Zeitoun Blog 3

For this blog I am going to take the psychological lens, specifically talking about PTSD. I started this blog on Thursday evening, about one paragraph in my friend left my apartment after a night of studying together, within 3 minutes of her leaving she called me to tell me to turn on the news. I live three blocks away from Ocean Beach on Sloat and she lives two blocks away from Ocean Beach off of Lincoln Street. I proceeded to watch the news until about 1:30 am. All I could get out of the media was Hawaii was freaking out and the west coast wasn’t technically on Tsunami watch “yet”. I semi freaked out until my boyfriend called me to tell me I was being silly and that nothing would happen other than maybe Sammy (my car) getting a little wet. I went to bed reassured that my apartment would still be there when I woke up. Around 5:30 am I get a call from my mother, frantically asking questions, “Where are you? Are you ok? Are you coming to Sonoma? Are you being evacuated?”. The rest of the morning was pretty much the same, phone calls and text from family and friends asking if I was ok, needed somewhere to go, and if I was prepared. Well we all saw how that worked out, we got some high waves at the beach and that’s about it. The whole point of this story is that if this had gone on for days, the fear inside of you or your loved ones -- I do not if I would be able to handle it. Also if the “Tsunami” would have actually hit us in the bay area and something were to happen to my home what would happen then? Well the dreams/nightmares I had that morning gave me plenty to imagine from but thankfully I still have not had to go through anything so traumatic.

Now back to the book, Zeitoun like many of the other thousands of people affected by Hurricane Katrina suffered a devastating loss of loved ones, homes, schools and so much more. Loosing any part of your life is hard but to loose it all can have a lasting affect on a person. The people affected by this hurricane saw some terrible things happen right in front of their eyes and sometimes to people they knew. Post traumatic stress syndrome is an anxiety disorder that can occur after someone experiences a traumatic event that caused intense fear, helplessness, or horror.

I am hoping that you all have finished the book by now so I will not be ruining anything but it was clear that Kathy was suffering from PTSD and it was having very strong effects on her. She was loosing herself because of the mental strain Hurricane Katrina had put on her and unfortunately if she doesn’t receive help she will only get worse. I have taken more than my fair share of psychology classes and PTSD seems to be one of the most curious disorders. PTSD can come in all shapes and sizes and be caused by a variety of different experiences’. After reading this book you would think that Zeitoun would be the one who has such a hard time adjusting back to a normal life, the man went through starvation, prison, and a hurricane. I believe that the reason why Zeitoun was not as mentally damaged by this event as Kathy is because he had hope through out the entire experience. He believed that it all would work out in the end. On the other hand Kathy was frantic in trying to find her husband and in having to answer to his family and even had started to prepare herself for her life without him. Zeitouns personality and way at looking at life has kept him from going down a dark whole and although he still has issues they have not overtaken him, unfortunately that is not the case for Kathy.