Intensely moved by Haiti? Pause.

The situation continues to be heart crushing. A lot of people are on the verge of making life changing decisions to commit to adopting a Haitian child, to using their savings to move heaven and earth to help, to devote their life to the allieviation of suffering.  I predict that in upwards of 90% of the cases in people who aren’t already active and trained in emergency response,  that decision is going to turn out to be a mistake.

We often don’t understand our basic selves

In my previous post I wrote (obviously while in the center of a stress reaction) about typical behaviors people who, in real time, witness excruciating suffering of others. When people are in a calm state and then suddenly focus on the real time intense suffering of others, the most likely response will be for our systems to trigger a stress response in our bodies that floods our bodies with naturally produced chemicals that strongly incline us to adopt behaviors that have been proven to trigger actions increase the chance of survival in species aroung the globe for eons. We humans have other built in behaviors that lead us to reject that we have automatic responses, to trust that our thinking brains are the bosses and can outsmart our subconscious mind if we are tough enough or talented enough. This, because this misunderstanding has caused a lot of people to interpret their natural and automatic reaction as being proof of internal weakness and failure–creating fuel for long term revisions of expectations and suffering. It sucks, because it has been proven to be incorrect , the recent PBS Series This Emotional Life had a Stanford Neurologist who explained that there are literally millions of pathways from our subconscious brain to our conscious brains, a mega super highway, but there are no direct pathways back. They’ve recently been able to use Neuroimaging technology to prove that our subconscious minds signal what decision we are about to make as much as 10 seconds before we think we have made our decision.

Tend or Befriend

The automatic stress response that we need to examine today is the mixture of brain chemicals that flow through our bodies pushing us to ‘Tend or Befriend”. Something scary happens, all of us, but women far more, are flooded with chemicals that prompt us to go rescue our objects of care (children/older adults) Let’s let mama kitty demonstrate (40 seconds in):

WWAD?

Cats are like people, they are also sure that they are totally separate and superior to other animals, they aren’t as social as we are. Ants are social creatures, in a crisis what would ants do?

Social creatures are compelled to rush to help, rush to share in the suffering. And thank goodness. This behavior is integral to our survival, crucial. But it can also be bad.

How can it be bad that we rush to help?

Let me count the ways:

1. Feeling the intense compulsion to rush to help indicates a traumatic stress reaction Our biology is built around the idea that we have short term bursts of intense stress, but then we go back to normal. The stress response is very bad for us though. It causes our immune system to shut down, it inspires us to sacrifice our long term plans, it makes it hard to focus on immediate needs, even family and jobs (part of ’sacrificing long term plans’) It disrupts sleep, frequently sparks depression, a loss of faith in the rest of the community, feelings of social isolation and anxiety.

2. We have become just smart enough to realize that you can get people to do things that help you if you can trigger their automatic responses, but not smart enough to realize that this is harmful. so in modern life we have organizations of all sort working to nurture and extend the continued production of the brain chemicals to keep the stress response going. As long as we do we will ‘keep watching’ ‘keep giving’, etc. Since we are so out of touch with how our brain works, these organizations most likely don’t even realize they are doing it. Since they are advocating the same behaviors that the stress response is pushing you to take, it feels entirely normal, and even very important to keep doing it.

3. It leads to messed up priorities and bad decisions Our brains work in a way that lets our subconscious have the primary vote in almost every thing we do. It tells us how we feel about things, and unless we are careful, we will go rushing off doing things that ‘feel logical’ but actually aren’t. We feel great doing them to! ‘Tend and befriend’ leads us to strongly desire to reach out and help. That’s why you get so many people donating totally inappropriate junk and feeling so good about it. The stress response also inspires a state of hyper-vigilance–that’s why it felt so logical the first thing we needed to do in Haiti was to get camera crews there. That’s why so much of our efforts haven’t been directly improve the situation on the ground, but to improve our ability to visualize it. Map it, photograph it, read about it. That feels great, too bad that still now, the only Americans hundreds of thousands of Haitians have seen have been carrying cameras and not aid. Why we succeeded in getting all of our anchors on the ground, lots and lots of PIOs and public officials–but didn’t succeed in getting almost half of the Search and Rescue teams there–they couldn’t fly in, the airport was too full of the planes carrying all the cameras.

This poor 71 year old woman, here she is talking to an American telling about how she is less than a mile from the airport but is starving to death. The American face she saw was getting to help us, to feed into the story, it wasn’t to help her. Oh, but you have to tell the story to get people to donate. Which, is another way of saying, you must tell the story to trigger the traumatic stress response that will trigger the flood of donations. Currently, the vast majority of our efforts are to restore the funding of our non profit organizations, we feel so good about it, we haven’t even stopped to ask if the organizations actually do the functions we are imagining they do. Organizations do specific things, they do not make up what they do to fit the need of each crisis. This is a good thing, it means they can focus on being very good at the functions they perform, but there seems to be a disconnect on understanding that. The non profits need to work a lot harder to explain exactly what they won’t be doing, what the limits to their capacity and skill base it–since backlash definitely does happen once the disconnect is noticed. I haven’t really seen that. Lots of effort to keep the shower of donations (ie stress response) not a lot to clarify expectations. I can imagine why it would be so hard to provide information that might slow down the flow of funds at a time when the funds are so dearly needed. But it would be better for all of us if they did.

The Red Cross has a surge of volunteers with every disaster, one of their greatest frustration is that the majority of them never come back and volunteer in their community. Those volunteers made a decision to devote their life to helping during the stress response, but when it ended, for most of them, that devotion ended as well. That’s OK, that is totally and completely natural. This is why it is important for anyone who suddenly wants to adopt an orphan (or for anyone who wants the US to adopt a country) to wait until they are sure the effects of the stress results are past. You can discontinue your volunteer activities if it turns out the fit wasn’t right, it is far more harmful to realize you want to discontinue your parental activities. If you didn’t want to adopt a Haitian child before this event, probably around 85% of people will realize they didn’t want to again once it is past.

4. It can lead to neglecting our communities The rush to help is a part of an intense stress response that has bad long term repercussions on our health and psyche. We are pushed to sacrifice long term plans to meet short term needs–that means paying less attention to the parts of your life that really need your attention, when the stress response is triggered because of something in your community, directly affecting your life, this is a really good thing, it means that your community can be vastly improved. Through the wonders of technology, it can now be triggered by something that is very far away, and that is also happening with hundreds of millions of people around the planet, it means that you have hundreds of millions of people sacrificing in small and large ways, the interest of their immediate family and community to help far away, in a place they hopefully can’t get to, since if they did, it would turn out to matter that they don’t have the skill sets, resources or psychological training to do any good in. If every person who feel desperately driven to get to Haiti could, the number of people needing help go up to include 99% of them. In the mean time, a teenager’s decision to reveal what’s been bothering them wasn’t even noticed as the parent shush’s them to continue to think intensely about what they can do… It feels logical not to get that project done, work will understand. So we end up making sure that the people who really can’t afford to create earthquake safe buildings have them built for them, while not noticing that most US cities where earthquakes happen have huge swaths of buildings occupied by the people with the fewest resources, that have a good chance of failure in quakes. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to teach ourselves to feel that need to rush to prevent suffering until we have our ‘help’ responses triggered by the group suffering.

