What Did the Earthquake Show Us
In this year, when we were eager to celebrate the 100th anniversary of our Republic, founded through the great efforts of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his companions, and while we, as neural therapists, were tirelessly preparing for the 9th International Neural Therapy Congress, to be held in Istanbul on June 2-4, 2023, we experienced — and continue to experience — a massive earthquake disaster that leveled a part of our country, and in particular Pazarcık, the region where I was born, causing the deaths of more than 35,000 of our people so far, with the number of people left under the rubble said to be well over 200,000.
Even watching from afar what has happened in our region, turned to ruins by the earthquake, makes it hard to breathe and shakes a person to the core.
To take my hometown, the district of Pazarcık, as an example: one-third of the city has been leveled, one-third contains severely damaged buildings that would collapse in the smallest tremor, and it is very hard to call the remaining third sound. When you drive through the city, you cannot recognize it, and it tears you apart inside… It is not just Pazarcık — Maraş, Hatay, Kırıkhan, Elbistan, Nurdağı, and others are not much different. According to my count so far, the number of close family members, acquaintances, and people I had actually sat at the table and talked with, whom I have lost in this earthquake, has exceeded 200…
The earthquake and the destruction it caused are a traumatic experience far beyond people’s daily routines, and one that is not easily overcome on one’s own.
The fact that the earthquake could not be predicted in advance, and the feeling of helplessness experienced at that moment, further increase its traumatic effect on people.
The severity of the earthquake centered in Pazarcık and Elbistan (7.7, 7.6), the size of the affected region, the destruction and losses it caused, the long-lasting aftershocks, the delayed rescue efforts, and problems such as the shelter needs faced by earthquake survivors have made the impact of this disaster far greater than that of previous disasters…
The ambivalence we experienced with this earthquake caused us to feel opposite emotions at the same time — fear, resentment, hatred, horror, regret, anger, and hope, love, joy, and happiness.
Wherever in the world they occur, major disasters and earthquakes always take the top spot on the global agenda; the scenes they create and the suffering experienced draw everyone’s attention.
Watching international broadcasts, we saw — even when we did not want to — the leading Western media outlets exposing the horrifying scenes of buildings, marketed with flattering labels like “residence,” “plaza,” and “paradise,” collapsing like houses of cards. Leading newspapers of the world, including Der Spiegel, Stern, Frankfurter Rundschau, Taz, Süddeutsche Zeitung in Germany, as well as the Financial Times and the New York Times, revealed how the process that led to this major earthquake and the resulting disaster was encouraged.
In this earthquake and disaster we experienced in Turkey, we witnessed many countries’ governments — particularly in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the Americas — as well as international organizations and civil society groups, provide material and moral aid and logistical support, and send experienced personnel without delay to quickly help the earthquake victims. We saw people from all over the world extending a helping hand. This humanitarian effort is understandable. But we need to come to terms with this pain on a much deeper level.
Looking at my observations during this earthquake process, for every living being that survived — whether human or a pet — we experienced moments filled with excitement... Sorrow and happiness became almost intertwined. To describe the emotions we experienced simply as excitement and sorrow would also be incomplete... With every ringing phone and every sorrowful piece of news about the missing, fear, horror, hatred, and regret filled our hearts. And with every piece of news of a rescue, at the same time, we experienced joy, love, togetherness, unconditional sharing, happiness, hope, and faith...
In a society that had been created around the notion of “either you are with me or you are against me,” approaching everything from a partisan perspective and othering people, the devotion people showed regardless became a source of hope.
Rest assured, we also understand that there are those who see this great earthquake disaster as an opportunity from other angles. In the news we have followed, we see a hasty attitude regarding the removal of the rubble. This great disaster — in other words, the earthquake rubble — is not simply made up of debris...
There are lives in which generations of lived experience and inheritance have been leveled to the ground. The owners of the valuable and worthless material and sentimental belongings and memories left inside the collapsed buildings are the people who lived in those now-destroyed homes.
