Jenniferkirk's Blog

What, I can blog???

jenniferkirk — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 03:52:13 +0000

When I signed up for this course, I thought “eh psychology of terrorism…sounds interesting”, then on the first day of class, Dr Lunsford told us that we had to write a blog…and the whole class sunk in their seats. I thought, “a blog, I don’t know how to blog, what will I learn from blogging”…Well this is what I learned. I used my prior knowledge of psychology and mental illness and dove into my first blogging experience. My blog encompassed the psychological effects of exposures to terrorist attacks, starting with normalcy, then coping and coping skills, resilience, psychological disorders, and interventions. I learned so much more than I ever thought I would, not only about terrorism and the psychological effects, but about blogging and my resource ability. There are so many resources out there that can help people not only in classes, but those who feel they or a family member may be suffering from a psychological disorder to help them get the tools they need to be resilient and gain the coping skills that they need to move past the past and into the future. Be a survivor of terrorism, not a victim.

Survivors are NOT Victims,

But

Victims CAN be Survivors

Interventions after trauma

jenniferkirk — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 05:19:00 +0000

In the wake of coping skills and resiliency, there are still those who suffer from disorders related to the trauma of an event like 9/11 or another terrorist attack, what can be done to help these people get back to what they feel is normal? Well there are short term interventions like medications to help with depression and anxiety, and there are long term interventions like therapy and peer support for PTSD and substance abuse issues. Depression and anxiety are commonly associated with other disorders like PTSD and substance abuse, which is why medications have to be prescribed carefully and are short term and why therapy is important to get the underlying issues so that the disorders can be worked through and medication is not needed for the symptoms. Intermediate –intensity interventions are used to treat PTSD, these include cognitive restructuring, anxiety management, therapeutic exposure, skills training, self monitoring and social reinforcement, these are all forms of therapy known as CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy.

If you feel that you or someone you know needs help in dealing with things after a traumatic event, there are places that can help your primary care physician can refer you somewhere or there are many behavioral /mental health agencies that can help in different counties/states, there is one close to you.

Psychological disorders in the aftermath of terrorist attacks

jenniferkirk — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:19:06 +0000

After a terrorist attack, we hope to return to the normalcy of our everyday lives, even though there are ways to overcome the trauma of a terrorist attack like coping skills and resiliency, there are still those who are not able to overcome the psychological problems that are associated with the aftermath. Disorders that can come up after the dust has settled include:

1) PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder)

2) Depression

3) Anxiety

4) Mass Psychogenic Illness

5) Substance Abuse Disorders

PTSD can be caused by much more than a terrorist attack, as can most all of the above disorders, but they have become more common knowledge in association with the aftermath of 9/11. PTSD is often misdiagnosed because of its accompanying symptoms to include depression, anxiety, night terrors and flashbacks often confused with schizophrenia, certain phobias, anger issues and substance disorders.

Depression also at times has accompanying symptoms, and different diagnoses depending on the severity and timeline of the symptoms.

Anxiety is often accompanied by panic, phobias, sleep disorders, and excessive worry. To get a diagnosis, symptoms must persist for at least 6 months.

Mass Psychogenic Illness starts with environmental triggers where many people feel that they have been exposed to something dangerous and are experiencing symptoms of the exposure when they haven’t really been exposed.

Substance Abuse Disorders can vary as there are many different substances from prescription drugs, to various illegal drugs to alcohol and even cigarettes.

Now test your psychological disorders are you depressed or anxious, do you think you might have PTSD, or a substance abuse disorder, find out.

