Mental health experts offer Harvey advice
Mental health experts encourage Houstonians to acknowledge emotions
Months have passed since Hurricane Harvey hit, leaving floods, damaged houses and distraught residents in its wake. Still, time has not softened the raw emotional pain for some.
Months have passed since Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, leaving floods, damaged houses and distraught residents in its wake.
Still, time has not softened the raw emotional pain for Sharon Bippus. A native Houstonian, she moved into her townhouse on the city’s west side a little more than 13 years ago. Constructed in the 1970s, the place had never flooded.
Bippus’ home made it through the storm. It was the flood that followed that did the most damage and completely disrupted her life.
Tears still well in her eyes, and her voice gets shaky when she talks about Harvey.
“I’m still not normal,” Bippus said. “I’m still not 100 percent.”
She’s not the only one. Therapists and counselors from around the city say Houstonians are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Bippus is a prime example of what others are experiencing. Still fresh on her mind is the memory of evacuating her home, leaving everything behind and hoping for the best. A small bag is all she brought with her when she walked to a gas station hoping a friend could pick her up.
Anxiety set in when rising waters would make it impos-
sible for her friend to get there. She reached out to a woman she met on Facebook only a couple days earlier, and her newfound online friend rescued her for a night.
Next, Bippus spent a month with a co-worker, trying to keep her cool while picking her work back up as an instructor at Lone Star College.
“I was a mess,” she said. “There were days I was barely holding it together, but I had to work.”
When Bippus was able to return to her home, her drywall had to be cut up 4 feet from the floorboards. “It’s still not repaired,” she said.
Because she lives in a townhouse, having her walls cut away meant opening her home to neighbors on each side. She hung temporary barriers and is still waiting for renovations to be completed.
“There’s no privacy,” she said.
She had to buy a new car, deal with insurance and accommodate contractors who came at will to fix the 110 townhomes in her development that also flooded.
“You don’t have time to process it,” she said. “And this is out of my skill set. I don’t know how to do these things.”
This feeling of helplessness is common in Houston right now, said licensed professional counselor Rachel Eddins with Eddins Counseling.
“It’s chronic stress,” she said. “People are living in dust in their houses still. They’re still dealing with not knowing what insurance will cover. Their children are feeling less settled. There’s financial stress. When you live in chaos for an ongoing period, it takes a toll.”
Couple that with the stress that comes with living in a big city day to day, and the anxiety levels can skyrocket.
Forbes recently ranked Houston 11th on its list of most stressful cities in the U.S. The reasons for the high anxiety were tied to long commutes, high ozone levels, congestion on freeways and rising housing prices.
Eddins agreed that traffic is a major cause of stress for her clients, but the complaint she hears most often from clients who have moved to the area is loneliness.
“It happens more than you realize in Houston because we’re so spread out,” she said.
Dr. Mariam Massoud, education specialist for Memorial Hermann Behavioral Health Services, said many people move to Houston to work in highstress medical jobs or to deal with medical conditions, which cause anxiety for the whole family.
“It’s two-fold right now,” she said. “People are still dealing with post-storm stress. And it’s the season. It’s a national time of year to deal with anxiety and depression.”
Psychologist Dr. Michelle Patriquin, who serves as director of clinical outcomes for the Menninger Clinic, said that living in a big city, in general, is often accompanied by added stress.
“There’s more people, and there’s more traffic,” she said.
For Houston, specifically, the random nature of the weather can cause anxiety — the floods, hurricane season and the recent ice storm.
“Fear of the unknown is one of the greatest causes of anxiety,” Patriquin said.
She said that, for some, the ice storm might have brought back bad memories of the hurricane — and caused further disruption in a population that just wants to get back to its regular schedule.
“It could really reopen some of those weather wounds,” Patriquin said. “Any traumatic thing could.”
Shelly Simpson, a licensed clinical social worker and licensed chemical dependency counselor with Menninger Clinic, said Houston is entering a new phase after Harvey.
“Now we’re seeing people moving back to their homes and rebuilding — and the stress that brings,” she said.
Simpson said residents may be drinking a little more, or reaching to social media for a distraction. They may be watching more movies or playing more video games than normal — as a means to escape.
“There’s a line between distraction and avoidance,” Simpson said. “And it’s a slippery slope.”
She explained that it is important for Houstonians to acknowledge their emotions. Residents finally have time to slow down and consider how the storm affected their heart, mind and spirit.
“After Harvey happened, people moved into action mode,” she said. “Your brain doesn’t allow you to process feelings, because in action mode, feelings aren’t that helpful. When you slow down, that’s when you start to feel.”
Simpson believes Houston, on whole, will be getting a little more emotional in the near future. “As a city, I think that’s where we are,” she said. “We’re going to feel things that we haven’t before.”
Her advice is to take time to acknowledge emotions. “It sounds very simple, but it can be hard to do,” she said. “Give yourself some compassion. It’s a personal growth opportunity. It’s also a time of growth for the city.”
Simpson and Eddins both maintain that asking for help is key — even if an individual’s situation seems less significant than someone else’s.
“Be comfortable seeking and getting support,” Eddins said. “The best stress reliever is support. We’re social beings. That’s just how we’re wired. We’re wired for connection.”
Patriquin recommends making self-care a priority — eating properly, getting enough sleep and making time to relax.
“If you don’t have time for that, it can impair your ability to cope with anything,” she said. “When you take care of yourself, you’re much more resilient.”
She also warns against isolation. Instead, she recommends reaching out to friends, family and support groups.
“It’s really important to talk to people,” she said. “We’re all going through this together.”
Massoud said stress manifests in a number of different ways, from feeling foggy and having bad dreams to full panic attacks and racing hearts. “It’s affecting people who have never experienced mental health problems before,” she said. “Zoom out a little bit. Step one, take inventory of your physical and mental stability.”
Then, she recommends doing something realistic and obtainable to improve your mood. Skip the expensive massage if the storm has already left you strapped for cash, she said.
“Go to a park and walk around,” Massoud said. “Or set aside 10 to 15 minutes where you do noting at all but listen to music that you like.”
Susan Brunson, a licensed clinical social worker with the Anxiety Center of Houston, has observed that a number of people are noticing increased general anxiety — more worrying, fretting and racing thoughts.
“A lot of people haven’t come to counseling that should have, because of pride,” she said. “They thought they could handle it, but they can’t. They might not know they have post-traumatic stress disorder. They just know they can’t sleep. They know they worry.”
The good news, Brunson said, is that trauma can be healed. “It’s treatable,” she said. “They can get well.”
In addition, Brunson said a number of clinics have offered free counseling, and other services have popped up around the city.
She started a free support group at her church, which is open to the public. She facilitates the sessions on Sundays at the Church of Holy Apostle, 1225 W. Grand Parkway South in Katy.
Bippus just joined a support group hosted by the Center for Mind-Body Medicine and the Jung Center of Houston.
She recently attended the second meeting. “It’s helpful just to know someone still cares,” she said. “When Harvey first happened, a lot of people came out and volunteered. But we still need help. It’s easy to feel like we’ve been forgotten.”