We are about to get through the acute phase; starting today, we need to prepare, with competent and qualified people, for the rehabilitation of the coming 10 years, and make life easier for the people of the region.
So, are we ready for this?
Do we have a preparation plan for this?
We can see that administrators who chose the option of switching universities to distance education have no plan in this regard either.
In an environment where sufficient hygiene conditions are not provided, in addition to the expected acute epidemic diseases, kidney problems developing in people who did not drink enough water in the first days after the earthquake, and especially the infections and organ failures caused by necrosis following crush-type injuries (Crush Syndrome), are also a major problem that lies ahead of us.
Rehabilitation aimed at addressing the consequences of this earthquake can only be alleviated in a planned manner over the coming 10 years. For this, it is necessary to proceed within a properly qualified plan. The solution shows that, rather than rushing to build buildings, we need to be in the midst of planned preparation. How children will overcome this trauma and how their education should be shaped must not be a matter of simply feeding them.
The fear and anxiety experienced after an earthquake are especially challenging for children. Some children may regress to behaviors that are normal at a younger age, such as thumb-sucking or bedwetting. They may have nightmares, be afraid to sleep alone. Their school performance may be affected. They may also show more frequent outbursts of anger, or withdraw and want to be alone.
The earthquake has had, and will continue to have, very large and long-term effects on the people who experienced it. It is very important, especially for people in the earthquake region who have experienced these traumas, for different specialties to act jointly and provide patient-centered rehabilitation services in order to first resolve their medical and psychological problems. Proper planning and coordination led by qualified people are essential for this…
This situation, experienced by the entire society, especially in the earthquake region, is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Post-traumatic stress disorder can occur in people of all ages. This condition can develop especially in those who suffered great losses within their families, those who remained trapped under rubble for long periods, those who worked hard to rescue them, and those who could not be rescued.
Post-traumatic stress disorder can affect a person’s entire life. It is important to know that it can cause disruptions in a person’s daily life, their work, their relationships, their health, and the enjoyment they get from daily activities — in short, in every aspect of an individual’s life. At the same time, post-traumatic stress disorder can also increase the risk of encountering other mental health issues.
Now is the time to be prepared and to act together, in line with expert recommendations, in order to keep this at a minimum!
In our pre-earthquake preparations, we have all together paid a very heavy price for the cost of incompetence and lack of oversight.
We cannot be considered too late to move forward correctly on this path. As a society, we must all carry out a mobilization led by experts in this field, without losing our mental health and without othering anyone, due to post-traumatic stress disorder.
The earthquake showed us that this nation can come together under the most difficult conditions. To bring this hope to life, everyone needs to remember their responsibilities and move forward together.
Individuals, as individuals or as a society, may show symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder — such as being unable to stop thinking about the traumatic experience, and feeling fear, anxiety, anger, depression, and guilt — in the first stage after surviving a traumatic event. All such emotions are common reactions given by individuals to the trauma they have experienced.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is a disorder that emerges after severe psychological trauma and manifests itself through specific symptoms such as re-experiencing the traumatic event, avoiding stimuli that remind one of the event, and increased arousal. This is a condition inevitably affecting our societal health following the major earthquake and disaster we have experienced.
The aim should be to fulfill, as soon as possible, the necessity of a planned social rehabilitation prepared by experts in the relevant field. It is essential that the functional capacity lost or sometimes limited due to conditions arising from the earthquake be identified and treated without delay. At the same time, the aim is to support the individual and society psychosocially and professionally, enabling them to become independent again in daily life.
It is necessary to combat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder now, before further illnesses develop.
Rehabilitation is an active process. Rehabilitation ensures the correction of function despite existing pathology, and the minimization or elimination of that pathology. The aim is to bring the patient, in every respect including their psychology, back to a level where they can readapt to family and social life. This is only possible through proper, qualified, and organized teamwork.
Hope still remains, as long as we mobilize together and under the guidance of experts in the field for serious preparation…