Westgate: How to manage post-trauma disorder

It is now one year after I and my cousin — and thousands of other people — were caught up in the Westgate mayhem.

While we survived the terror attack and got a bullet scar on my thigh, I still loathe going into crowded shopping malls and markets.

The images of that day still replay on my mind and while I had thought I was over it, the anniversary has replayed these fears. I have been feeling horrible and frightened of late.

Would counselling help or the memories will fade with time on their own? What should I do differently to forget?

Amos

Joyce Nyairo is a cultural analyst who writes with exceptional clarity and skill, and her article in the Daily Nation of Friday September 19 is no exception.

She stated: “We need a monument to the spirit of caring that we showed in those (Westgate) days when we filled blood donor tents to the brim, enduring long queues and excessive heat to save a life, to inject a fellow Kenyan with the gift of sacrifice.”

These words reminded me of my father — Simon Njenga— who in the sixties and seventies as the executive officer of the blood donor service mobilised the whole country to an annual ritual of blood donation in the week preceding Kenyatta (now Mashujaa) Day.

Cabinet ministers led staff to the blood donation centre. Even the vice President donated blood.

National event

Isaac Lugunzo (the Mayor) led City Council staff, while the then captains of industry, Kenneth Matiba, Joe Wanjui among others led the business community in expressing solidarity with fellow Kenyans who symbolically shed their blood in remembrance of those who died so that we can be free.

Prisoners, soldiers, school children, university students and the general public from Mombasa to Kakamega came together in the spirit of the day.

Provincial commissioners, District Officers and chiefs were all mobilised for this important national event of self sacrifice.

The shedding (giving) of blood in defence of freedom and liberty is as old as human kind.

Jesus Christ died so that we may live. He shed His blood in atonement for our sinful ways. Romans 3:25 makes this point: “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of His blood”

The headline in Last Friday’s Daily Nation was “Honouring the ones we lost and those who fought”. Good words that bring us together.

All the foregoing themes and thoughts are noble, but they do not help you as Amos.

Westgate is a personal event for you

For you, Westgate is a personal, not a community event, and no amount of giving blood will take away the painful memory of the bullet in your thigh. Your faith will aid in the healing process but you might need to do more.

Indeed, no amount of praise for your acts of bravery at Westgate will help heal the wounds that only you and thousands like you who experienced “near death.”

For that reason, allow me to explain the condition that you suffer from in the hope that my answer will be helpful to you and others.

In your question, there is enough information for me to make a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

By definition, symptoms of PTSD typically start within three months of the traumatic event, but could even set in years after the trauma.

It is important to point out that for the diagnosis to be made, the symptoms can impair one’s functioning in social and family set-ups.

You tell us that you loathe going into shopping malls and crowded markets. This is the symptom we call avoidance. There are people I know who were injured in the 1998 US Embassy bombing in Nairobi who have not been back to Haile Selassie Avenue. In severe cases, a person can avoid mention of the name of the place, others avoid cities while others are forced to make very long routes to work, just to avoid being anywhere near where the injury took place.

Flashbacks

When “the images of that day still replay in my mind” that symptom is called intrusive memories.

They force themselves into your consciousness, causing you to relive the trauma. These thoughts are also called flashbacks as this is exactly how you experience them.

These flashbacks can be of such severity that the sounds, smells and fear of that day are constantly in your waking mind.

Try as you might to get rid of the images of the event, you are unable to do so.

Although you have not mentioned emotional numbness, many people tell us that they are unable to feel love for their spouses, children or even parents.

Some marriages break up because one or the other partner stops feeling for the other, driving the couple apart.

Depression is another common consequence of major trauma, in which one feels hopeless and useless, while others feel hyper aroused, feeling they are full time “on adrenaline” unable to switch off even at bedtime. Lack of sleep, irritability, poor concentration, are other common symptoms.

Blood donation and prayers might not cure all. Some must seek help from a qualified mental health specialist. These have been effective.

This article was first published in the Business Daily.