How long does it take to stop feeling terrorised?
March 27, 2016 5:38 AM   Subscribe

I live in Brussels and was here on Tuesday and very close to the Maelbeek attack. While not directly affected it was all a bit close to home. How long does it take to get over the shock and stress from being close to but not directly affected by terrorism and get back to functioning more or less normally?

At the moment I have disturbed sleep and my concentration is gone to pieces. I go between feeling numb and having moments of intense feelings. I am normally a pretty resilient person. Assume I am eating well, talking to people, controlling time spent on media etc..

How long can I expect this to disrupt my life? What are some strategies I can use while getting over it?

Links to thoughtful writing by people who have had similar experiences welcome.
posted by roolya_boolya to Health & Fitness (11 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Sorry to hear that you are going through this.

In New York, after 9/11, I would say it took a few years before things totally got back to normal. However, a lot of people that I know went and got help (therapy) for a few months after, and that seemed to help a lot.

Good luck to you.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:32 AM on March 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


I mean, I'm still not really over September 11. I went to therapy for panic attacks (which I still have though not to an unmanageable level) but still I refuse to watch any movies / read any books about it and kinda hide from my PTSD. I was always rather a pacifist but the idea of bombing people gets me irrationally upset, because I remember what it was like here, and that was just one day ever. I think it is never normal again. You should be not like me and go talk to a therapist, but I would say your life is just different now.

Sorry I can't be more optimistic.
posted by dame at 7:00 AM on March 27, 2016 [6 favorites]


Events like these can lead to PTSD.
If you continue to suffer hypervigilance, intrusive thoughts, anxiety and panic you should just get treated. Sooner is better. There are some studies that say taking heavier benzodiazepines like Valium around the time of an event can help people avoid development of PTSD.
Figure out some way to calm yourself, but don't let it go too long.
I had active PTSD for about 2 years before a therapist properly treated me. EMDR is the current go-to method to treat it. Talk therapy did not help me but EMDR helped immediately.

So the answer is years. You could live a lifetime feeling afraid. Get some kind of help, even if you think it's not that bad. This kind of thing can fester and haunt you forever.
posted by littlewater at 7:43 AM on March 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


Feeling traumatized after a trauma is completely normal, and should fade with time. It's when severe symptoms last longer than "normal" that it's considered a disorder; PTSD shouldn't even be diagnosed unless flashbacks, dissociation, hypervigilance, and other symptoms have lasted at least a month since the traumatic event happened. (And with something like ongoing terrorism, it's hard to define an exact endpoint for the traumatic event.)

The US Department of Veteran Affairs has a pretty good website on PTSD and trauma (even non-combat related), and their PTSD Coach phone app (linked on that page) has helpful strategies for dealing with trauma-related anxiety.

I often think that part of the reason trauma gets "stuck" is that people put a lot of pressure on themselves to "get over it" a bit too quickly. It's normal to be traumatized right now -- something traumatic just happened. If the symptoms keep diminishing and aren't significantly interfering with your daily life, it may be ok to wait a few weeks and see if your body and mind are able to do their work and resolve them. If the symptoms are not diminishing, are lasting longer than a few weeks, or are significantly interfering with your daily life, that might indicate a need for more formal professional support.
posted by lazuli at 8:21 AM on March 27, 2016 [8 favorites]


I was in the Loma Preita earthquake in Northern California. My freeway pancaked.

I worked on restoring telephone services after Hurricanes Andrew and Katrina.

I lived in San Francisco in the eighties and had SO MANY of my friends die of AIDS.

These things have forever changed me.

I am simultaneously more sensitive and less sensitive in a weird variety of ways.

All I can tell you is that scary, bad things happen and some of us survive them. All we can do is appreciate each day, and try to enjoy ourselves because things are pretty random.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 8:51 AM on March 27, 2016 [7 favorites]


As time passes you will construct some sort of context that lets you relate to this event on a personal level. When that happens the intensity and numbing will become less of a roller-coaster ride. Right now fear is your most obvious issue. But the numbing you describe is at least as important. You may feel as though you no longer control your emotions. In truth emotions are not logical, but they can to a certain degree be manipulated by reasoning.

After a life-threatening event, the original numbing seems to fade and give way to a complex range of emotional reactions: fear and rage, for example. Other ideation may follow. In severe cases the body's chemical response is tweaked, so that we can become disturbed over things that normally wouldn't bother us very much. In the long run, this chemical imbalance may inspire a cluster of other emotional issues, providing a base for a complicated Gordian's Knot of things that are not really problems in themselves, but fog up your emotional landscape.

