The article has been automatically translated into English by Google Translate from Russian and has not been edited.

'Our youth was destroyed': a former schoolgirl on how the 9/11 attack broke the lives of New York children

'11.09.2019'

Source: Fortune

When the Twin Towers burned and collapsed, I tried to escape from my school, which was three blocks from the disaster, to my home - also a couple of blocks from the World Trade Center. We were not evacuated, and we had limited access to food, medicine, electricity, telephone and other basic necessities for several weeks. I was 12 years old. I and my classmates still have not experienced this horror to the end, - says New Yorker Elaina Howitz.

Фото: Depositphotos

I was one of the few who sought and tried therapy almost immediately after 11 of September 2001, the young woman tells the publication Fortune. However, my teenage years were marked by years of chaos, misdiagnosis, and medications for conditions that I didn't actually have. My first therapist mentioned that she saw signs of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but no other psychotherapist or psychiatrist spoke about this afterwards.

Most of my classmates did not seek professional help. At the end of my last year of college, when the 10 anniversary of September 11 was approaching, I decided to write a book about my experience and started contacting my former classmates to find out what happened to them. In many interviews, I heard about struggle and pain, very similar to my experiences.

“I thought I would never be normal like my friends. I couldn't just relax and have fun. I immediately panicked if plans changed, ”one person said.

Photo: video frame Facebook / PBS NewsHour

“What seemed like a small problem to others was a tragedy for me. I felt branded, hurt, traumatized and insane. It was never easy to get upset - it went on for hours, days and months, ”said another.

Today, 18 years after 11 September, many are only now feeling that their wounds have opened. People who were 11, 12 and 13 during the attacks, and are now approaching 30, begin to notice these invisible scars and seek help.

Since I boldly and often share my story, I can understand them, and they contact me. After listening to these people, I understand that we still have a lot of work to do.

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Often an undiagnosed, anxiety disorder still torments hundreds of thousands of adults who lived, worked and went to school in Lower Manhattan at that time, and it was extremely hard on the children of those times. There are people around the world who have survived school shootings, immigration injuries, natural disasters and other tragedies who do not know that they have PTSD and how to live with it.

Yesterday I received a long Facebook message from my former best friend from high school who I lost touch with shortly after graduating from high school. When I interviewed her 10 years ago, she said that she had not even recognized her condition yet - then she had nothing to say, she believed that she had not suffered in any way. Now she is struggling to find the right therapist and feels overwhelmed by the memories.

This is not the first former classmate of mine to write to me this year. Two months ago, another elementary school girl contacted me to say that she, too, is just now beginning to understand that she is dealing with the aftermath of an injury. It's common - PTSD can take years or even decades if we bury it deep enough.

Her name is Emily Sassell and one of the few images you can find on the Internet is of her and her mother running from the crumbling first tower. She told me that immediately after the event, she had frequent nightmares.

 

“I dream that towers are burning and falling, or other disasters that threaten my safety and the safety of my family,” she said.

After about a year, she became very depressed. A few years later, she became addicted to drugs, which she now admits was used to ease emotional pain. One summer, while working in a summer camp, she experienced a panic attack when she heard a loud rumble, which, as she later understood, was a thunder. Her body, she told me, "automatically ran to save her life." In a panic, the girl ran for several minutes before she realized that she was the only one who was running and crying.

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Nothing helped until she met a man who had also experienced the trauma and knew a lot about it. With him, she found a safe space to start talking about it. She began to attend therapy and now it became much easier for her - according to the girl, she recovered and now feels compassion for what she went through. She was also helped by the practice and teaching of yoga.

Фото: Depositphotos

Another classmate, Fuchsia Corbin, approached me to ask about the symptoms and signs of PTSD in the immediate aftermath and years after 11/XNUMX. According to her, the girl felt that she was dealing with PTSD, but could not cope with the symptoms. “We drank a lot and had fun, isolated ourselves from people and skipped work,” Fuchsia admitted. This was not typical for her, but it was typical for trauma survivors. These people are constantly faced with increased alertness, "fight or flight" bodily reactions to triggers such as crowds or certain sounds and images.

For Fuchsia, the idea that she should be in therapy was almost acceptable, but something held her back - partly, she says, is denial. For a long time, she believed that it was not the experience she had experienced - it was just that something was wrong with herself. At the age of 30, she was able to talk about it and is ready to receive help.

Right now, millions of children and adults with trauma are doing their best to stay afloat. They think that something is wrong with them, that such is life, that you just have to go through it - but it doesn't help, it only gets worse. The choices they make can be dangerous and harmful, which will only exacerbate the injury.

People are sustainable. As far as I know, not one of my former classmates committed suicide, but many struggled to forget about the events of September 11. But this day was an extremely personal and profound horror for all of us, and carrying it alone is hard enough, as a result, without breaking.

Фото: Depositphotos

 

Being bold doesn't mean burying the past. This means that you need to come to terms with him, find support so that the past does not affect the quality of our life in the future. We need to know that our condition is influenced by what happened, and not who we are. Of course, tragedy has affected who we think we are and the choices we make. Once it happened, this catastrophe shaped the most defining years of our lives, striking us at the edge of adolescence as our minds developed and absorbed everything around us.

But now that we are adults and have the resources and capabilities, everything is in our hands. We can take back control of our lives. We can find a better way for ourselves right now.

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