I'm keenly aware that the blog has an international readership. I attempt not to be too parochial and will add links to help add context if necessary.
I hope that readers worldwide will know about the Italian cruise liner disaster. It has taken over the UK headlines for over a week and I assuming that the news went worldwide, as the liner had an international passenger list.
When any disaster occurs, my mind always go towards the shock people will experience and what may happen next in their lives.
It's a topic I return to, because it is important in the subject of emotional growth.
"Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it."
Charles R. Swindoll 1934.
The reporting and media coverage of the cruise liner disaster highlighted a couple of matters for me:
1. The hysterical versus the logical.
A passenger was telling the radio interviewer about conditions on board. To summarise his words, as I didn't write them down at the time, "There were people screaming and panicking and not giving any thought to the children with them. We needed to stay calm."
I have never been in a capsized ship or explosion or train crash. I do not know how I would react. But this man's comments did remind me of one incident fourteen years ago.
I was walking with a friend near some well known cliffs in Ireland. The Cliffs of Moher. They are very high. We walked near the base, around the craggy rocks and could see a signed footpath that guided people up a steep, but safe path to the top of the cliffs.
We decided to follow the path up to the top. The signage wasn't great, but we kept on going. About two-thirds of the way up, I realised we had mistakenly gone off the official path and our path was more challenging. I looked behind to go back, but decided this wasn't a good idea, as the downward view was a little daunting, though spectacular. I knew my friend was a little nervous and not the best climber in the world. I decided to lead the way, not take chances, but be confident in my manner. I told her not to turn round and look behind. I knew that if she did that, there was a very strong chance of her panicking. I was frightened too, but her needs overtook my feelings.
Eventually I reached to top and turned round. My friend was about twenty feet behind me...on what looked like an almost vertical cliff edge. The view was outstanding, the drop was nausea inducing. I forced myself to talk calmly and confidently for every step they took towards me. She reached the top okay...and never looked back.
I took a photo of the last few feet. When we looked at it sometime later and it induced a feeling of vertigo in both of us.
NB: I've just looked up the cliffs up on Google to make sure the spelling is correct and there are numerous links to the deaths that have occurred on the cliffs. Accidental and deliberate. I'm not surprised.
As I have said, I don't know how I would react in a disaster, but I hope that logic and common sense would take over from the emotionally hysterical. Unfortunately, the light hearted incident I wrote about in this blog doesn't bode well. But it does explain how emotional arousal can create stupidity.
http://emotionalgrowth.blogspot.com/2011/07/dont-panic-being-birdbrained.html
Because we have remained logical and calm through a traumatic experience, doesn't mean that shock doesn't set it a little while later. That's perfectly natural and something I'm sure many of us have experienced. Much of it will arise from the playing, "what if..." over and over. There is no need to have experienced something awful to become traumatised. Too much imagining, can lead to it too. Interestingly, imagined memories can be de-traumatised as successfully as real memories.
2. How long do we keep talking about something unpleasant?
There's a radio presenter on a national BBC radio station. I'm not going to give him publicity by mentioning his name. He has a nightime programme that last three hours and deals with the topics of the day and week. I would like to see him removed from the BBC. I tune in every so often to see if he's still as bad as he was. He is.
I believe that his approach is irresponsible, invasive, dangerous and possibly trauma inducing at times. His premise is to pick away at a person's story like a vulture at a dead carcass, until he can get some emotional reaction. Then pick away some more. He can hardly hide his excitement sometimes, when the poor person down the other end of the phone starts to fight back the tears.
Then the call finishes. What state is the caller in now I wonder? The presenter doesn't care. I assume, nor does his producer. He goes on to the next story. It's not only the caller who could be left worryingly upset, so can the listener. But then that's what the programme makers ultimately want. Getting the listener emotionally aroused is what it's all about.
I have covered the dangers of picking at wounds in this blog:
http://emotionalgrowth.blogspot.com/2011/06/emotional-wounds-if-you-pick-it-it-wont.html
Another news story this week was the sentencing of a man who had buried his girlfriend alive in a box. Miraculously, she escaped.
The judge said the following:
"Miss Lewandowska is suffering and will continue to suffer significant psychological harm. I am satisfied that these events will unsettle any prospect of stability for her for years to come."
Thank for nothing Judge Collier. No hope there then? I was appalled at the judge's comments.
This statement comes under something called the Nocebo effect. We all know of the Placebo effect, but the Nocebo effect is not well known.
The "nocebo effect" is the lesser-known opposite number of the
in a negative frame of mind has an adverse effect on their health
or well-being. Tell people a medical procedure will be extremely
painful, for example, and they will experience more pain than if
you had kept the bad news to yourself. Similarly, experiences of
side effects within the placebo groups of drug trials have shown
that a doctor's warning about the possible side effects of a
medicine makes it much more likely that the patient will report
experiencing those effects.
New Scientist.
For more about a bomb victim's opinions on the negativity around trauma:
Back to the Cruise disaster. Over 4,000 people were involved.
Not all will have symptoms of trauma or ever do so.
Some will not at first, but will develop them later. Some from too much talking about it.
Some will keep hold of the symptoms, because it is financially in their favour to do so.
Some will keep hold of their symptoms, because of other actual or perceived benefits.
Life is short and some mental/emotional health problems are avoidable. It both concerns and frustrates me. The lack of knowledge about what causes trauma symptoms and that there is effective treatment available, means that I will carry on with this work for some time yet.
©RitaLeaman2012.
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