We awoke on Friday last 11th March to the news of a nine magnitude earthquake in Japan and a subsequent tsunami that caused great devastation and loss of life. The scenes of cars and houses being swept away by the waves were almost unbelievable. It happened in the afternoon when children were still in school and workers in offices, just getting on with everyday life. One wonders what the problems each was facing that morning before disaster struck and how this dissolved into oblivion with what followed.
As many of you have said, it brings to light our vulnerability as a human race. In the face of natural disasters, we are unprepared, despite our best efforts. Japan has apparently some of the best protective procedures in place with respect to earthquakes and tsunami warnings. These manmade efforts were in vain last Friday. The knock on effect of the damaged nuclear plants and the pending meltdown now adds to the magnitude of the problem. We can barely take it in.
World disasters like this prompt us to lift our heads and look towards what other people have to face in countries where natural disasters are more common than here in Ireland. There is often a mix of relief and guilt that we don’t have to face what other countries do. Human nature sees us fascinated for a while with sky news on continuously, followed by a retreat to one’s own life as the days go on. There have been numerous world disasters over the past few years, one seeming to be followed by another. We’ve been asking ourselves here, what is it in human nature that prompts us to eventually dissociate from the realities of what others go through, when we have been shocked and upset by it initially?…
When we face traumatic situations in our own lives, to help us to continue on living we ‘split off’ or disconnect from the feelings associated with the event. In counselling terms we refer to this as dissociation. Often the person reports feeling as if they had left their body and were looking on at the event. This is an inherent defence mechanism which allows us to keep functioning and helps us to get through. It works temporarily. If we were to feel the feelings at the time, we fear we may be overwhelmed. However, these feelings are still inside and will need to be dealt with at some point. Counselling seeks encourage the client to feel in relation to traumatic events, a little at a time.
Take Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after a car accident. The person may be dealing with other people involved in the accident, physical injuries, being grateful that all are still alive. But over the coming weeks and months the person may experience feeling down, crying, insomnia, worry and stress. This is the person coming to terms with the actuality of the accident, of what they felt and witnessed at the time. The body and mind need time to work through and adjust to what it has experienced. We also see this at play with adults who have been traumatised as children. It’s as if they can only afford to deal with it now as adults, that it may not have been ‘safe’ to feel the feelings before now.
So when we look at the tragedy and the trauma Japanese people are suffering, of course we feel sympathetic but in order to keep going in our own lives, we disconnect at some level from the enormity of what it must be like to be there. To allay our guilt in doing this, we look to contribute financially to a recovery fund. When we are faced then with stories from individual families or people in crisis, it evokes an empathic response in us because we can now identify with them as being like ourselves. Like with the four month old little baby who was found alive, we find ourselves drawn into the real life situations and wonder did the baby’s mother survive. But these feelings in us are temporary. We close them off when we close the newspaper or turn off the TV and we get on with what we have to do. It is human nature, not because we just don’t care. Were the countries reversed, Japanese people would be having the same reaction as we are. No doubt there are thousands of traumatised people who are trying to recover the basics of their lives food, shelter and clothing. It is only over the coming months that the reality of the devastation will impact psychologically on the victims.