{"id":52777,"date":"2020-08-24T20:02:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-24T17:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/nightmares-flashbacks-fatigue-beirut-faces-mental-health-crisis-after-blast\/"},"modified":"2020-08-24T20:02:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-24T17:02:00","slug":"nightmares-flashbacks-fatigue-beirut-faces-mental-health-crisis-after-blast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/nightmares-flashbacks-fatigue-beirut-faces-mental-health-crisis-after-blast\/","title":{"rendered":"#Nightmares, flashbacks, fatigue: Beirut faces mental health crisis after blast"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Nightmares, flashbacks, fatigue: Beirut faces mental health crisis after blast<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n BEIRUT \u2013 More than two weeks after a massive explosion tore through Beirut killing 181 people and leaving entire neighborhoods in ruins, Sandra Abinader still jumps at the slightest sound.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other day, I was trying to open a jar and the popping sound made me jump back and scream. I felt for a second I needed to run away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite recognizing the magnitude of her ordeal, Sandra, 18, said she was not interested in seeking professional help. \u201cWe\u2019re used to dealing with our problems on our own,\u201d she said, stoically.<\/p>\n

Her attitude is common in Lebanon, a country hardened by past wars and sectarian conflict and where stigma still rules attitudes towards mental health.<\/p>\n

But the blast caught Lebanon at an extremely vulnerable point following months of severe economic crisis compounded by the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n

Now practitioners are warning of a national mental health emergency as people begin to show signs of trauma from the explosion, including nightmares, flashbacks, crying, anxiety, anger and exhaustion.<\/p>\n

Psychologists say this is being exacerbated by the constant stream of images on Lebanese TV and social media<\/a> showing the blast and its bloody aftermath.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time we say it can\u2019t get worse in Lebanon, it somehow does,\u201d said Jad Daou, a volunteer with Lebanese mental health NGO Embrace, who mans the phones at its crisis clinic. \u201cA lot of people are feeling hopeless about the entire situation here in Lebanon.\u201d<\/p>\n

The explosion was a tipping point. Embrace, which usually receives between 150-200 calls a month, says more people have been reaching out since the blast. The group has stationed volunteers in one of the affected neighborhoods and has started home visits.<\/p>\n

Many mental health professionals have mobilized in the wake of the blast to offer their services and post tips on social media, but some are struggling to cope themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never had psychologists say, \u2018we are not ready to talk at this moment. I need time to heal for myself,\u2019\u201d said psychologist Warde Bou Daher. \u201cBut the trauma affected everyone \u2026 they need to heal their own wounds before being able to help others.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Sandra insists she has not cried once since it happ<\/a>ened, her cousin cannot hold back tears as she recounts her experience of the explosion, which wounded 6,000 people and was so loud it could be heard as far as Cyprus, 100 miles away.<\/p>\n

When the blast hit, Lourdes Fakhri ran from the supermarket where she works to her home in the Karantina neighborhood near the port, one of the worst affected, fearing that her family had been killed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was rubble everywhere, so high. I could picture them all lying there on the floor, with our house on top of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lourdes\u2019 parents and six siblings survived but the feeling of terror has remained with her.<\/p>\n

For older Lebanese, the blast triggered memories of the 1975-1990 civil war and the 2006 war with Israel among others.<\/p>\n

Many have never dealt with their traumas and don\u2019t know how to help their children, said Ola Khodor, a 25-year-old child psychologist.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot are telling their children that nothing happened, that it was a game<\/a>,\u201d Khodor said. \u201cThe child deserves to know the truth \u2013 not the very detailed truth, but they deserve to know what exactly happened to allow them to grieve and to process the event like they need to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Experts say trauma begins to set in several weeks after an event, as people progress out of a period of \u201cacute stress\u201d. Unicef on Friday estimated that half of the children they have surveyed in Beirut are already showing signs.<\/p>\n

One father told Reuters that when his four-year-old son came back home for the first time after the explosion, he invented a game called \u201cpretend boom\u201d in which his playhouse was hit by an explosion and rabbits needed rescue from the broken glass.\n <\/p><\/div>\n

\n

If you want to read more Living News<\/a> articles, you can visit our General category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

if you want to watch Movies<\/a> or Tv Shows go to Dizi.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a> <\/span> for forums sites go to Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Nightmares, flashbacks, fatigue: Beirut faces mental health crisis after blast” BEIRUT \u2013 More than two weeks after a massive explosion tore through Beirut killing 181 people and leaving entire neighborhoods in ruins, Sandra Abinader still jumps at the slightest sound. \u201cThe other day, I was trying to open a jar and the popping sound made…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[57829,57828,57827],"class_list":["post-52777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-fatigue-beirut-faces-mental-health-crisis-after-blast","tag-flashbacks","tag-nightmares"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}