Shuvra Deb

The experience of being in the BVI when Hurricane Irma made landfall as a category 5 hurricane caused me to develop PTSD. For over one-year post-Irma, I thought I was going mad. I didn’t realize I had PTSD until I was referred to a Psychologist and treated. For me, some of the very real implications included: seeing the BVI out of the window when taking off in planes from other places and not being able to differentiate between the mental image and reality; seemingly over-reacting to benign events; panic attacks; being unable to hold conversations and hearing people’s voices becoming muffled; losing lexicon and other loss of memory; suicidality; feelings of isolation from members of wider communities who had not experienced the storm. My discussion includes the importance of: having awareness of the real-life impacts of climate change driven natural disasters; pre-crisis resilience training; the need for awareness in communities of mental health challenges post-disaster.