Jackson Free Press

I would daresay during the past two weeks, most of the population of Mississippi has been stressed out. In graduate school I once had a professor who made it her mission to dispel ideas about language that she believed weren't very conducive to true communication. The word "stress" was one of them—focusing most of her time convincing us that the idea of stress was a social construct, much like the idea of race. There were days toward the end of the semester where I truly felt what my mouth might not be able to explain as "stress," but my body would have absolutely no problem pinning down.

Your body is a good barometer for what you are feeling and experiencing at any point in time. Two days after Katrina hit land, my back felt like someone had it in a vise. I wasn't living at home, eating my food or sleeping in my bed. My logical mind was fine with holing up at a friend's house and going about my daily routine as much as was possible, but my body was holding space for the internal stress that was pounding on it daily.

There are very complex things that happen to both your body and mind after a traumatic event. Your mind tries to attribute meaning to the event, while your body holds the memories of the event. If you want to process the event in a healthy manner, you must pay attention to all of these things. Traumatic stress can take a major toll on both.

During most dangerous situations, your body shoots adrenaline into your blood stream. This is to help you perform at a level for which the situation calls. It keeps you going. One thing most people don't know is that adrenaline leaves a lasting impression on your memory and brain processes. Usually a situation that requires lots of adrenaline is one that has the ability to be very harmful to our body. Our body wants to remember that so we can remove ourselves from that situation if it ever occurs again.

This is pure survival instinct. This overload of adrenaline has a profound effect on the brain's memory-making process. It imprints the memories of that situation more graphically than other situations. Let's just say that you were in a hurricane and almost drowned. You will remember that event more vividly than getting an oil change for the car. This isn't specifically because to your mind the "drowning" is more important than getting an oil change. Technically, to the brain, they are both just events, but the adrenaline the body produced during the dangerous event actually causes it to remember and relive that event more vividly than other non-adrenaline producing ones. This is the foundation of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Not only does adrenaline cause stronger memory formation, but it also places stress on the body. It raises the heart rate, blood pressure and all those other things doctors say shouldn't get raised for longer than four hours straight. After four days of being completely filled with adrenaline, the brain short circuits. It can't take the constant stimulation. The higher brain functioning starts to go away. These higher functions are ones that cause you to think logically, to care about the welfare of others; the ones that are responsible for "civil society."

This is when you begin to operate in survival mode—and I don't mean that in the "kill the animal, skin the hide, let's all live in a tent in the woods" sort of way. This is some of what we saw happening in the ravaged areas. But there is a lesser version I believe all of us are experiencing right now. It's usually something I refer to as "autopilot." Most people I know have been on autopilot since this storm hit. They aren't looting and shooting people, but they have a shell-shocked look on their face and aren't quite as nice about the disappearance of liquor that happens when I visit. I say that in jest, but this is very serious. If this traumatic stress isn't dealt with, it can have lasting detrimental effects on your mental health. It is during this time that you really must care for your body and your mind.

On the Saturday following Katrina, I got a pedicure and my roots bleached. Now that everybody thinks I'm a selfish bitch, I'll explain why I don't feel guilty. I knew that two days following I would return to my job as a social worker and that my life was going to be consumed with dealing with people in abject misery and poverty due to the storm. As much as that isn't my reality, I will suffer stress just hearing about it. This is called secondary trauma—something a lot of us residents who aren't from the Coast, but who are still dealing with the aftermath of the storm, are feeling. I knew that in order to function well at my job, and help people, I must be in good physical and mental shape. Pedicures and blonde roots make me happy.

It is during times like these that the body needs more care than ever. The best thing that can be done for high stress levels is good body care. People should get eight hours of sleep at night, eat healthy foods and concentrate on relaxing as much as possible. I know this sounds hard when you are involved in relief efforts or living on an air mattress in a shelter. But, these are the things we need most in order to move past a major trauma. I understand that if I'm not at my best, I won't be any good for anyone else.