These are some highlights in the wonderful world of PTSD. It's not a broken bone, so it comes in a vanishingly wide range of complexity and intensity. Some versions of PTSD are not "curable." Mostly what happens is that you come to grips with the symptoms, after you've identified them, and in time they lessen in intensity, and sometimes some or all of them will disappear. For example, in the worst case scenario panic attacks never relent, but if you can be aware of the triggers, you may learn to take steps to avoid disasters. I believe what you described to be on the less severe end of the symptoms of PTSD. This does not mean that I believe your symptoms are trivial.

Anyhow, trauma counselors ought to have insight into managing what you have described. We get to throw terms around as if we actually know what we are doing, and I suppose many MeFites are schooled in this stuff. I can relate only what has happened to me; it's not what happened to you, but the common ground we share is a life-threatening event, and a scattershot of symptoms that seem to evade reason. The kicker here is that the life-threatening event doesn't have to be focused directly on you for it to affect you.

Good luck.
posted by mule98J at 9:43 AM on March 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


You also may benefit from reclaiming a sense of control, especially by doing a physical action. Go outside and run. Break some dishes. Take a karate class. Something that enables your animal self to enact the self preservation measures that it was designed for. Your body needs to release this trauma energy in order to move forward.

A good book about this is Waking the Tiger.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 11:38 AM on March 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


After the Paris attacks last year it took me a few months to stop freaking out so much, and be able to talk about it to acquaintances without making them feel uncomfortable. I think the heightened security afterwards made it take longer, as it's disconcerting to have heavily armed police everywhere. Hugs to you.
posted by ellieBOA at 1:10 PM on March 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


It took me a few years to feel better after the London bombings and I wasn't in London at the time (a few hours north) but two of the attacks were within blocks of my office and I had friends directly involved. As it happened I left London (long planned) a few days after the attacks and while that had benefits, I really regretted not going through the healing with everyone there.

Yes, PTSD affects people who weren't directly there. I wish I'd known or trusted this and gotten help. I didn't feel worthy because I wasn't there. But I still saw some very distressing things in the aftermath and in general I am prone to depression and anxiety. It was maybe five years later when I was talking to a psychologist about something else that I described my reactions in the aftermath and she very gently said it sounded like PTSD. I'd pretty much self diagnosed by that point but itreally helped to have that validation.

Being a resilient person will help. The stuff you mention now is what I felt in the 'acute' period after the attacks and it did fade and my concentration and sleep went back to normal. I hope yours does too. But watch out for stuff down the track and please seek help of a therapist if it arises. Months afterwards I started bursting into tears any time I heard sirens, plus I developed panic attacks when flying. Basically my anxiety levels were permanently raised and any little thing would set me off.

Best wishes to you.
posted by kitten magic at 3:03 PM on March 27, 2016


In a way, your question is both existential and personal. Those of us who live in big international cities live with the threat of terror every day. 9/11 changed my life forever, and I wasn't even in New York. But the days of not knowing where friends and family were and the whole craziness that erupted — I won't say I became more fearful, I am much less fearful than the people I know who never lived in New York and for whom I am the only person they know who has ever been in New York. But I am more edgy, more sensitive and more prone to recurrent stress and depression. And it severed my relation to my immediate surroundings, because they went on about all sorts of irrelevant stuff about Muslims and wars and clashes of civilisations (and they are still doing that, all these years later), while I couldn't figure out how to talk with those of my friends who were actually on Lower Manhattan that day, because I wasn't.
When there was a terrorist attack in Copenhagen, where I live now, I was away again, but several friends were right in the middle of it, again. At least this time I'm still talking with my friends.
I avoid public transportation during rush-hours, and I study survivors' stories to learn what to do to avoid being killed. In other words, I've become neurotic.
This is turning into a rant. What I want to say is that I think therapy would be helpful. Just suddenly being giving an opportunity to write this helps. Maybe I should sign up right away. Or what kitten magic said.
posted by mumimor at 3:31 PM on March 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


My spouse lived in Lower Manhattan in 2001, and had a period of acute stress-- felt terrible, slept with the radio on at night "just in case" there was a need to suddenly evacuate, etc., but it passed after a few months and doesn't come up now. One thing about looking for information about this on the internet is, the people most compelled to write about it are probably the people who have suffered the most from post-traumatic symptoms, so you might get a bit of a pessimistic look at the future if you Google for this.

Most people who live through trauma don't get PTSD; of women who live through trauma, about 1 in 5 get PTSD, and in men it's more like 1 in 15. And some people after trauma experience not just suffering but a phenomenon called PTG -- post traumatic growth.

Anyway, I guess my point is that it's too soon to say how long this will affect you, or exactly how it will affect you. Rhythmic exercise is good immediately following a disruption, as is socializing, but it sounds like you know that. Counseling could be good but I'm sure you know that too. Be as kind and gentle with yourself as is possible. I'm sorry you're going through this and wish you the best.
posted by hungrytiger at 1:21 AM on March 28, 2016 [2 favorites]


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