Body heals, but mind still scarred

NEW DELHI: Puja Sharma, 14, has been glued to the television since Wednesday morning constantly switching between various channels showing news about the Delhi High Court blast which has claimed 13 lives so far. Each time she sees a trauma victim or a dead body, her mind flashes back to that ill-fated evening at Sarojini Nagar on October 29, 2005 when she lost both her parents in the serial blasts.
Doctors say that post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD, a severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to any event that results in psychological trauma, is a very common symptom in people who have fallen victim to or were witness to a major catastrophe – a bomb blast, terror attacks or natural disasters such as an earthquake. While some people manage to overcome the trauma, there are others who need to undergo therapy for years.
“I try to forget the past but incidents like this triggers sad memories. Images of injured people and those crying for help bring back memories of the Sarojini Nagar blasts – a day which still haunts me,” said Puja. Her grandfather, who has been looking after her since then, added that the girl has so far managed to cope with the trauma of the blasts, thanks to psychological counseling and family support, but incidents such as Wednesday’s blast are emotionally draining.
Meera Mehta lost her 21-year-old son Aditya in Pune’s German Bakery blast in February 2010. She was at Ram Manohar Lohia hospital to offer help to the victims of High Court blast. “Helping them will help me deal with my own grief,” she said.
Doctors say PTSD usually follows a psychologically traumatizing experience, sometimes immediately but at times months later. It is considered a full-blown case of PTSD when anxiety lasts longer than a month; a shorter case would be deemed acute stress disorder. The mental health definition of PTSD also notes that the patient's fear is felt as present, even when the victim is not physically or psychologically threatened.
Re-experiencing intrusive recall, sleep disturbance, nightmares, feelings of detachment or estrangement from others and exaggerated startle response are some of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Psychotherapy which includes counseling is most common form of treatment and at times medications are given.
“We have come across some cases where a person who has been injured in a traumatic incident is able to recover from his physical injuries but the psychological stress continues to take a toll,” said Dr Jitender Nagpal, clinical psychologist at Moolchand Medicity hospital.
“A mother who lost her young son in the serial blasts used to come to us for counseling for over six months after the incident. She used to cry often and talk aloud to herself under the illusion that she was talking to her son,” Nagpal added.
Dr Pratap Sharan, professor of psychiatry at AIIMS added, “In India people do not recognize PTSD as a treatable disorder. They consider it to be a natural outcome of any tragedy.”
He said that victims or witnesses of a mass tragedy, like a bomb blast, suffer from intrusive symptoms in which the thoughts and images of the incident keep recurring, often through flashbacks and nightmares. This causes stress and, in some cases, can result in a major depression.
“Attention to the mental health of disaster survivors is an important requirement. In some cases, their mental health should be monitored on a long-term basis,” Sharan said.
(The names of some of the patients have been changed)