5. It can lead to the creation of more heartless people Stress responses have an emotional and physical toll on our bodies and our lives. They mean that it is really hard to focus on meeting the needs of daily life. People who need to function often over react by teaching themselves not to care about suffering. The easiest way to do this is to dehumanize or belittle the harm that is happening to others. If you don’t care, you won’t have these emotional responses and you will be able to continue to get things done and think rationally. The better that organizations get at triggering stress responses to get help and donations, the more they will find that ‘compassion fatigue’ sets in–the higher the number of people who will adopt thick protections against feeling anything due to other people’s suffering. This is not because people are bastards, people become bastards as a way not to have to stop functioning to feel. OK, some people are born bastards. Just are.

What can we do?

I’m not expecting this post to be read by many, and I suspect it won’t be forwarded much. I’m not a good enough writer to explain things well enough for this post to be retweeted- and the post is telling anyone in a stress response that they aren’t acting of their own free will, and worse, that maybe they are making a mistake. How can helping be a mistake? This post is the equivalent of one tiny person standing in front of a flash flood of subconscious driven emotion. But here’s what I think we need to do:

Teach yourself to tell the difference between innate responses and actual needs We can feel good about taking action, so we miss that the action we took didn’t actually meet the needs of the situation. This is tricky because chances are, if it becomes obvious, the ‘doer’ can end up wanting to withdraw, losing hope, or feeling frustrated. What is needed is to be able to recognize the common reactions, and be careful to compare what actions you are taking vs. the larger picture, and adjust our thinking to match.

We need to recognize that ‘capturing the story’ does more harm than good. It feeds our ravenous hyper-vigilance needs, not the needs of the situation. We need to recognize that ‘telling the story’ of our actions ends up flooding the information stream with pictures of us doing good works–the survivors don’t have PIOs, so there are no pictures of them. It also implies that we are having a much greater effect than we are having. If focus was on the fact that international aid hasn’t been able to make it to very many places, than chances are there would be a lot of good ideas coming in on how to do better. A lot of disaster response turns out not to be very good because our we easily mistake feeling good about doing something our subconscious wants (hyper-vigilance) it becomes hard to recognize the real situation.

This is because those that hold the cameras are create the historic record.  The people with the cameras create a false version of history.  Particularly when every photograph taken is calculated to ‘tell the story’, it becomes necessary for the donation receivers to portray themselves as heroes to justify the donations.   History then, records  the situation being that the group most affected by the disaster were saved by the outsiders who took so many pictures of that happening.  The people who have endured the absolute brunt of the disaster don’t have time, experience or equipent to calculate ways to tell their story.  For days upon days, actual international assistance didn’t get further than a few blocks—a couple of hundred, maybe even a couple of thousand people.Very important for the people reached, but barely anything when compared to the sea of suffering: 2 million people needing help. The rest of the rescues, the rest of the heroic acts-those weren’t photographed, so they disappear as if they never happen. 

Put pressure on organization and people to never using the suffering as a marketing tool It seems like this would be obvious, but the problem is that it is so effective in generating what people need: donations, income, attention, good PR, hyper-vigilance, narrative creation. It needs to stop though, it is harmful. Having the ability to do something to help, like giving donations, is an important part of the recovery process from grief and traumatic stress-it helps the community bond and start the slow process of neutralizing the negative stress chemicals that were pumped into our system with positive ones. The current way it is done, though, needs to stop, cultivating our stress responses. After a shared emotional scar, we will be donating. We need to be able to start the process of recovering from the injury, not to have it purposefully kept raw so we can keep donating. From this point on, only donate to organizations who solicit donations by telling what they will be doing, and how they think they will succeed in doing it. Donate to those that say: ‘you donate this, we will combine it with X more and ‘charter a boat’, ‘pay for shipping’, etc. If this was the standard, it would become very clear who can actually do something and who can’t, which will help our ability to be sure our donations actually get where we want them to, actually do the things we want them to. I don’t know how to get the media to recognize the harm they have caused by flying in all of their media personalities to get good footage of them rescuing people. Gosh, that really got great ratings, too bad about the airport bottleneck.

Focus your feelings towards alleviating suffering in your community by reducing the causes of suffering. Teach yourself to recognize this. The big international events literally have hundreds of millions of people hoping to help. If you weren’ t already active in that community, or already trained in response, you will probably have the greatest positive effect if you channel your drive to help the community you live in.

Ready to radically change your life? Let’s hold off for a bit. You may suddenly realize that you need to change your life to help others. This is a wonderful thing, but there is a good chance your feelings are a result of the natural reaction you are experiencing to so much suffering. If you radically change your life now, there is a good chance that you will find yourself either regretting your decision, finding it has caused massive distress within the relationships that you already have. Often, when the stress chemicals finally start to neutralize, you will work to keep them going so that you can continue to feel the fire, but doing so will have a negative long term impact on your life. Take 6 weeks to stop this stress response and restore your homeostatic chemical balance in your brain–then decide. You very well may still choose your new path, and when you do, you will be able to make the massive life transition more deftly, and with much greater effect. The better the quality of your decision, the better you can help others.

Find your way back to feeling normal

If your emotions are strong enough that you feel as if you are losing faith in the community or yourself, please reach out and talk to someone who has devoted their life to this field, and who is recognized by a larger body to be qualified to help. A good first step is to call a mental health hotline. It can feel very difficult to call on your own behalf, directing thoughts inward can lead to feelings that you are putting at risk all your ability to keep it together-but once you get started, it turns out you can talk about concern for yourself without losing control’. In the Seattle area the number for Crisis Clinic is 1-866-427-4747. In many communities in the US you can dial 2-1-1 to get a list of social resources that may have a list of providers.

Fear, Sex & Pandemic in the Right Order

That title sounds misleaading.  This isn’t saying it should be first sex, then fear, or, the way nature would probably order it: first a pandemic, then fear, then sex.

This summer the brilliant Alanna Shaikh invited me to write a guest blog on the initial reaction to H1N1.  I wrote, and wrote.  She had to turn it into a 7 part series.  The problem with 7 part series in blogs is that unless you are reading them as they come out, you end up with the last one first.  So, I’m supplying the links to the series in the right order.

Part 1: Fear, Sex and Pandemic

Part 2: The Fear Part, with some sex

Part 3: The one with the Scary Dick Cheney Face

Part 4: If you are  focused on risk, you are not focused on living

Part 5: Vivid fear, just say no

Part 6:  Horrible Outcomes don’t change behavior

Part 7:  How to get it right?

Part 8: How do we reduce the impact of flu?

If you haven’t slept well since the earthquake, Read this

4:20 am, eyes snapped open.  Literally shaking, stomach hurts.  This weird headache that isn’t a headache in my forehead, well, all around my head.  

This is good news though, because other 4 nights this abrupt ripping  from sleep happened earlier. At 3:38 AM to be precise, night after night. I felt like Bill Murray in Ground Hog’s Day. Things are getting better I can tell, because now my waking isn’t accompanied by waves of sorrow and the intense desire that I need to either find a way to transform myself into the next Gandhi so I have any hope of saving the world, or by waves of self loathing: What right do I have to feel this way, I wasn’t even there, my feeling this way makes me focus on myself, it is because deep down inside I am a drama queen, a dive–’waaa waaa, don’t look at the millions of people who are suffering, look at me, look at me, I hurt, I really and truly hurt.” Pathetic. or the ever popular: ‘look at you, what good are you as a disaster responder when you aren’t tough enough to handle this. ’ 

I’m hoping I can work through this before Tuesday so that I don’t have to go into work and say: “Hey guys, I accidentally broke myself with Twitter, and may seem a bit touchy for a bit-sorry, my bad.’  And that is how it happened, I accidentally triggered an traumatic stress reaction in myself.  