As much as people love to begin talking of rebuilding immediately after an event such as this, there must be time to sit amid the rubble, hug ourselves and grieve for what was lost. We must also understand that, while I may be ready to start laying new bricks, there are others who are still holding the ones that fell apart. People are sad. People are angry. People are reliving those two days they were trapped in their attic with their dead spouse. These people are in our grocery stores, in our schools and sitting in the pew next to us at their new church.

Now, more than ever, we have to be gentle with ourselves and others. It is times like these where we show the nation that we are the Hospitality State. But I'd hate for us to all be hospitalized because of our hospitality. It is important that you care for yourself just as much as Mississippians have always cared for others.

Be well, Mississippi. We have a long road ahead of us.

Previous Comments

ID

84371

Comment

I would just like for everyone to know that is NOT a picture of me. Just so, LIKE MY OWN MOTHER, you wouldn't think that it was. MY OWN MOTHER thought that was me. She either looks a whole hell of a lot like me, or my mother has issues. I'm voting on the latter. This woman GAVE me my face, and she can't tell it from some "other blonde" in a newspaper. ;)

Author

Lori G

Date

2005-09-15T14:42:24-06:00

ID

84372

Comment

That's hilarious. ;-D

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-09-15T15:17:46-06:00

ID

84373

Comment

And just so people don't think I LIVE what I preach, I just lost my mind at work. I literally have already worked over forty hours this week. Held a conference for over two hundred, done two process groups, talked down a suicidal kid, admitted another to a crisis facility...and returned forty phone calls. Oh, I'm sorry...that was just TODAY. I would just like for everyone to know (because I have no shame) that I had my "official post hurricane" freak out at work today and cried like I was twelve years old after yelling a little. When I SERIOUSLY contemplated pulling over in front of the abortion clinic (after riding past there four times in the past two days on purpose to flip off the protestors) and BEATING SOMEONE'S ASS I realized it was time for me to come home. I'm now at home...and I know that Emily B wrote a column about her post hurricane freak out...I would welcome everyone that actually reads my drivel to tuck their fear in their pocket...and tell us about your post-hurricane freak out. Or, if you've had it yet. If you haven't, I recommend you do. I think it gets worse the longer you wait. So, tell me stories, people.

Author

Lori G

Date

2005-09-15T15:24:14-06:00

ID

84374

Comment

Yeah, those protesters from Kansas City are something else. I guess there truly is nothing more important in the world, or in the South, that they could be enged in THIS MONTH. And they all look so damn rich.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-09-15T15:32:05-06:00

ID

84375

Comment

I'm still waiting, so it'll be a biggy. In the meantime, Ali, get the candles and incense out and draw yourself a bath, dahling.

Author

Steph

Date

2005-09-15T15:33:18-06:00

ID

84376

Comment

Okay. The official day was the Thursday during the gas scare. And I left work early to get gas, and my son was staying at the boyfriend's house, so I was trying to get home at a decent hour to relieve him of his chivalry. I waited in line at a BP. After an hour, when I was five cars away, they ran out of gas. I went down the road a bit, waited thirty or so minutes, and they ran out of gas. Repeat. Repeat. Then I got in a HUGE line and noticed there were no policemen around and people were near front-ending me to cut line. And my tank was almost to the "E" light coming on. So then I think, if we're out of gas, we're going to be out of food! So I went to the grocery and bought tons of Ravioli and Diet Coke. Then I went to get my kid. The boyfriend then asked, "Didn't you get gas?" I was all, "Yeah. It sounds real simple doesn't it. Just get some gas. All you need is gas. Just put some gas in your tank." (I think I may have even sounded Adam Sanders-ish) I knew the kids had been fighting all day, I had not talked to my ex-husband in a week and then I realized that if the end DOES come, all we have to eat is Ravioli. I thought I'm in this all by myself and there is no one to help me even after the boyfriend had played video games with my kid all day. And my kid wouldn't go to the bathroom by himself because he was "scared" because there are naked barbies in the bathroom (again...we were staying with other people most of the time...no sense of place) And he kept looking at maps and asking where we are and where is the flood water. That day the world had become two people to me. Those who had compassion and those who didn't and I didn't have a real good sense of who belonged where. I shut myself in the boyfriend's computer room and cried a whole lot. I called Ali and asked a valid question about a deadline and then felt better because she was like, "Oh God. It's insane out there." My thoughts exactly!

