The recent terrorist attacks on New York
City, Washington and Pennsylvania have left each one of us
in a state of shock and disbelief. We were kicked from our
"comfort zones" by these events and now we must
decide how we are going to cope with these events. In addition,
we must decide how we can help our families and friends through
these difficult times as well.
We all will require support and assistance to help us through
these most difficult times. None of us were prepared for these
horrific events and none of us are experts at coping with
trauma and loss. Through my years of experience working with
critical incidents, I have learned how to cope with them and
how to assist others to get through them and to recover and
to continue to lead positive and useful lives in spite of
the losses that have been experienced.
Each of us are likely going through a grief
process and we will need to understand that it may take a
long time to recover from these events. The stages of the
grief process include: (1) Shock/Denial; (2) Anger; (3) Sadness;
(4) Bargaining and (5) Acceptance. Each of us have experienced
losses in our lives and we are certainly no strangers to grief.
We must start an individual recovery process that is positive
that will lead to recovery from these horrific events. The
coping skills listed later in this article are for educational
purposes and are not intended to replace consultation with
a licensed mental health professional. Rather, these skills
are designed to give you pointers on how you can continue
in your healing process without making mistakes that may interfere
with your own personal healing or that of your family members.
Please read this information and feel free to print it and
pass it on to your friends and family members.
-John A. Garlock, Ed.D., Ph.D., LPC, LMFT,
LCDC, CEAP
The United States has sustained the most
brutal terrorist attack in the history of our country. At
least 5,000 citizens have been murdered. Thousands more have
been injured. All of us are shocked and overwhelmed by the
massive loss of life and property that have been and will
soon be discovered and calculated. Everyone feels driven to
do something to respond to the death and destruction in New
York City and Pennsylvania and in our nationís capital.
With the realism presented by electronic media, we have all
become personally involved in these tragedies and some of
us have also had family members harmed in these horrific events.
There are many needs that need to be identified
and met on the part of the survivors of these tragedies. In
addition, the other citizens living in these cities and the
emergency care workers who are heroically serving with exceptional
valor also have needs that must be identified and met as well.
Finally, as caring citizens of our country and community we,
too, have witnessed these horrific events and have internalized
the anger and sadness that accompany such tragic events. We
are all affected and we require information that will assist
us in our own personal healing process.
It is likely that we will be coping with
these events and later related events for an extended period
of time. For this reason, it is important to re-establish
your "comfort zone" and to prepare yourself for
an extended period of new and different experiences that you
may encounter while we cope with the aftermath of these tragic
events and our response as a nation to the assailants of these
senseless acts. We must remember that our parents and grandparents
faced horrific crises and came through them and continued
on to raise families and to work and have positive lives.
They lived and prospered in the face of seemingly insurmountable
difficulties. We will do the same because we come from generations
of hard working people who successfully handled crisis events.
With the identified informational needs
in mind, there are two information guides below. One is specifically
for adults and one is specifically for adolescents and children.
Please read these and ask any questions of your presenter
today. In addition, please feel free to share this information
with your family, with your friends, with your church and
with others who might need it. At this critical time in our
nations destiny, everyone can profit from this information
and it is provided in the hopes that will positively benefit
you and others who will read it. God Bless America!
-John A. Garlock, Ed.D., Ph.D., LPC,
LMFT, LCDC, CEAP
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1. Accept that you are likely in a
grief process that will last for an extended time period
and that a grief reaction is a normal reaction after
a critical incident;
2. Accept that you are healing and
that it will take some time to heal from the events
and do not expect yourself to heal within some imagined
time period;
3. Understand that you will feel a
wide range of feelings all of which are normal and to
be expected in a critical incident situation;
4. Increase your self care and do nice
things for yourself and continue to do them;
5. Do something positive to combat
possible feelings of helplessness and hopelessness by
donating blood, making a financial donation or a similar
helpful act to assist those who are less fortunate;
6. Depending upon your past and the
types of traumatic events you have experienced in the
past and your type of involvement in the current events,
the time period that you will need to heal can vary
from months to years;
7. Involve yourself in spiritual care
and other types of support to assist you;
8. Talk about the events that transpired
and your reactions to them to others and "Tell
your story" about how you experienced the events
and are still doing so;
9. Re-establish and maintain your comfort
zone and your daily routine;
10. Limit your exposure to the on going
recovery events to no more than one hour each day and
limit each exposure period to 15 minutes to avoid possible
secondary traumatization;
11. You may question your values and
beliefs and take personal inventory and that is to be
expected and is part of the healing process;
12. You may have feelings of insecurity
and heightened vigilance which are normal reactions
for each of us once we have been involved in unplanned
traumatic events;
13. Make certain you eat and sleep
and exercise and maintain your normal routine;
14. Stay task oriented and productive
as work structures your time and thoughts;
15. Monitor your significant others
and support them in their recovery efforts;
16. Obtain feedback from significant
others and be willing to take action as needed. |
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1. Protect your child(ren) from over
exposure to the recovery efforts and to the critical
incident scenes and media commentaries;
2. Answer questions that your children
ask in concrete and simple ways to avoid providing too
much information or adult information that they are
not ready for;
3. Increase your hugs and physical
demonstrations of caring whenever possible;
4. Allow your child(ren) to feel helpful
by making donations in their names and by planting a
flower or tree or by selling cookies or lemonade or
by donating their allowance if they wish to so that
they can be an active part of the recovery process;
5. Take your children to religious
services regularly and ask church officials to offer
a program for children/adolescents to help them to understand
these events from a spiritual or religious perspective;
6. Allow your children to talk about
their feelings and listen non-judgmentally;
7. Let your children draw pictures
of the events along with pictures of how things will
look when they are repaired and renewed;
8. Reassure your children daily that
you love them and you will take care of them;
9. Explain what has happened as best
as you are able and focus on the recovery and repair
and the national pride that is being exhibited by our
nation;
10. Tell your child(ren) that it is
NOT THEIR FAULT and that GOD IS NOT MAD AT US OR PUNISHING
US for something someone did wrong;
11. Allow your child(ren) to cry and
normalize their feelings and support them;
12. Take good care of yourself so that
you can take good care of your children;
13. Encourage your children to be in control of their
actions and let them make decisions about what to eat,
what to wear, what to watch on television, etc.;
14. Your child(ren) may show younger
behaviors which will stop in time and do not over react
to these mild regressions in behavior such as bed wetting,
baby talk, or wanting to sleep in your bed;
15. Your child(ren) are in a healing
process and encourage their healing efforts. |
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