If you are feeling anything similar, let me share with you about what I know about it, and how I was at least able to move from intense focus on suffering, to seeing that there is a path out of there. 

Here’s how it happens

We humans are social animals-before we can even hold up our heads, we are already starting the process of mimicking our care givers faces–and definitely being influenced by their mood.  When I think of how people are affected by others moods, I think of a light bulb attached to a solar panel. The brightness of the bulb changes depending on what light is being shown on it.   Some people are really good at filtering out external light, while others really have to be careful because just walking by a stranger can lead to big light changes.  So our moods and emotions are in a state of constant fluctuation. When you think about it, you can see the evolutionary benefit for having our emotions be able to be influenced by total strangers.  Imagine life in the cave, you have your concerns about your social status, will you mate tonight, should you fix that basket, or just put a scrap of leather on the inside (prehistoric duct tape)–in runs someone who is clearly scared and running for his life.  Which clan survives longest, the one that waits until the person has a chance to catch their breath and explain what is going on, or the one that has its members instantly react by being poised and ready to either fight, or run?  We humans have emergency buttons that can be hit, and once they are we go into an automatic intense stress response.  Automatic, as in, doesn’t matter how tough you are, in the right circumstances it happens to you. 

Ever wonder what the source of our feelings actually are?  Not the source in the sense of the beauty pageant contestant discussing deep love of her home town–but source in the sense of ‘where did these come from, how did they get here?  The source of emotions, moods, attitudes and most opinions are naturally created chemicals our body produces.  Our brain’s subconscious which signals our body to release just the right amount of chems to get the mood it is hoping for–to communicate to us what our opinion on things should be.  It uses brain chemicals to tell us when we are standing too close to people, to tell us who we should try to stand too close too.  To say that we like that color on that person, but don’t like the person.  The chemicals play their role creating a certain mood, until another chemical is added to the mix that either changes or neutralizes it.  

Our conscious minds can play with these chemicals too, we can read a sad story and trigger chems that make us feel sad, we can sigh or laugh and trigger chemicals that neutralize the sad ones, all day long we are balancing positive and negative emotions, hopefully with more positive in our systems at the end of the day, but we all know that isn’t always the case.So, when we’ve had a severe stress reaction triggered it means that our brain got the signal that danger is imminent and pumped our bodies full of  massive amounts of stress chemicals—we are in danger: ACT!   For those of us experiencing vicarious trauma, our response was triggered in error, we aren’t personally in danger, but we are primed to take actions as if we were, and that state is hard to deal with, made worse by life going on as normal for everyone who it didn’t happen to.

What are signs that you are in the middle of a stress response? 

Hyper-vigilance-your mind attempting to search out and find the source of the danger.  This can translate into the feeling that you must keep watching the news, you must stay engaged with the situation.  You are probably looking for patterns that imply it could happen to your family–suddenly noticing just how many earthquakes happen every day on this planet.  You may feel like snapping at people who distract you with ordinary life conversation or questions–don’t disturb me, I’m looking for predators. One of the ways I could tell I was having a higher than average stress response was that 3 mornings in a row when I drove on 405 I thought I saw someone standing right on the edge of the road causing me to jump.  Each time it was the same lamp post that I’ve driven past for years.  Driving into the garage I gasped because I thought I saw a child inside our fence looking over right at us-when I looked over, it was the lamp on the fence post.  Huh?  Hyper-vigilance, the feeling you must stay focused on something or find patterns that will warn of danger, even though neither actions actually useful–either to help, or to stay safe.

Primed to fight  Your mind is searching out the predator in your midst.  This part can really mess lives up.  When you don’t understand that you are experiencing an automatic response, you take this search seriously.  When I started not sleeping night after night it didn’t seem possible to me that I was not sleeping due to the images I had seen from Haiti-it was obviously related to work, in fact, obviously related to…. and I went to work and had a meeting with my boss, and everything got worked out…..and then the next night my eyes snapped open at 3:38.  It is so easy to make serious life changing errors right now.  You are primed to feel that something is not right with the world, with your life-these are brain chemicals that exist to make you feel that way.  Will you decide that something is your job? Your lover? Yourself? Because with the priming to find the source is the desire to tear the source apart.  It is so so easy to make permanent changes to your life that may not be able to be undone–based on misdirected emotions.

The desire to run away  A typical feeling with vicarious trauma is the desire to escape. You have chemicals in your system priming you to make a run for it–depending on what you’ve decided is the target of your unhappiness this desire can be ‘quit my job’ ‘leave my family’ ‘lose consciousness’. It is also a cause of major ‘can’t ever fix’ mistakes and when acted upon, can really increase the likelihood that this experience had a multi year, even a multi generation impact on you and your family.

The impulse to sacrifice long term goals for short term needs  It is an emergency, you need to act–when cornered it feels logical to give up all of the things you thought were important to make yourself feel uncornered (and sometimes this is true) My Kingdom for a Horse, or this episode of  The Office, where they are using the copy machine to break the door down. This impulse says: it’s OK not to do the things you normally do, you are suffering-don’t go to that meeting, don’t focus on your family.  Sacrificing long term plans when you are not literally saving your life is a mistake, be careful to look for signs and be very cautious.  Work to pause your thinking and focus outward, the people who are most successful find ways to compartmentalize their emotions. I have to admit I have never been one of those people, but I do now and then catch that I’m putting off making dinner and force myself to see that from my family’s perspective, that could be interpreted as a sign that I consider other’s more important than I consider them.  I pry myself away from the computer or my thoughts and turn outward-and then I find this was exactly the right thing to do, it helps.  At work I’ve been making lists to help me refocus on what my ‘to do’ list was before everything happened.

The desire to communicate  The first days after the earthquake,  I inundated my twitter stream with a  multi day river of consciousness feed from me that has been literally hundreds of tweets a day.  Neurologists say that brain scans show women get this more than men.  Like that is a surprise.

The desire to hide your injuries  Primates, birds, and many other animals will hide the fact they are injured, often making it hard to know they need care until it is too late.  It isn’t hard to see why this would be useful in a world of predators and ‘dogs eating dogs’.  This adds to the feeling of social akwardness when you are injured, and the tendency to absolutely deny that this is happening to you.  It can massively prolongue your return to normal because it means you feel the need to not give yourself a break, do everything you would have done–and punish yourself for every slip.  Own up to your injury, try to avoid telling everyone about it (I don’t think I have succeeded in this bit at all, oh well) recognize that you may be avoiding calling a counselor or going to talk to your doctor, prolonging your recovery, because you don’t wan’t to admit to yourself that this is real. 

What can you do?

Talk to a counselor: I’m not a mental health professional, if you are experiencing real pain, and are overwhelmed by our feelings, please  call a crisis line, they do not judge in any way.  Chances are, the people who aren’t undergoing the intense emotions you are feeling really and don’t understand their source.  Counselors totally get it, they don’t know how you feel, but they can tell you about how it is very natural to feel the way you do, even though it seems so removed from how you would feel on an ordinary day.

