (probably aspirin) and one, small red pill (unknown drug) sitting patiently on the bedside table with a small water glass (empty). The whole room looking like the rightful owner of the items could walk in at any moment and indignantly blurt out “Who are YOU and what are you doing in my bedroom?” I tried to ignore the whining wind and rain pelting the windows and tried to doze off, but kept waking up thinking about what I would say if the person actually showed up;
As for the bed itself, you can be sure that it will not be like home. Our Scandanavian Queen-sized bed is barely 18” off the floor, has a TempurPedic mattress and, from the hospital where I used to take night call, old, super-soft sheets that I rescued from the laundry discard pile before they could be burned. Those sheets were originally 600-thread-count, but had been washed and boiled and steamed and run through a flat mangle ironing board so many times they are now pushing 200-thread-count and see-through-soft against one’s skin. No way anyone’s guest bedroom is going to sport anything even close to that kind of comfort … it’s the comfort you long for every time you roll over in the night and are awakened by the sand-paper stiff, brand new sheets scratching off another microscopic layer of your skin;
The Guest Room bed is roughly 36” off the floor, has a mattress like a brick, was the bed the hostess slept in as a child and is barely wide enough for one kid, let alone two adults. And those two adults are known to turn from one side to the other all night long, which posed a risk more immediate than the storm itself and the 12-to-18 inch diameter tree branches that hang over the roof of the house … more specifically … hang over the roof of the Guest Bedroom. If a branch falls, at least we had the roof and ceiling structure to break the fall. If one of us rolled “over-and-out” we would have been picking solid Oak hardwood splinters out of our face for weeks.
All things considered, the odds are against your ever reaching anything near Stage 2 sleep … and you can dismiss completely the chance you will ever enjoy refreshing REM sleep until you have been back home for two or three days after the storm.
RECOVERY: Five days now separate today from the exit of the hurricane, the 105-115 mph winds, the flooding and the manic TV newscasters.
We have had time to formulate a conclusion about our experience: it’s not the hurricane that will kill you, it’s the mute host, the muffins (we still have a baker’s dozen left) and the mattress!
We have also had time to formulate a plan of escape from the oceanfront to someplace more secure, which does not involve "friends" ... we say Vive la Holiday Inn Express
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
110914 Addendum: It should be intuitively obvious to the casual observer that this summary tells you nothing at all about the people we stayed with, but reveals everything about the inability of the author to cope with the waiting, the uncertainty, the lack of control (of anything). There are insights that will help one cope with waiting. Or, at least, help one understand the common reactions to imposed waiting.
The longer we wait, the greater the value we impute to the act of waiting. I.e., the more we pay for something, the more pressure we feel to justify the investment, so the more we feel it is worth. The longer we have to wait (i.e., the more time we invest in the waiting), the more it was "worth the wait."
Except when we believe that all is lost, e.g., in the case where the Weather Service Tracking Radar shows clearly the Category 3 hurricane passing directly over our city, or worse: over our subdivision; or even worse: right over the street on which we live). The point at which we feel "all is lost," that is the point at which waiting switches from an investment to an expense. Instead of investing a little time waiting to find that our lives have increased in value, we feel that the storm is going to cost us everything: all of the material things (home ... we designed and built it ourselves; furniture ... we picked it out together; pictures ... of all the good times; computers ... with all the documents we slaved over; clothes ... our newest shoes to our oldest, favorite, thread-bear shirts ... and on and on).
The storm is going to take it all away from us. Is it any wonder that nerves turn squiddly and we amplify the insignificant quirks of our hosts into major character flaws?
Being stuck in a crowd causes people to chose a more isolated spot to give themselves more "personal space." This helps maintain a feeling of identity and distance from the crowd. As the crowding becomes more apparent, their discomfort becomes amplified. Even if the "crowd" is only four in number, your spouse and the other couple, the forced interaction is a growing burden. The threat of the raging storm outside makes it improbable that you will break out to relieve the pressure ... like a "jail break" from the "incarceration" ... so the walls close in, you feel more trapped and your agitation rises ... and your "jailers" are demonized.
Coping is not easy. I don't have the answer to how you do it. All you'll find here is just a description of the situation and an explanation of the possible causes. How you cope is your problem. What do you think you will do differently when the next disaster bears down on you? You should think about it, because there will be another situation in the future.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
110914 Addendum: It should be intuitively obvious to the casual observer that this summary tells you nothing at all about the people we stayed with, but reveals everything about the inability of the author to cope with the waiting, the uncertainty, the lack of control (of anything). There are insights that will help one cope with waiting. Or, at least, help one understand the common reactions to imposed waiting.
The longer we wait, the greater the value we impute to the act of waiting. I.e., the more we pay for something, the more pressure we feel to justify the investment, so the more we feel it is worth. The longer we have to wait (i.e., the more time we invest in the waiting), the more it was "worth the wait."
Except when we believe that all is lost, e.g., in the case where the Weather Service Tracking Radar shows clearly the Category 3 hurricane passing directly over our city, or worse: over our subdivision; or even worse: right over the street on which we live). The point at which we feel "all is lost," that is the point at which waiting switches from an investment to an expense. Instead of investing a little time waiting to find that our lives have increased in value, we feel that the storm is going to cost us everything: all of the material things (home ... we designed and built it ourselves; furniture ... we picked it out together; pictures ... of all the good times; computers ... with all the documents we slaved over; clothes ... our newest shoes to our oldest, favorite, thread-bear shirts ... and on and on).
The storm is going to take it all away from us. Is it any wonder that nerves turn squiddly and we amplify the insignificant quirks of our hosts into major character flaws?
Being stuck in a crowd causes people to chose a more isolated spot to give themselves more "personal space." This helps maintain a feeling of identity and distance from the crowd. As the crowding becomes more apparent, their discomfort becomes amplified. Even if the "crowd" is only four in number, your spouse and the other couple, the forced interaction is a growing burden. The threat of the raging storm outside makes it improbable that you will break out to relieve the pressure ... like a "jail break" from the "incarceration" ... so the walls close in, you feel more trapped and your agitation rises ... and your "jailers" are demonized.
Coping is not easy. I don't have the answer to how you do it. All you'll find here is just a description of the situation and an explanation of the possible causes. How you cope is your problem. What do you think you will do differently when the next disaster bears down on you? You should think about it, because there will be another situation in the future.
OK. I am thinking about it ...
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