Terror of Sept. 11 continues to take its toll

BY ALEXIS SWERDLOFF

STEVE YBARRA/YH A student consoles her friend after the devestating Tues., Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. Many students have struggled with depression in the wake of the attacks.

"Hello?" her mother answered. She had been in the World Trade Center 20 minutes before the first plane crashed.

Although her family and friends are safe, Bhatia has been having trouble sleeping since that day. "A few nights ago I dreamt that I was on a plane and suddenly it swerved around and started heading in the opposite direction," she said. "Everyone started screaming and I didn't understand why. Then I suddenly realized that it was because we were all going to crash into a building and die. What made the dream so frightening is that it felt so incredibly real."

Bhatia is not alone. According to a national poll conducted last week, 71 percent of Americans are feeling depressed in the wake of the Sept.11 attacks and 49 percent are having difficulty concentrating. Although no such numbers are available for the Yale campus, students have clearly been shaken. Many students are simply in a state of shock. Jackie Kessler, ES '04, who is from New York City and used to have a view of the World Trade Center from her apartment, said, "The shock of what happened has definitely taken some time to settle in. I was initially so relieved that my family and friends were fine that the scope of what had happened didn't really hit me until the second day. On that day, after I got back from my classes, the brunt of the tragedy really hit. I basically sat on my bed for 10 hours straight in complete shock."

In the hours after the attack, the University struggled to make special counselors available to students. According to Lorraine Siggins, chief psychiatrist for Yale University Health Services and clinical Professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, the number of students seeking mental health has increased over the last two weeks.

While the symptoms of depression vary from student to student, Siggins noticed some trends. "One of the things that often happens at a time of tragedy is that the event stirs up previous losses or previous sorts of unexpected and tragic situations." She said "People in general tend to feel more vulnerable." Siggins has also noticed a disruption of sleep in some students. This is normal, she said, and is also a national trend. According to the same national poll, 34 percent of Americans are experiencing insomnia as a result of the terrorist attacks.

Barbara Stuart, an english professor who teaches two sections of English 120, noticed that on the day of the attacks, the students in her 11:30 a.m. class—mostly freshmen—were ashen. Stuart said that many of her students chose to write about the attacks for their personal essay assignments. "I noticed in the essays that I read that people are feeling guilty—a sort of survivor guilt." People are happy to be alive, but at the same time feel shame at having survived when others did not. Bhatia explained, "as a New Yorker who was not in New York on September 11, I feel guilty. I feel like I should have been there with my family and friends, in my home town."

Siggins pointed out that guilt is one of the most common feelings associated with tragedies like the events of Sept. 11. In response to this, she said, "I think that the fact that you are going about your life doesn't mean that you're taking lightly the tragedy that occurred or you're any less sad or devastated about what has happened." She said that people have to "increase their coping mechanisms" and learn how to strike a balance—they must continue with the daily business of their lives, but they must also face their feelings about the tragedy.

Clearly, students are having difficulty striking this balance. "More than depression I've noticed a feeling of frustration," Stuart said. "We're caught up in something that we allow to overshadow the tragedy. There is a sense of `what can I do? I have homework that needs to be done.'"

The way to cope with these feelings, Siggins said, "is to connect with family and friends and feel support from a larger group of people. It is important to spend time with anyone who provides stability." She has noticed that students "have started to reach out to family and friends that they may not have had much contact with before the Sept. 11 incident. I'm seeing a renewed effort to strengthen these ties."

Siggins stressed that "at this point, the more one can normalize one's life, normalize one's routines, the better." Watching the news obsessively and constantly talking about the attacks may not be the quickest way to recovery. Nationally, 63 percent of Americans admit they have been "obsessively" watching television coverage of the attacks and the ensuing investigation."Often it is necessary to pace how much news you are watching...while watching TV and getting information can be very helpful for some people, make sure that you do other things as well," Siggins said. Above all, she said that coping methods differ from person to person. "Get to know yourself and what works for you," she said.

Beyond the emergency counseling on the day of the attacks, Yale has continued to provide extra resources for students. Siggins said "One of our mental health clinicians has been in each college. In the first week we had the department open until 11 at night and people could walk in." She added, "Community support has been the most important thing. Chaplains, Masters, Deans, and faculty advisors have been very proactive in trying to arrange group meetings. The services and the vigil were very important for personal and community support." The University has also planned a discussion on the aftermath of Sept. 11 on Fri., Sept. 28. Topics discussed will include acute reactions to the disaster and how they are treated, post-traumatic stress disorder, children's reactions to the events and how they should be addressed, and ways to help friends who are very upset.

In Washington, government leaders are struggling to provide similar support for the rest of America. At a Senate Health and Education Committee hearing on Wednesday, mental health experts warned of the lasting effects of the attacks.

"The unprecedented scope and magnitude of the... terrorist attacks can be expected to generate unprecedented mental health consequences, distributed far more widely than in any disaster in American history," Carol North, a psychiatry professor at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, said.

"Without new investments, our current system will be unequipped to meet the profound needs," Michael Faenza, president of the National Mental Health Association, added.

Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), chairman of the Health and Education Committee, said he worried about private insurance companies "skimping or rationing" mental health care coverage and added that a "significant part" of federal disaster relief funds should be distributed to states to cover the cost of counseling.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) had hoped to pass legislation on Mon., Oct. 1 that would have forced many health plans to expand their coverage for mental health services. A bill sponsored by Senators Paul Wellstone (D-MN) and Pete Domenici (R-NM) and co-sponsored by 63 other senators, would have forced large health plans to treat mental health benefits the same as medical and surgical benefits.

On Thurs., Sept. 27, two key Republican leaders complained the legislation would be too costly and have effectively stalled consideration of the bill. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would increase insurance premiums by about one percent. Daschle said he hopes to reconsider the Wellstone-Domenici bill next month.

Meanwhile, people across the country continue to cope with the tragedy in their own ways. Billy Parish, MC '04, went home to New York City for the weekend. "Seeing hundreds of bouquets of flowers, candles, and notes left at my local fire station—which lost nine firefighters—was really upsetting, but at the same time uplifting," he said. "My neighborhood felt like a community in a way that it never has before." Parish added that he has been listening Bob Dylan's album, World Gone Wrong. He said, "I can't shake the feeling that the world is wrong in pretty serious ways."

Zander Dryer and Laura Periscope contributed to this article.

Back to News...