Forgive Everyone, Especially Yourself: Your body and mind are looking out for you. All of this is your subconscious accidentally misreading the signals it was viewing.  It feels bad about it, happens to every subconscious now and then.  If you feel angry at people, let it go.  For the next few weeks everyone gets a ‘you are driving me friking crazy, but I’m not going to care’ pass. Anyone who reacts angrily at you–apologize to them.  Yes, you are right, they did show disrespect/say something stupid/not clean that up….doesn’t matter. Disengage. There is a such a large chance that your subconscious misinterpreted something and decided that finally it found the target of your angst.  Wait until you feel back to your normal self, and if the topic is still under your skin, bring it up then without the emotion.  

Don’t mistake forgiving your self with giving yourself permission  Be careful not to accidentilly extend the length of your recovery by getting into the habit of pampering yourself, or putting your suffering first because it feels kind of good.  The people and roles that depend on you need you back.  You are recovering from an injury, it is very real. It was not your fault, you experienced something when you weren’t braced to see it–very similar to throwing your back out unexpectedly because your legs weren’t braced.  Be kind to yourself, give yourself a break. Pause very feeling of self doubt or ‘I have to change this’ and gently tell yourself ‘no’. Then refocus on the outside world.

No life changing decisions This is really so so so important!  Promise me you will make no life changing decisions for the next period. “Flight” means feeling like your reality is unacceptable so you have to leave it.  If that is true, it will be unacceptable for at least a few more weeks, so just wait until then so you can be sure that the life you are living now really does need a change, because chances are it isn’t so bad, once you remove the chemicals from your system screaming that you can’t take it anymore.  (This is only true if you aren’t leaving to get away from abuse or the threat of violence, in that case, please please go)

Divert emotions to outlets that won’t cause long term damage You are primed to fight, run, and communicate, your system wants you to do these things.  Find ways to do it that won’t mess up your life.  ‘Fight’ can be done with a computer game (though avoid the compulsion to play a really violent game, because that will feel great, but really be adding more of the same chemicals to your system extending things), or by going and hitting a pillow, or finding a place with no one around and yelling in rage, jumping up and down (preferably not on a street corner). Flight can be done with moderate exercise, if the Dr says is OK. Avoid alcohol since there it will add more stress chemicals to your system, and it makes it even easier to make life changing awful mistakes (add a DUI or worse to your mood and see if it helps.)

Reframe Your Reactions If you are feeling similar things to me, you are making a lot of typos because your fingers jerk a bit. Your muscles feel tense, shaking even.  Your body is trying to help you out–you aren’t tense, you are infused with the same energy that you could use to lift a bus off a small child.  You aren’t tense, you are poised to make super human feats. Don’t try to lift any buses, but use that energy to realize it is there to help you do amazing things, not to make things harder for you.  Go use up that energy, go for a hike (OK, if you are in California or the Pacific Northwest today-please never go hiking during a big windstorm)

Start the process of digging yourself out Negative stress chemicals have to be neutralized with positive ones or they will stay in your system making future stress responses worse–you already have a lot of chems in your system, so all the new chemicals mean your system is overflowing and you won’t be feeling the emotions your sub conscious is trying to produce, you will be feeling this weird unpleasant chemical concoction instead.  Countering chemicals that make you feel unhappy and stressed with chemicals that make you feel relaxed and able to be happy is easier said than done when you have so many more of the first.  The best thing is to step away from the source of the stress.  Turn off the TV, don’t read information about what is happening, don’t look at pictures.  Unless you have a formal role in the response, it will move forward the same whether you are focused on it or not.  I know that I often find myself feeling that I need to fight to keep grieving, that, surely, somehow my feeling pain with all of the people who are suffering helps.  It actually doesn’t if you aren’t in the same location as the people that have faced the loss.  It often seems to me that this is hard to believe, even if logic implies it would be true–I suspect that, again, it goes back to evolution, that if we grieve together, we can lighten the load of the person directly harmed, but really, the people of Haiti who have not been able to read any newspapers or watch the news do not even know that the well of emotion in the world exists. (which is so unfair, by the way) It is OK for you to let go of the need to maintain the focus on your pain. It is important that we experienced it, it does matter, but it becomes possible to pull away from the people and world around you-the world around you needs your warm positive energy back. You won’t be able to until you give yourself permission to pull back.  If this feels hard, please go talk to a counselor or spiritual guide by phone or in person so they can help you find your way back.

Maintain your routine and social interaction People who aren’t going through this experience do not get it. They can not experience what you are experiencing, and since your brain is searching for predators, and primed to fight, there is a good chance everything they say you will feel was misunderstanding you, or worse, was confirming your worries about yourself.  That feeling, that you are in danger can make it very easy to feel that the social ackwardness and gaffs you are making are going to have a long term effect on your life-you will always be veiwed as flawed, youwill ruin your reputation. You start feeling that the people who loved you are getting sick of hearing about it (and they probably are, they aren’t in a state where they need to analyze and re-analyze the situation) The idea of hiding out by yourself until it goes away starts feeling really really good.  Don’t, this will prolongue your recovery the most!  This can take this short term event and turn it into a multi-year event.  Go, do the things you normally do.  Make your social gaffs, forgive yourself for them.  Don’t sacrifice your future by making dramatic gestures in the middle of board meetings, but if you do, forgive yourself, you won’t be judged by this tiny moment unless you then disappear leaving people to scratch their heads.

Build Your Bliss Countering stress chemicals with relaxation chemicals is easier said than done when you are suffering.  Things not only don’t feel funny, but it feels inappropriate to even think of being funny.  I found myself looking at a video of a cute kitty and thinking “No kitty, you are not cute, stop trying so hard.”  Lucky for us, we don’t have to actually feel good to start the process of releasing the chemicals we need to neutralize the other ones, we just have to think about feeling good.  It’s true, just like you can read a sad story and cry on a day when you felt great until that moment, you can read, watch and imagine things about laughter, beauty and happiness–and it will start releasing all of those chemicals automatically.  

Breath Out: We also release relaxation chemicals  just by breathing out from our diaphragms.  Think of when you are trying something tricky, and it turns out OK, what do you do: “Whew” why do you do that? That “Whew” just released the chemicals to counter that tension you felt doing the tricky thing.  Try it now. Imagine just solving a tricky situation: “Whew”  did you feel it?  For that brief second? Some singing feels great and inspirational-what is it: breathing out. A bit stressed, things are a bit tricky: sigh. breathing out. You are super happy-a different type of sigh.  Breathing out.  Hey, do that different type of sigh right now. You are super happy-siiiiiiigh. Did you feel that?  You don’t feel happy at all, but for that second pretending you do and sighing, in that second you just neutralized some of the other stuff.  Now, there’s way more of it than that one fake happy sigh can handle, but be patient.  The most effective way to release a whole lot of chems through the outward burst of air is laughing: “ha ha ha ha” that really is a burst of: positive chem positive chem positive chem positive chem.  You can fake laugh and get it, but the best is real laugh.  What are other examples: mediation: “Oooooooooooom”, prayer.  So take a break from the news to do things you remember have helped you feel positive in the pats.  At the start they aren’t going to feel like they are working, you will wonder how you could have laughed/stayed focused before–but over a few hours you will slowly but surely start feeling like you are closer to reaching sunlight again.

