The recent California fires hit close to home for bonmente. With our practice headquartered in Long Beach, California, we’ve been reeling at the devastation happening all around us.
For those outside of California, media coverage highlights the physical damage affecting homes, workplaces, and communities people call home.
However, photos and videos cannot fully capture the complex psychological impact of such a disaster on those experiencing it.
Stress and fear and other difficult emotions are to be expected during the disaster itself. However, the tough stuff happens long after the fires are under control, when the lingering psychological impact – PTSD – takes a toll on individuals and the Los Angeles community as a whole.
We’ll keep things clinical rather than philosophical here.
The American Psychological Association defines trauma as an emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, crime, natural disaster, physical or emotional abuse, neglect, experiencing or witnessing violence, death of a loved one, war, and more. Immediately after the event, shock and denial are typical. Longer term reactions include unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, strained relationships, and even physical symptoms like headaches or nausea.
Do note how that definition does not narrow trauma within the confines of a closed set of particular emotional responses. The implication is that trauma has many manifestations.
So, one person may run around, screaming in panic, at the sight of a wildfire. Others may stoically shut down, repressing impulses to do things like run around and scream in panic.
Either way, those people could run the risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
You can find the DSM-5’s full list of criteria satisfying a clinical diagnosis of PTSD here.
This section will cover some key takeaways from that outline of criteria.
One is that PTSD can result from the exposure to a terrible event (e.g., injury) or just the threat of that event.
In the context of the California wildfires, this means that you do not actually need to have been burned, or lost your house, or directly experience any harmful consequence from the fire to be at risk for developing PTSD.
Just the threat of harm from the fires and the possibility of direct impact can cause trauma.
Another key aspect of PTSD is re-experiencing the trauma after the disaster. This can take many forms, one of which could be emotional distress at things like the sight of smoke.
Avoidance of things that could be related to the trauma is another criterion. If you were in a part of town that caught fire, deliberately avoiding that area could be a sign of PTSD.
Persisting or worsening negative psychological consequences following the trauma can be another symptom. One to watch out for in particular is repressing distressing memories so that you are unable to recall certain details from the traumatic experience.
“Arousal” and “reactivity” following the event is another criterion. These can take many forms.
One person may be hypervigilant, obsessively stocking the house with fire blankets and fire extinguishers and putting a smoke detector in every room.
Another person may become a risk-seeker, starting large beach bonfires with few or no safety precautions.
Also, symptoms must last more than a month, not be related to substance use or medication or illness, and create distress or dysfunction.
Something else to know about PTSD is that there is individual PTSD and community PTSD.
On the individual level, PTSD can lead to an array of problems that can significantly affect a patient’s quality of life.
As mentioned above, presentation of PTSD can vary widely from case to case, so it would probably be impossible for any blog to comprehensively offer a portrait of what PTSD can look like in individuals.
There are many consequences of PTSD in individuals that are worth knowing about.
Evidence suggests an increased risk of suicide.
PTSD in combination with co-occurring mental health conditions such as substance abuse can lead to worse mental health. In fact, PTSD-related comorbidities are seen as a “frequent event with a negative impact on outcome”.
In the wake of the California fires, some people experiencing negative emotions associated with PTSD may see substance abuse as an attractive “escape” that’s really just a temporary distraction that may not even fully distract from the negative emotions. Social isolation is another risk factor. For some Californians, wanting to stay away from gatherings or places (e.g., hiking trails) where fires may break out could keep them from maintaining healthy social bonds.
Community disaster trauma (CDT) is an emerging topic of research related to PTSD.
CDT research sometimes divides the community into subpopulations in recognition that not everyone is affected by a disaster equally.
For instance, primary victims could lose their homes in a fire, while secondary victims witness the trauma and experience threats. Tertiary victims may not be in the trauma area but still feel stress and negative emotions due to proximity to the disaster.
Just as an individual may present symptoms of PTSD, a community on the whole may present symptoms of PTSD.
Hypervigilance, for instance, may be seen across the Los Angeles community through increased 911 calls to report possible fires. These calls may be triggered by signs that may remind people of the trauma.
Or, there may be much less bonfires and perhaps even small beach fires on California beaches in widespread fear of a fire getting out of control. And the manifestations of PTSD in individuals in the community can lead to a number of social problems as well, perhaps even endangering the community, as anger and aggression are symptoms in some PTSD cases.
Right now, it’s unknown the extent to which PTSD will affect individuals and communities dealing with the California fires.
The professionals at bonmente hope to be a positive force for psychological recovery. They actively help communities and people struggling with the impact of this environmental disaster.
If you are a California resident who has been suffering through the trauma of the fires, help is available. Reach out to the professionals at bonmente for mental health treatments.
Our team of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals can help you navigate the complex emotional aftermath of trauma.
When PTSD takes hold following a traumatic event, it’s time to get serious about getting help.
