Natural disasters expose our vulnerability, writes MARIE MURRAY
WHEN NATURE strikes, it does so with terrible force. When it strikes unexpectedly, ferociously, persistently and sequentially, the seismic psychological waves and aftershocks are felt worldwide. We shrink in proportion to nature’s magnitude. Lilliputians in the face of giant calamities, our defencelessness and psychological frailties surface and engulf us.
Every tragedy, whether minor or major and regardless of where it happens, has resonance for each of us – if only by reminding us that there but for fate we might be.
We become aware of how perilously close to destruction we live. We realise that a moment, a circumstance, an aberrant happening, a change in weather, a mechanical failure, the greed of another, carelessness, wanton acts, seconds of hesitancy, unfortunate timing or cruel fate may conspire against us or injure those we love.
We live our lives with a faith that fate can upturn in a second. Calamities remind us of this. When nature erupts, certainties collapse so that we experience their psychological impact. Physical borders do not sever us from psychological inclusion in the lives of others.
As the world becomes smaller, we are brought nearer to every event that happens. Research on disasters suggests they are rated psychologically at a number of levels. These include the nature of the event and its duration; the extent to which we have experienced it personally or can relate to those who have; the survivor guilt this causes us if we have escaped; the gratitude we feel that we are not involved.
We also grapple with what is called the “death imprint” of the images of mass destruction and “death anxiety” that follows whenever we view mass death. Fear depends upon the possibility of the event’s recurrence and whether or not it can be averted or prevented in the future. Events have emotional meaning. We are not immune to them.
The earthquake in Haiti last year, the one in Indonesia and the tsunami that followed, the quake in New Zealand last month, and the one off the coast of Japan with another tsunami and nuclear crisis to follow, have psychological reverberations for everyone. They remind us that despite our technological sophistication, there are forces for which we are no match.
And there are more personal events nearer home that do so too. Already this year we were shocked by the murder of an Irish bride in Mauritius, the death of another beautiful young woman from carbon monoxide poisoning in a hotel in Kinsale and the tragedy of the Cork plane crash. Each event reminded us that the cruelty of fate is great. Things happen that should not happen.
The novel by Thornton Wilder entitled The Bridge of San Luis Rey provides exploration of the meaning, or lack of it, in happenstance. It opens with how at a certain moment, on a certain day in 1714, the “finest” bridge in Peru collapses and five people die, evoking the question and quest by a bystander to understand why that happened to those five. This arises for each of us when the tragedies of others are texted or Tweeted, when they appear on our screens or in print, and when they are relayed into our homes. Then there are two questions that we inevitably ask: Why did this happen to others? Why did this not happen to me?
Fate is arbitrary, capricious, gratuitous, whimsical, impartial, indifferent, callous, cruel and beyond our control. That is why the psychological aftershocks of major disasters such as earthquakes, produce questions about whether or not we stand on terra firma or if security is ever possible.
Disasters evoke questions about where on earth is solid, what is sure, who we can rely on, how we can know if our lives will suddenly, inexplicably shift and collapse.
That is why there is merit in the maxim to live each day as if it is our last, to mend whatever needs to be fixed before tomorrow, to do what we would wish to be remembered for, to say what we need to say to those we love and to avail of life while we have it, because a single second can take it away.
Clinical psychologist Marie Murray is director of psychology, student counselling services at University College Dublin