Go Find Your Happy.  That is your goal.  Give yourself permission to look at all the things in your life a new.  Go notice tiny bits of beauty–stop and smell the roses.  You are surrounded by amazing and beautiful things on all sides, celebrate each one you notice.   A cool thing about being in the throes of a triggered stress response is that life is really intense.  This hurts when you are in the period where you are trapped by sad thoughts, but the fun thing about a stress response is that it is possible to move to a point where you aren’t in emotional pain, but your life is still intense because most of those chemicals are still there.  I went with my family to the zoo, my ‘must communicate’ had me making attempts to talk to the different animals, I think I made headway with the gorilla, my poor son though (he’s 12, he looooved seeing his mom doing that) Everything feels more real, I kept getting these urges to touch the bark of that tree, the texture of this rock, oooh moss, so soft.  Once you succeed in moving away from the pain, it is an opportunity to see and celebrate your ordinary life in a new way.  So, notice that, getting yourself to feel good again isn’t going to mean you are done, aren’t at risk of errors and will be sleeping, that will come, but not yet.  So, my last point:

Be patient Did you know that if you dial 9-1-1 into a cell phone in the US it will switch into emergency mode and scan for any local tower it can connect to at all regardless of whether you have a cell phone account, or if the tower is for another cell phone’s network.  So, even if you cancelled your account, your phone can call 9-1-1.  It is asked that you lock your cell phone keypad so you don’t accidentally dial 9-1-1.  That happens all of the time, and when it does, your phone won’t work normally until it is finished with the process of searching out all of those towers, you just have to wait it out.  THIS IS THE SAME WITH US.   We all accidentally dialed 9-1-1 and now our system is in emergency mode. We can reduce the impact, and speed up recovery through slowly but surely filling ourselves with so much happiness it finally tips the scales–but don’t assume that is going to be quick.  I have stopped the cycle of actively hurting, I still feel for the people of Haiti, I still mourn with them, but I am not where I was-unable to see joy.  I see joy again, I feel it to.  But–notice I’m still not sleeping, notice that I still hung up on my mother last night (I have apologized and managed to resist the almost overwhelming urge to lay out just exactly why I was totally justified.  I feel like I was, I know I wasn’t.   For the next period, I will NOT be trusting my gut, I will not be going with my feelings.  I will be going with what I know.  I know we can get through this.  We will sleep again.

Update, 7 nights later:  Remember that this whole process takes time.  The toughest thing for me has been the shortlived, but recurring,  feeling that I go back to square one every time you fall asleep (even if you have managed to find a way to recenter on the world when you need to, calming down your emotional responses, at night, the physiological/subconscious response get full control, so you may have horrible nightmares (mine have been taking bits from the funny videos and movies I’ve been watching and turning them into horror montages: Nick from Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist torched some fluffy baby geese, but was then shot multiple times by an angry passerby.) You may have night terrors (One night I lept from the bed yelling in Russian: ’BUMZH’ and trying to throw things at my husband. I was convinced he was an intruder that had crawled through the window) Last night I woke up in a cold sweat and a pounding headache and heart.  Today I’m going to go talk to the doctor to see what they recommend to reduce the impact on my body. I’ve had success calming myself down by listening to this specific ‘OM video’  and just soothing myself by pretending my subconscious is just a scared animal trembling from thunder.

Utterly essential, totally necessary, frequently neglected Disaster Education program

Our community insists on continuously learning the hard way that our communities are at risk of catastrophic failure of support systems. 

The Puget Sound region has already experienced mega-thrust earthquakes, tsunami/seiche (though the last of these occurred before anyone was taking written notes, which implies the next one could be within our lifetime), volcano, terrorism, civil unrest, large scale transportation disruptions, severe winter storms, utility infrastructure failure, landslides, flooding.  We have the potential of levee failure, dam breaks, nuclear incidents–you name it, Washington State is Disaster-rama.

 

The resilience of a community is dependent on what percentage of the community face long term effects to their lives because of unplanned disruptions, as well as what percentage of organizations are able to continue operations.  Studies have shown that there is an increased risk of long term problems due to trauma if an individuals:

• Feel that self or loved one was in mortal danger
• Low coping skills
• Feeling no where to turn for help, no one offered
• Forced Relocation
•    Loss of economic security

Disaster education fills that space between disaster planning and the individual’s perspective. The best way to avoid trauma is to avoid being traumatized, we provide information to show individuals can keep from being traumatized. 

When you have made your home safe and are aware of risks and the warnings you have less chance of experiencing mortal danger.

When you have made plans to ensure that those you care for are OK and you have ways to communicate, you have less chance of fearing for your loved one. 

When you know how to find emergency help and what to expect, you are less likely to feel there was no where to turn to. 

Workplace preparedness shows small businesses how they can radically improve their options by taking steps to maintain access to data.  More companies able to stay open reduces the number of people who face loss of economic security. 

Emergency Management and mitigation plays a key role in improving a community’s resilience during disasters and speed of recovery after the disaster, but isn’t enough to ensure individual resilience.  Structural and systematic mitigation is essential and definitely saves lives, but past experience shows that insufficient knowledge of individuals about the risks and resources available during disasters large and small will continue to lead to deaths and mass suffering regardless of the quality of mitigation and government planning.  For that, you need good, high quality disaster education.  Good education can:

Ensure individuals maintain access to life saving supplies and services:  It is important that the population has the ability to access water food warmth and medical needs in the event of abrupt disruption of supply.  Deaths result when individuals can not access these critical needs, whether lost in a winter storm or from a large regional disaster.

Make sure that the people facing direct risks understand what what community resources will and won’t available: The population needs to understand what disasters are possible and the importance of being aware of the weather and what options may available to remove themselves from harm.  A community can have disaster plans and shelter opens, but if individuals do not know how to access them they may as well not exist.

Manage Expectations:  The population needs to know that it is the very nature of life on this planet means that there will be disasters, and when they happen people can expect feeling that things are chaotic and they need to be flexible, self sufficient and resourceful. Situations are only considered disasters because infrastructure and services are disrupted due to the event, anger at the disruption is natural, but frustrating.  Good quality education openly addresses the need to plan for the psychological affects of disruption, and to build coping measures into personal planning.

If you have the opportunity to influence a disaster education program here are some recommendations:

We have limited time and resources, so go X-treme. 

Whenever possible, work to determine what groups face the highest risk levels during the disaster and help them, and then work to reach everyone else from there. There are a lot of groups that really are interested in learning about disaster preparedness, but are held back from communication problems, or incorrect assumptions about the affordability or difficulty of preparing. 

Work to locate and craft your program for members of the community who we have determined are more at risk of facing serious negative consequences from disasters.  Work to establish long term relationships so that you don’t simply give a single hour long presentation and hope they call us in a year, but to work with community leaders to determine what the most effective way to bring about changes in behavior within their community to be. Also, work to recruit volunteers from within these groups to help you reflect the communities we serve so that you can serve them better.

If you are good at reaching out to others, get grabby!  Teach as many people as you can how you do it.  Teach other organizations, teach interested individuals.  There are simply too many people for one organization to persuade, we need as many voices out talking about why disaster preparedness is important, and showing that it is easy and beneficial.