How to maintain or gain resilience in times of terror

jenniferkirk — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:41:25 +0000

Resilience is defined in the dictionary as an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change. I feel that having resilience is like finding the silver lining around the blackest of clouds. Resilience is a valuable asset in stressful times like times of terror where you feel like there is no way out and nothing that you can do. There are things that can be done to help maintain or gain resiliency in these hard times, the first thing to remember is that everyone is resilient and has the quality, but people who are self-focused and egocentric tend to be less resilient than others, children tend to be the most resilient, as they do not have firm views of the world as we adults know it. Ten ways to build resilience are 1) make connections (friends or family ties are important) 2) look at crises as something you can deal with 3) accept change as a part of life 4)make realistic goal and keep stepping toward them 5) take decisive actions 6) be on the lookout for self discovery opportunities 7) build your confidence and keep a positive self view 8 ) look at the long term 9) stay hopeful and positive and 10) take care of yourself, because you are the most important person to you. Remember that it is important to be able to ask for help if things are overwhelming to you, resilient people feel stress to, but they know stress management skills to help them through it and asking for help is high on the list. Another very important thing to remember is that resilient people do not see themselves as victims, they see themselves as survivors, they don’t sit back and nurse old wounds, they learn from what happened and it makes them stronger.

Two of the most resilient women that I can think of are Helen Keller, she overcame so much, learning to communicate with others while being deaf and blind, she is truly a remarkable person and Anne Frank, writing stories while hiding from the Nazi’s, then to die in a concentration camp.

How resilient are you???? Take this quiz to find out.

How to cope

jenniferkirk — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 04:38:13 +0000

How does one cope after a tragic event like a terrorist attack? A single terrorist attack is life altering, especially when it happens in your own back yard. It brings about fear, anger, anxiety, depression and stress. There are many things that can be done to help one cope with the feelings after your world has been turned upside down by an unknown face. Developing coping skills can help to decrease anxiety and stress and alleviate depressive symptoms. Anger is a normal emotion; it’s what we do with it that matters. Anger brought about the event in the first place, making sure that your anger is under control and not displaced is a great coping skill. You can’t control what happened or what is being done to fix the event, being able to control only what you can, and know what you can’t and let those things go, is another important coping skill. There are positive and negative coping skills. Positive coping skills can include relaxing, exercising, and doing something that you love. Negative coping skills can include drug use or drinking and losing your temper and acting out violently. Do you have the skills that you need to cope in the event of a tragedy such as the aftermath of a terrorist event? These skills are not only used to get past a tragic event, they can be used in everyday life. Take this test to see if you have what it takes to cope.

Normalcy?

jenniferkirk — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:55:23 +0000

What is normalcy? Is it different for each person in the world? What about normalcy after a terrorist attack? Can the world regain normalcy after it has been attacked? Can the people who feel they have been attacked? Normalcy is defined as being within certain limits that define the range of normal functioning (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/normalcy). I feel that normalcy is different for each and every person, because we do not all have the same beliefs or live the same kind of lives. The United States still has not returned to normal since 9/11/01, there have been soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan since that day, I’m sure that’s not normal for them, and I know it wasn’t normal for my family to have lost their father for a year to do a tour. This brings about anxiety and stress, not only to those who are fighting the “war on terrorism”, but to those living with the outcomes. In Iraq, it now may seem normal to have U.S soldiers walking around in full gear with guns a blazin’, but I’m sure it wasn’t normal before 9/11. The children play with the soldiers and really it doesn’t seem that they think there is anything wrong with them being in uniforms, because really that is all they know. My own son on 9/11 this year, was listening to the radio, and there was a memorial broadcast at that time, and he freaked out, he asked me, “Mommy is that true, are we going to die, the people on the radio were dying”. I had to pull over the car and explain what happened, I told him that had happened when he was a little baby and that is the reason that his dad had to go to Iraq. The normalcy for us has not returned, and I don’t think it has returned for many families that lost loved ones and who are still losing loved ones every day to this tragic ongoing event.

http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/article/node/1546 this article talks about anxiety and visual attention and some experiments that were done about threatening stimuli on people with anxiety.

http://www.chris-floyd.com/war/ this site has pictures of Iraq and the war; some are gruesome so if you have a weak stomach beware.

Hello world!

jenniferkirk — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 16:08:47 +0000

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!