DEALING WITH THE PSYCHOLOGICAL AFTERMATH OF A TERRORIST ATTACK - Part 9

THE RIPPLE EFFECTS OF MASS TRAUMA


After a terrorist attack such as Christchurch, there are some obvious victims like the deceased and the injured. However, another way of looking at the above numbers is that there were about 50 (some victims were related) families who lost a loved one in an extremely traumatic manner, and there were about 50 families whose loved ones received gunshot injuries.


On the Life Events Scale loss of a spouse is rated as causing the highest level of distress, and in ChCh there were over 30 women who were widowed as result of the attacks, many children who lost their fathers, and in some cases husbands who lost their wives. Their pain and suffering is difficult to imagine for us who haven’t had a traumatic experience like that.


There were all the neighbours who sheltered the people running away from the mosques and who witnessed/heard the gunfire in such close proximity to their homes. There were all the bystanders who received vicarious trauma. There were volunteers from the local Muslim community who for next several weeks, and months in some cases, spent every moment in trying to bring relief to the survivors and surviving families. One volunteer told me several months later that she had been so busy that she still hadn’t had had time to grieve properly. When it becomes too much she just goes to a quiet place and keeps crying and wailing till she feels she is ready to get back to work.


continued...

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