Work with human nature, not against it

Throw out the pictures in your presentations and materials of horrific things that happen.  There are people who do respond to pictures like that to prepare—and those people have already prepared, quite a number have worked hard to get others prepared as well.  Those pictures are a large part of why the other people aren’t preparing.  If someone takes no steps to plan for disasters it is a good sign that they are avoiding the subject, which is a natural reaction for individuals who have undergone previously traumatic experiences.  Our goal needs to be to present specific risks that individuals face, and provide guidance on ways to reduce the risks.  This can be done without showing disturbing pictures. 

It’s Heavy Man, Lighten Up 

Recognize the weighty nature of the information that you are providing and add as much balance as you can to keep things positive.  Disasters are simply part of life, in the Puget Sound area the earthquakes, volcanoes and flooding directly contribute to why it is so beautiful there, you can’t have one without the other.  The good news is the choices we make can radically influence our outcomes in disasters—we can each make choices that decrease the likelihood of being hurt by all of the disasters.

On ‘Closing Schools’ and Animal Wiring

I was asked if I felt the closing of schools was rash.

In situations like this week, when the perception is that there is a dangerous bug going around, it is logical to switch to situations where you can take easy steps to reduce risks when you can. The far better thing to do than closing the schools is to switch to distance learning until the bug plays itself out–they can’t though since too few people thought it through before –which is the EXACT same thing for all disaster preparedness, there are ways to reduce each and every risk-usually to the point of them not being a risk anymore, usually by doing things that are not that difficult. I have been thinking about the reasons why it is so hard for us as humans to do.

Human behavior has 3 instincts that intersect. 1. if we think we see danger, our systems kind of shut down and we stay focused on it–imagine a horse in a field that thinks it sees something, or a deer. We are the same way–we can’t turn away from the train wreck. (which helps explain why it has been so effective for news to use that ‘hint of a threat’ to encourage 24 hour veiwing.
2. We subconsciously avoid/distrust things we think might be threat-I avoid the dentist since I know it has the direct threat of pain–this despite realizing that there is more future pain caused by my actions–I know that on a rational level, but in this case my subconscious takes the reigns and I have to really force myself to do the logical thing and go in.
3. We have a hard time objectively thinking about future risks. Studies have demonstrated again and again that we can have a very clear assessment of how poorly our odds are, but still, inside, feel that we’ll be OK, that it won’t be so bad, that it won’t happen to me. I think it exists because of the other two–once we sense a risk we go into ‘irrational mode’ and start avoiding them–think of the level of vulnerability you are feeling right now–have you very well may have found yourself thinking in the last week: ‘does that person look sick?’ ‘Maybe I shouldn’t go out’. We face risks each and every day–crossing the street is a risk, eating is a risk–imagine if we focused on it, and had our ‘obsessively focus and avoid’ instincts triggered–it is impossible to live that way.

I think it is important to notice that our systems prioritize functioning and getting on with your lives as more important than constant risk assessment and avoidance–it’s because the fear of risks and the way we respond do us more harm than the actual threats that exist in the world.

Lucky for us, that we are humans, and we are able to actually over-rule the irrational and illogical impulses we have to try to move away from sub-conscious inclinations to view things objectively. We will all live better if we all teach ourselves to objectively assess what risks exist in our environment and find ways to sustainably avoid them–and almost each and every time, the answer to that is finding ways to just step out of their way.

I say sustainably avoid them–our ego & pride (more instincts) lead us into thinking that we can change the world to irradicate the danger, usually by adopting some project that is going to require fundign and focus for hundreds of years to stay safe–funding and focus that will be gone probably within a single generation–so, we end up changing the world in a way that we set up a greater danger than we avoided. Building our communities and lives in a way that identifies real risks and simply builds somewhere else, or lives somewhere else is so much smarter than just doing anything, any way and trying to alter the geological/hydrological/atmospheric processes to fit what we want to do. (The natural processes of our planet have been doing what they want to do as long as the planet has been here, call be crazy, but I don’t think they even know we are here, much less show any willingness to stop doing them simply because we don’t want them to.)

Find risks, get out of the way=fewer bad things happening.

Recognize that losing access to critical resources–food, water, body heat, Medical Equipment/Prescription/your support network–that is a big huge gigantic verified risk in our lives, and one that is very very easy to make go away–back up supply of water, food, emergency blanket, keeping your prescription information and pharmacy phone number with you–and of course, maybe most important of all–increase your ability to be able to communicate and check status on the people, animals and things you love more than anything. If you don’t know how the most important things in your life are doing in a period of disruption, you aren’t going to be able to function.

There is a real, verifiable risk from illness that exists in our lives. Our subconscious tells us to either focus & start to fear, or to completely reject it and insist that avoiding all thoughts, thus avoiding all simple ways to reduce the liklihood of it happening, which increases the liklihood of it happening. More bad things happen=more bad things in your life.

Currently there is a real and verifiable risk from a new bug–every single year we face risks from viruses–we can save lives by reducing the transmission of these viruses, but we can only do so in a way that doesn’t cause more harm to our culture, if we can work together to allow us to institute the ability to work from alternate locations, flexible hours, distance learning–let us function in periods where travelling or working is dangerous. And of course, keep getting into the habits that really help–and teaching them as life skills: wash hands well, keep surfaces clean, stop chewing nails and rubbing eyes, decrease the liklihood of being coughed or sneezed upon by adding a bit extra space to your comfort zone.

Feelings about this flu and how to stay well

This disease outbreak is playing itself out so far as a milder version of the seasonal flu, so if the seasonal flu doesn’t provoke a high level of fear each year, than you should either decide that you will change your attitude to it, or put this one in perspective.

I’m so relieved that as a culture we don’t all notice that 36,000 people per year die related to seasonal flu, we’d be feeling like this every single flu season. That’s how things got to progress in Mexico so long without their authorities noticing, they average 700 flu deaths every single December, and 300 every April–how do you notice that a different flu is also leading to flu deaths? You will notice their deaths from flu is still lower than the average April mortality, so maybe the Swine flu is slowing things down in some way.

My worry is the impact of fear on the population, we are already in a spike of xenophobia, add that ‘and the people we don’t like might be harbingers of death’ and there is a real and true risk things can get really ugly. During the 1976 Swine Flu outbreak there was similar panic, when it passed, it turns out that the US had a single fatality from the flu, but 500 people got a paralyzing nerve disease  with 30 fatalities linked to a flaw in the vaccine–how we respond to one fear very frequently sets into motion events that do so much greater harm than the original fear.

Look to the Emergency Medical Services of our country as a reminder that it is possible to work, interact, and maintain your compassion and humanity while working very closely with people who can get you sick. What are tricks we can use–reduce the likelihood that you are going to catch something, that’s pretty easy–in the US we already prefer about 4 feet of personal space around us, they say 6 feet of space can keep you from catching an airborne virus-that’s not so hard to acheive. Where do people get in clusters? Waiting in line, during rush hour on mass transit, in waiting rooms–find ways to decrease having to do all of those.

• Do your shopping and travelling at non peak times–talk to you boss about having a little flexibility in when you start and stop work, that can make this possible (and it is considered a best practice for companies irregardless of how great it is for staying healthy)
• Call your doctor and find out if there is going to be a delay for your appointment, get in when it’s pretty much time for them to call you in.
• The wonders of the modern age mean that you can get a lot of your shopping delivered to your home–try it, a lot of the delivery services are from local producers so you could end up with higher quality food that is better for you, and also supports your local farmers (or not, both options are available on line)
• Having disaster supplies and the ability to work from locations other than a central spot can mean that if it really looks like there may be a spike, or you worry about someone with compromised health, you can hang out with your family till it is passes. Having a good internet based social network will help you feel connected in that bit when you are isolated–you only want physical isolation, social isolation can lead to longer term problems.