Author

emilyb

Date

2005-09-15T16:17:38-06:00

ID

84377

Comment

But THEN. Monkey and I went home and later the boyfriend called and he was in line for gas. And he was PISSED because people were acting stupid for GAS and then they ran out. I laughed the Simpsons "HA! HA!" laugh. Karma's a beotch isn't she? I found out my internet was back up so I emailed all my girlfriends and urged them to join me in issuing a mass "promise" for gas. "You are for my gas tank or against my gas tank" were my words. The next day I found out my church needed help, so I got to put some energy there. Much better. The Monkey and I got in line for gas at an unGodly hour, and the second we got in line, he had to go to the bathroom. Typical. So he ran over to the park and took care of things, and it was funny. Then a policeman came by and asked, "Are you a doctor or a nurse?" I thought, "I put a man through pharmacy school...does that count?" I called the boyfriend who was several cars behind me and said, "You're in a Lexus! Say you're a doctor!" (Disclaimer: It was for laughs. We would NEVER do that.) And he responded, "I can't. My shirt says, 'Your problem is you are stupid." So there. I freaked out. And then it was funny.

Author

emilyb

Date

2005-09-15T16:17:46-06:00

ID

84378

Comment

Took me three days to figure out what the hell the Kansas protesters were doing. I figured they were evacuees, standing in line for aid. Swung by today and they were wearing tape over their mouths. Ooo-kayyyy. A little kinky for me, but whatever makes them happy, I guess. At least there weren't any lovingly rendered paintings of minced fetuses on giant posters. None that I saw, anyway. And it could have been the angle, but I thought I saw some surprisingly low necklines for the anti-abortion crowd--putting the fun back in fundamentalism, as it were. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2005-09-15T23:39:20-06:00

ID

84379

Comment

That settles it. I am making pictures with a giant womb and vagina on it that says "MINE" and taking up resident on the sidewalk outside.

Author

Lori G

Date

2005-09-16T09:01:24-06:00

ID

84380

Comment

...which is another thing. Giant, exaggerated, horrifically violent paintings depicting chopped up six-month-old babies (which we are supposed to imagine to be fetuses) are constitutionally protected speech, but if someone walked around with a rendering of a vagina, they'd be arrested. What a sick, sick world we live in. Don't get me wrong; I respect the pro-life movement. I understand the philosophical dilemma here, the possibility that fetuses might be a separate person in addition to being part of the woman's body. Some of my best friends are pro-lifers, or have pro-life sympathies. I, personally, look forward to the day when abortion is no longer a reality--when birth control has advanced to the point where it can be rejected as the obsolete, barbaric practice that it is. But the fact remains that a woman's crotch should not fall under criminal jurisdiction. The moral dilemma is hers to resolve. I can't resolve it any better than she can, and it wouldn't be my place to do so if I could. And the motives of some of the folks in that movement are suspect. I remember a spine-chilling conversation I once had with a prominent local pro-life activist when I was in line at the post office a year ago, where he talked about how we men needed to band together and "put women in their place," and put an end to all this sex and women's lib garbage by banning abortion. He was so obviously out of his tree that everybody in the room kind of backed up and pretended he wasn't there. Arguing with him would have been pointless and (on his end) very loud, disruptive, and potentially violent, so I gave him a blank stare, backed away slowly, and generally treated him like he was covered in live cockroaches. Then he shut up. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2005-09-16T12:56:19-06:00

