Whatever you're feeling right now, it's normal

• Some ways to cope with your feelings

By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writer

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Sources for help If you'd like to talk to someone about your feelings, or if someone in your family needs help, call: O'ahu Community Mental Health Center: 832-5770; (Big Island, 974-4300; Maui, 984-2150; Kaua'i, 274-3190) Child and Family Services: 681-3500 American Red Cross assistance hotline: 734-2101 (This is also the number to call if you're seeking information about a family member who may have been involved in the tragedy.)

Go ahead, say Hawai'i's counselors and professionals. Those are all normal emotional responses to a national trauma like the terrorist attacks that enveloped America on Tuesday.

While much attention has been focused on how to help children understand and get through this crisis, adults should realize they may be affected, too and that there is no shame in this.

"If there's a feeling that human beings can have, they'll have it for a traumatic event like this," said Carey Brown, employee assistance program coordinator for Straub Clinic & Hospital. "No feeling is incorrect."

Even those people who only saw the devastation of the collapsing World Trade Center towers in New York on television or read about it in the newspapers are likely to cycle through a full range of human emotional responses before they come to grips with the magnitude of what happened and what it means personally and to the nation, she said.

"These are normal feelings of normal people to abnormal events," said Malina Kaulukukui, program support services chief for the state Department of Health's Mental Health Division. "It's a mantra we repeat over and over again to people to help them understand what they're experiencing."

Kaulukukui said people with personal tragedies or trauma in their life may be the ones most dramatically affected by this week's events. Fresh tragedy can immerse them again in their personal crisis, she said.

The terrorist attacks are a breach in the protective wall all people build around themselves, she said.

"In order to function in this world today, we all build a little veil of deniability around ourselves," she said. "This is like a tear in that veil."

Recognizing and accepting the range of emotions is the first step to getting back to "normal," professionals said.

"First, there's going to be a sense of numbing shock," Brown said. Then there's anger, depression, vulnerability, even discordant reactions like black humor. Any or all of them can come in sequence, or at random, she said.

"People should not be disturbed about their own emotional responses," or even a lack of them, said Gary Farkas, a clinical psychologist in Honolulu. "Some people are going to be deeply upset, jittery, unfocused, crying; others are going to appear undisturbed, but one way or another we're all affected. We just show it in different ways."

Gloria Neumann, a psychologist for the Honolulu Police Department, spent hours Tuesday checking on the emotional response of HPD officers to the terrorist attacks. She said many officers are hit with a "double whammy" of dealing with their personal concerns for themselves and family, and then having to go out and deal with the members of the public who are working out their responses to the latest turn in world terrorism.

"The police 'ohana extends all across the world; they're going to be hurting for a long time over the brothers and sisters who are lost in New York," she said. "The casualties are just the tip of the iceberg. This is going to have an impact for generations. There's never been anything like it in our history. Never."

Over time, the shock of Tuesday's events will fade. It always does in traumatic events, professionals say.

"Once we get back to a routine and life is predictable again, we'll feel better," Farkas said. "We'll get back to an assumption of normality, but normality has been changed a little forever."

Some ways to cope with your feelings

Tips for coping with the emotions of a personal — or national — tragedy from Honolulu's mental health professionals:

• Try to alternate periods of physical exercise with periods of relaxation.
• Structure your time. Keep busy.
• Talk to people. Talk is the most healing medicine.
• Reach out. People do care.
• Maintain as normal a schedule as possible.
• Share your feelings with co-workers.
• Give yourself permission to feel rotten.
• Keep a journal; write your way through sleepless hours.
• Realize those around you are under stress, too.
• Make as many daily decisions as possible, which can give you a feeling of control over your life.
• Recurring thoughts, dreams or flashbacks are normal. Don't fight them; they'll decrease over time.
• East well-balanced and regular meals even if you don't feel like it.