You want to avoid being sick by things–things like the germs your hands pick up, so that means reminding yourself to frequently wash your hands–and also, stop chewing your nails-stop chewing that pencil–if you find yourself touching your mouth, rubbing your eyes–find ways to overcome your bad habits now. You’ll benefit from that too, better looking nails, if nothing else! Keep the surfaces and equipment that a lot of people come into contact clean–wipe down counters, phones, door knobs–lucky you, your spaces will look great and everyone will envy you.

You also want to help everyone get in the habit of not sharing their germs–that means recognizing that the habits that will keep you safe from gettng sick from viruses in general are life skills–teach them early and often to your kids, adopt them into your life–work with your workplaces to make it possible to not have to go in to the office if you don’t feel well–right now, no matter what we say, we still feel like it is a noble thing to keep working through colds, keep going through sickness.  Let’s keep working through colds–from home! 

Adopt policies and procedures in your work and life, that make it possible to keep functioning from different locations–kids can learn from school or a library, caregivers can work from where their object of care is.  This will have economic and safety benefits as well, since we will be able to be productive without having to drive on icy roads, learn whether the school can stay open or not.  Poor next generation kids, no such thing as snow days.  There are very few industries that can’t find ways to improve their ability to increase flexibility on who works where.  Some fast food chains are already having the orders taken by someone far from the restaurant.  Think of just how many retail stores exist already where they never actually come in direct contact the general public–Amazon, netflix.  Think of the stores that have gained from making their workplace a hybrid: Blockbuster.  These companies didn’t adopt these policies thinking about safety and health, that is just an added bonus.

The biggest risk from this situation may well be the influence of the worry, both in your self and others. It is hard to function well when you are under stress, and pretty much all of us are under stress right now, so adding this vague feeling of danger can easily push us towards physical reactions–feeling headaches, sore–from clenching our muscles all the time–that, of course, leads to thoughts that maybe we are getting sick, which leads to more anxiety. It is easy to start changing the way you do your life, how you think about other people–trust me, these changes won’t end up helping you live a better life, instead they really risk reducing your long term health and happiness. Take some time to actually think about how you respond to stress, remember times in your life when you experienced a stressful period, but ended up feeling OK if not better at the end of it. Remind yourself that during the Spanish flu 98% of the population that got sick recovered–and that was with far worse technology than we have now. So: Not that difficult to reduce your chances of getting sick enough that you can do it, and remember that if you get sick, the most likely outcome will be that you wll feel sick, then you will feel better.

Reducing harm from disaster

There are three big ways a disaster can hurt us: 

1. It can physically hurt us or people we love
2. It can keep us from getting access to things we need to be healthy and happy
3. It can cause long term unhappiness and distress  

The disaster preparedness steps: “Make a Plan”, “Build a kit”, “Get Involved”  show how to reduce the likelihood of any of the three happening in your life.  By going through the process of planning for disasters we learn what our direct risks are so that we can avoid or reduce them.  All it takes to keep from being physically hurt by a disaster is to work to avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  This sounds simplistic, but it is possible

• We understand, so we can teach, what processes can lead to disasters, so we know how to reduce the likelihood of them happening, or how to get out of the way if they do.
• We know what areas of town and what type buildings are most affected by different types of disasters. We know, so we can teach it.
• We know how people get hurt in various scenarios, and that it takes pretty simple changes to reduce the chances of being hurt-so we can teach it!  

 Make a plan-assessing your risks and reducing them, and you have radically diffused the likelihood of you or your loved ones being hurt by a disaster. 

In periods of extreme disruption you or your household can be harmed because you can’t reach something important to your health and happiness—that can be medicine, water, food—but of course, it can also mean each other—if you don’t know how the people, animals and things that are important to you are doing you are going to be very stressed out until you do.  Building a kit by fathering supplies and information diffuses this risk too. 

Last we know that people can experience long term trauma which can greatly hinder their ability to stay healthy and built strong relationships potentially for the rest of their lives, since trauma can have a cascading affect.  The steps of Make a Plan and Build a Kit can do a lot to reduce the likelihood of being traumatized, but by getting involved, reaching out and teaching others, reaching out and making sure our businesses and whole community has the ability to be resilient and bounce back quickly—this again, can be the key to making sure we all handle the disasters and emergencies that we will be encountering together.

If you could see the future and knew someone was going to be hurt, would you act?

It sounds like the plot of a Hollywood blockbuster , but we can see the future.  We have enough data from past disasters  to determine what groups are going to face the greatest harm from the disasters in our future. 

This article was taken from my wiki: www.resilient2disaster.com. It has a section providing information to help professionals in Emergency Mangement build resilience.  One of the most important steps is to help people change their future by reaching out and showing how it can take just a few steps to diffuse the risks they face.

1. Analyze what groups in your community face the highest risks from disaster.
We know from past disasters that this group will always include:

• Difficulty getting warning about a danger: Language, limitations hearing, difficulties remembering or understanding, overwhelmed by outside factors, voluntarily isolated.
• Difficulty getting away from or reducing danger: severely limited resources, restricted mobility, difficulties understanding, unaware: overwhelmed, or not warned
• Difficulty getting help: barrier to communication, restricted mobility, afraid to ask for help, obstinant, ie won’t ask for help.
• Living in direct threat of a hazard

Sources of information:

Integrated Hazard and Census Map: FEMA Hazard Mapping https://hazards.fema.gov/femaportal/wps/portal/mmvmapviewer (information from 2002, to see hazard and census assessment, choose region and click on the area interested after selecting the information tool (an i in a circle))

2000 Census Maps and info: http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang=en

MLA Language Map: http://www.mla.org/map_single

Assess Now: Washington State Public Health Tools to create data based community assessments: http://www.assessnow.info/
Puget Sound Regional Council: King, Kitsap, Pierce and Snohomish Census characteristics: http://www.psrc.org/data/census/sf3/index.htm

Washington State Demographic Profiles from the Office of Financial Management: http://www.ofm.wa.gov/census2000/profiles/

Statistics and Sources for Professionals about individuals with functional limitations affecting their sight: http://www.afb.org/section.asp?SectionID=15&DocumentID=1367#prev

Private site that combines vast sources of publicly available data to provide tables and description of communities: http://www.city-data.com/city/Washington.html

Redfin Community Assessments

2. Find ways to communicate effectively now

Widen your perspectives:
Increase your understanding of cultural competency and disability etiquette

An ADA Guide for local governments: Making Community Emergency Preparedness and Response Programs Accessible to People with Disabilities http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/emergencyprepguide.htm

ADA Toolkit: http://www.ada.gov/pcatoolkit/toolkitmain.htm

There are multiple ways to overcome communication problems, many require advance planning.

Assess your resources! Do people you work with have personal experience and perspectives on some of the challenges facing the community. You probably work with individuals who are care givers, have overcome or are undergoing challenges, have disabilities, speak multiple languages at home. This can help improve your ability to create programs and services that make sense to a wider group of people. If you find you don’t–work to fix that–it is almost impossible to serve the population effectively if you don’t reflect the population. It can lead to group think and placing too much focus on systems and things over people.

