Americans Learn to Live With Terror
Sept. 20, 2001 -- Most Americans don't worry whether the bag casually resting in an unoccupied seat on the city bus or subway could be a bomb. Ray Shapira does.
That's because American-born Shapira and his family have lived through many a terrorist attack since they moved a couple of decades ago to a city in northern Israel, minutes away from the Lebanese border.
Wariness of suspicious objects is just one of many safety precautions Israelis like Shapira practice every day.
"My daughter is not allowed to ride buses or go to the mall because the density of people is high there and the chance of being a target rises," says a retired Israeli air force colonel, now manager of the country's largest private hospital, who asked not to be identified for safety reasons.
"In an age of terrorism, you cannot afford to take safety for granted."
Will living with the constant stress of a potential attack become a part of life in the United States, too? Experts say it's too early to tell. But if it does, Americans will have to adapt, move on and even return to normalcy, as have the people of Israel, Northern Ireland, the former Yugoslavia, Kashmir, Spain, Greece and Cyprus — just a few of the places rocked by terrorism.
The Potency of Fear
Prior to last week's attacks, the idea that Americans are all potential targets was completely foreign to them, mainly because the United States hasn't been exposed to terrorism on such a grand scale, suggests psychiatrist Paul Kettl, a professor at Pennsylvania State University.
But the potential psychological downsides are grave. "Some of the effects you see in parts of the world which have been hard hit by terrorism," observes Robert R. Butterworth, a Los Angeles-based trauma psychologist, "include a culture where people don't smile, high depression rates, increase in divorce, alcohol and drug abuse as well as a rise in domestic violence."
Kettl also cites trouble sleeping, concentrating and even fear of returning to a normal routine. And Shapira adds, from his own experience, there are other effects — like suppressed hostility, increased aggressiveness and decreased patience.
Attacks can also be particularly hard on those who have experienced violence of this sort before because they may be reliving older traumas, adds Butterworth.
Taking Control
The key to dealing with terrorism and its potentially detrimental long-term effects may lie in how people come to terms with horrific life-changing incidents, say psychiatrists and trauma experts.
Often the main problem at hand after an attack is the lost sense of personal safety, the gnawing feeling of vulnerability. How can people begin to heal themselves and regain the all-important need to feel secure?
Kettl says an important first step is to acknowledge that the fears and concerns exist and are perfectly normal.
After that, returning to routine is an essential part of the healing process, even though it usually is the hardest thing to do, experts agree.
"The thing that seems to work best when we're shell-shocked is to go back to what we were doing before," says Butterworth. "We have an instinct to live, to try and get back to as normal routine as possible. Go back to school, go back to work, and try to do something for yourself."
Uniting Around the Conflict
Developing rituals to mark a traumatic event also goes a long way toward recovery, says Brendan McAllister, director of the Mediation Network for Northern Ireland.
McAllister, who also has witnessed the aftermath of terrorism, notes that over time a society becomes almost professional in the way it handles conflict. "The first task is finding the survivors, then burying the dead. The public mourning which follows is a very important way of saying 'this is an abnormal situation,' but it does not impoverish civic life," he explains.
The next major step is dealing with what happened and interpreting the causes, a task that tends to fall to religious, political, or community officials, adds McAllister.
He warns that while a community's initial reaction is to divide the world into "good" people and "bad" people, in time it should strive toward understanding what triggered the lashing out. In countries where handling terrorism is almost a way of life, inhabitants need to understand that the conflict is deep, one that will most likely not be solved with a single action against a specific target.
America itself now faces a choice of how to respond. "Either it polices the problem — which is never totally successful — or it tries to manage security while at the same time striving to understand the conflict's undercurrents," says McAllister.
Whatever the response, experts urge people to keep an open dialogue. "Terrorism's goal is to firmly disrupt our way of life, not to topple buildings," asserts Butterworth. "People should realize that whatever they're going through, whether it's flashbacks, fears, or repression, they're not crazy. They should not feel that they are alone in their thoughts and should not think they are selfish in having worries. They are just reacting normally to an abnormal situation."