ID

84381

Comment

Oh, and here's what else that bugs me (and then I'll shut up): If I believed that abortion was murder, I would make sure that we hand out condoms EVERYWHERE. I would make sure that birth control pills and emergency contraception are ALWAYS available over the counter--hell, I'd buy them up myself and hand them out in the streets. Anything to save the babies. So what do these assholes do? They try to get rid of condoms, get rid of birth control pills, get rid of emergency contraception, essentially do EVERYTHING THEY CAN to leave women with unwanted pregnancies. And then they try to ban abortion. Kind of gives away their real motives, doesn't it? Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2005-09-16T13:03:58-06:00

ID

84382

Comment

Yeah, its not real "subtle" is it? I have never considered myself a "feminist"...this is mainly for the largely negative connatation our country has been able to give the world. I always believed that if I did my best, I would be rewarded equally. Well, I have found that is a little like thinking repealing legislation that protects equal employment will force people to "step up to the plate". Not to go back to bootstrap fury, but when the plate is fourteen feet in front of every white male, and forty thousand away from minorities...maybe they need all the voices they can find to scream about feminism and equal human rights. It really boils down to the fact that men are afraid of women. I mean, we are more perfect creatures. ;-)

Author

Lori G

Date

2005-09-16T13:39:48-06:00

ID

84383

Comment

Em, You don't think your boyfriend would come up off that shirt, do you? ;) That's ALL I got out of the story..."Emily's boyfriend had a cool ass shirt on." Because, that's something *I* would do, tell a cop that I was a "doctor" while having an antenna bob on the jetta that is a pig head dressed like the S&M man from The Village People. (yes, that was MY car) :P

Author

Lori G

Date

2005-09-16T13:46:06-06:00

ID

84384

Comment

Clearly, excepting that whole forbidden-fruit-in-the-garden-of-Eden snafu.

Author

grinder

Date

2005-09-16T13:55:03-06:00

ID

84385

Comment

Buddha, if I could ONLY get my hands around the throat of the guy that made THAT story up....

Author

Lori G

Date

2005-09-16T13:59:19-06:00

ID

84386

Comment

He's got one that says "I make stuff up" too.

Author

emilyb

Date

2005-09-16T20:05:59-06:00

ID

84387

Comment

we talked this weekend about going and standing across the street, protesting the protesters. pointing out that their time and effort might have been a little better spent helping out further south... a friend also batted around the idea of rushing up and asking them "is this where the line starts??" man, talk about poor timing. and if i were nathan, i'd have them all arrested for parading around with those signs during my lunch rush. surely there are some standards of decency with these people? and isn't it funny that most of them are older white men?

Author

Jay

Date

2005-09-19T09:17:18-06:00

ID

84388

Comment

I heard the group threatened to sue businesses in Fondren Corner when they asked them not to have convulsion-driven protests inside their businesses because they might bother the other customers. It seemed they don't know a whole lot about where their constitutional rights begin and endólike inside private businesses. They kind of reminded me of all those Oral Roberts kids from Topeka going door to door in North Jackson telling Mississippians to vote for Haley Barbour for governor. President is one thingóbut governor?

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-09-19T10:33:38-06:00

ID

84389

Comment

Well, you know, Jay, Old White Men lead the country in post-pregnancy abortions. They have a large clinic in Baghdad. Its only fitting they should stand up and fight for their right to be there. ;-) Ladd, I don't think these people are interested in constitutional rights..unless they are allowed to decide which ones everyone else gets. Its a function of the culture in this country...you have a president who exists on a sense of entitlement. One who has never had to suffer the consequences of his actions. This brings about people with a sense of entitlement....ones that want to make SURE that everyone else must "suffer the consequences" of their actions. Its quite amusing if you look at the ingrained hypocrisy. Maybe not amusing, maybe hair-pullin' mad. But, I have to frame it in a way that doesn't make me LOSE MY SHITE every morning when I wake up. I almost get angrier about kids who are zealots about rights they really don't understand.

Author

Lori G

Date

2005-09-20T06:43:46-06:00