3. Reach out and listen to others.

Public Safety organizations have the reputation of not speaking the same language as the general population, and in particular, of the population groups that face the highest risks during disasters. The best way to counter this is to not speak at all–but to listen. Create opportunities that promote dialogue between your office and individuals and groups from multiple perspectives in the community.

From ADA: Planning Ahead to Provide Effective Communication

Even before someone requests an auxiliary aid or service from your public entity, plan ahead to accommodate the communication needs of persons with disabilities. Prepare for the time when someone will request a qualified interpreter, Braille documents, video relay, or another auxiliary aid or service.

Identify local resources for auxiliary aids and services. Even if you do not think there is anyone with a disability in your community, you need to be prepared.

Find out how you can produce documents in Braille or acquire other aids or services. Technology is changing, and much of the equipment needed to ensure effective communication is less expensive than it once was. Consider whether it makes sense to procure equipment or obtain services through vendors. If your needs will be best met by using vendors, identify vendors who can provide the aids or services and get information about how much advance notice the vendors will need to produce documents or provide services.

Contract with qualified interpreter services and other providers so that interpreters and other aids and services will be available on short notice. This is especially critical for time-sensitive situations, such as when a qualified interpreter is necessary to communicate with someone who is arrested, injured, hospitalized, or involved in some other emergency.

Use this checklist to assess your agency’s ability to provide effective communication and to figure out the next steps for achieving ADA compliance.

Train employees about effective communication and how to obtain and use auxiliary aids and services. All employees who interact with the public over the telephone or in person need to know their role in ensuring effective communication.

4. Work to make connections with individuals and their support network
Work with Service Providers, Community Based Organization, Support Groups–encourage them to work together to plan for how to communicate during a disaster, and how to determine who needs help and how to get it.
Locate Communicators that fully understand the perspective and culture of the groups you need to reach.
Work with Community Based Organizations, recruit volunteers.
Resources:
How to find CBOs:
Private site: Registry of tax exempt organizations by zip code: http://www.taxexemptworld.com/search.asp?type=oz

5. Make Sure you actively work to include people with disabilities and other challenges into your emergency planning

credit crisis is a real disater

Earlier I wrote about the direct link between the aspects of human behavior that make it easy for people to buy more than they could afford and the aspects of human behavior that inclines people to ignore specific risks of disasters. 

In today’s NYTimes there is an article by Paul Krugman that really brought home just how closely the current economic situation parallels a large disaster.  Tell me if this sound familiar?:

“There was a lot of soul-searching going on. One senior policy maker asked, “Why didn’t we see this coming?…Some people say that the current crisis is unprecedented, but the truth is that there were plenty of precedents, some of them of very recent vintage…Why did so many observers dismiss the obvious signs “

Out of context they could have been talking about the aftermath of any large storm, flood, any time a piece of infrastructure fails and causes harm.

There is important parallel that we need not to miss, though.  Disasters are traumatic, and trauma is dangerous. 

In large disasters 43% or more individuals can show signs of trauma which increases the negative effects of the initial disaster exponentially. This is recognized by the American Red Cross which mobilizes hundreds of Disaster Mental Health workers to a disaster affected region from the first moments that the disaster has taken place.

Disaster Mental Health Professionals study the causes of trauma.  A person is more likely to show signs of trauma if they have undergone an experience in which the person feels that they, or a loved one was in mortal danger; needing help and feeling that no one reached out to assist; loss of income; forced relocation, or if the person has already been traumatized.   

Thankfully, the economic crisis isn’t playing out in a way that a considerable number of people feel that they are in direct mortal peril—but there are definitely a considerable number of people who are experiencing loss of income, forced relocation, lack of social support. 

Our bodies and minds respond to traumatic experiences in consistent ways, intense experiences lead to intense emotions, depression, and health effects. Some of the follow on effects of undergoing can be an increase in risky behaviors, addiction related problems from attempting to “self medicate” away from the feelings, the physiological effects can impact attendance and the ability to find employment, emotional changes can push loved ones away, individuals can lose their trust in society.   

Losing ones job and or ones house may  not seem like a dramatic event like an emergency, but it reminds me of how I felt in the weeks after September 11.  

We were living in Alexandria, VA on the outskirts of Washington DC.  We were close enough that our house shook when the plane hit the Pentagon.  I followed pretty consistent behaviors for a stressful situation, my first instinct was to get in contact with the people most important to me.  I tried and tried, but couldn’t reach my husband who was half a mile away, all of the phones were overloaded (now I know what I should have done). 

I didn’t directly experience the attack, no one I knew was hurt in it, yet a month later I was in a doctor’s office explaining that my stomach constantly hurt, It felt hard to breath and I was having heart palpitations.  Individuals do not need to be directly harmed to be hurt by an experience. 

In number terms the economic crisis has the potential of directly and indirectly impacting more people than any disaster that has been experienced.

There is a lot of focus on providing help for the companies affected, and a lot of discussion about the need to create programs to help home owners, and looking for new jobs, but I haven’t seen any talk about the likely psychological responses we can expect to see, and any talk at all about programs to provide intervention and support to help people avoid making decisions that will hold them back, that will hold all of us back, for decades to come.

frustration and joy in the life of a professional safety guru

I am one of the luckiest people around.  I get paid to do a job that I would (and did) do voluntarily.  I get paid to change the future.  My job is to work to get people to make tiny little changes in the decisions they make.  Little decisions that can mean the difference between experiencing great horror or great adventure as the world and the laws of physics do what they do.

I am a disaster educator, a ’subject matter expert on emergency preparedness’ with the American Red Cross in Seattle.  I am quite lucky to have that position, there aren’t many in the country, and there are a lot of very talented people that I work and interacti with in the field.   On Thanksgiving I spent a lot of time thinking about just how lucky I have been.  Of course, it is natural for people to feel lucky during stable periods of their life.  That is distinctly unlucky for the disaster educator, the fact people are inclined to feel lucky makes our job so much harder.

The only thing certain in life is death, taxes and natural disasters, but people have only internalized the ‘death and taxes’ part, the majority of people are still in denial about disasters. This isn’t surprising.  We are naturally inclined to expect the future is going to be OK, wouldn’t it be worse if we weren’t.  This inclination is used by salespeople with great effect–somewhere deep down inside we know that our 7 year ARM mortgage loans won’t be affordable  after the 7 years, but we buy the house anyway sure that something will work out by then.  We can’t really afford the payments of our TV that will be starting in a year, after we put zero down–but a year is a long way away-something will work out.  The credit lenders deep down inside knew that there would come the day when all of the payments came due at the same time–but they were sure that when it did, surely it wouldn’t be so bad. 

One of the biggest difficulties in working to build resilience in a community through education is avoiding the urge to spend all the time talking with people who are already on board and counting that as success.  In my experience, 90% of the people who reach out and request education already have done most of the work of getting ready.  They already get it, being aware of the resources available to them, like free classes, is part of that process.  The people who need the most help are the ones least interested in hearing about it.

We avoid thinking about disasters, but we do seek out others, crave and create connections,  seek information.   Connection, communication, searching out information–these are all critical for resilience. 

Human nature puts barriers in the path of all of the safety gurus out there, but it also creates paths for those willing to look.