(We're) Wigging Out

http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/current/cover_story.php

(*Excellent Article about the state of mind(s) down here*)

Wigging Out

Stressed, depressed and drinking more, the people of New Orleans are behaving pretty much as we should.

Sometimes it's hard to remember why New Orleans was ever called "The Big Easy." When everyone's life has been disrupted and day-to-day living is a big logistical headache, New Orleans is worlds away from easy.

--snip-

In short, post-Katrina New Orleans is an urban pressure cooker, a city newly difficult to live in, inhabited by people who are more tightly wound than ever. It's the Big Opposite, and no one living here appears to be immune from the strain.

--snip--

"In non-disaster situations, people generally list their jobs as one of their biggest sources of stress. In post-Katrina New Orleans, where residents across the board have major personal issues, job strain is just another problem on an already long list.

But it's a big one. Those who are employed here tend to be working long hours, with skeleton crews and more demands than normal. "The challenges being faced at work are exacerbated," says New Orleans therapist Michelle Longino. "People are just trying to hold on and get through the day. Their stress levels are so high they're spinning out. I hear that so many times in work places."


--snip--

"Ambien and Zoloft are really popular right now!" laughs Debbie Shatz, tending bar at a packed Parasol's on a Thursday afternoon. From behind the bar, Shatz encounters waves of customers moving back into town and she hears their stories. "I know when someone's in the one-week-back phase and who's in the two-week-back phase," she says. "It's not a coincidence that people are going through the same emotions in the same time frames."

--snip--

""Survivor guilt" seems ubiquitous among those affected by Katrina, wherever they are. "I feel that most people are probably much worse off than me, and I shouldn't really complain at all," says Dan Eberhart, a recent Tulane Law School graduate who had been in the workforce only three weeks before Katrina hit. He's unemployed and living in Phoenix, studying for the Arizona bar exam. "I'm mostly OK," Eberhart says, "but one of my friends is a mental wreck. She's from Port Sulfur and her town is gone. She randomly starts crying all the time. We'll be at dinner and she'll start crying and go outside and sit in the car for two hours. If you ask her what's wrong she just shakes her head."

That's what you all have.

It happened to me after going through three hurricanes in a row last year. At the end of the third one, after the electric finally came back on I was exhausted and depressed. Then I figured out what was going on, I had a mild case of PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I can't imagine how bad it must be after 3 months of this crap.

Hang in there and have a drink on me.

Poker tonight...

wish me luck

from a New Orleanian post Katrina - "all we want to be is abnormal again." A flashback to my military days brings up this old cliche, "if it doesn't kill you it will make you better." New Orleans will be better (if that's possible) and without the help of the doomsayers. Imagine funkybutt, you'll soon have a funkierbutt!!

Caveat: New Orleans most likely will not be bigger and I fail to see how it could be better than it was prior to 27 August. Less crime, less poverty - YES! But culturally, where's the better??

That's T-shirt worthy!

I, like so many, go from being incredibly optimistic to experiencing intense grief and anger. I take comfort in the fact that many of my friends and acquaintances are experiencing the same thing. We're wiggin out, but not givin up.

any serious earthquake or hurricane know what you're experiencing.

Mine lasted for a good 18 months after the Northridge earthquake - I had constant vertigo throughout that time, and any little vibration made me physically react as if in full earthquake mode.

It's been 11 years, and the vertigo has tapered down to a few episodes a year.

But, yes, when you are alive while people close by didn't survive, you can't help but be effected in bad ways as well as good.

OK that sounds REALLY dumb and it was probably a very mild form of ptsd (at best) but I think I did experience something psychologically screwy after being in a rollover accident.

I didn't want to sleep for days and every time I would try to sleep I would go right back to the few minutes of the car spinning out of control and then the crash.

I can't even imagine what people go through when they lose everything AND have the ever loving crap scared out of them in a disaster.

All of my best to everyone trying to survive mentally, financially and physically right now in NOLA!

When people ask what the earthquake felt like I tell them that this one felt like vio;ently rolling over a cliff in a car where you have absolutely no control of your body movements.

So, actually, depending on the severity of the earthquake, you got it pretty much right.

When I was in San Francisco there was a VERY minor tremor and I just about had a cow.

If I had endured what you did in that quake I would probably STILL be out in the center of a field somewhere in Iowa muttering to myself lol

There's not a working clock in this entire city. This morning I went on my walk and the big clock by St. Patrick's Church on Camp said it was 2:30;
as I walked on, the Whitney clock said it was 11:15, and by the time I hit the French Quarter a clock there told me quite firmly that it was 6:00 o'clock.

I'm not really surprised at this - New Orleans has always had a problem
with time. Time is not linear here; this is a city where people live in two hundred year old houses, have wireless Internet and use 600-year-old
recipes while singing 60's songs to their newborns. Time is more of a mental game in New Orleans...you can pick the year you liked the best and stay in that year for the rest of your life here and no one says a thing. You can talk about your great great grandparents as if they were still alive and talk about your neighbors as if they were dead, and we all understand.

Time marches to it's own drunk drummer here. This morning as I walked into the Quarter on Chartres, a woman ran out of a cafe to greet me, "Hey dahlin" she yelled as she hugged me, "Where ya been?" I looked at her and realized it was one of the exotic dancers from one of the smaller establishments on Chartres; over the years I'd become friendly with several of the dancers as I would take my morning walk. We'd smile, wave, and exchange pleasantries. This morning I realized that even though I had said hello to this woman three times a week for four years, I didn't know her name. I smiled, hugged her back and told her how badly I felt that I never knew her name and she laughed "Dahlin, you know my name, it's Baby!" Time to laugh out loud.

Twenty minutes later as I walked up Royal from Esplanade on my way out of
the Quarter, a dark sedan stopped in the street right by the Cathedral and all four doors opened at once. I was twittering with curiosity when the driver hopped out, ran to the other side and escorted a smiling
We're dealing with a lot of time issues these days, time to meet the
insurance specialist, time to call FEMA, time to put out the refrigerator, time to get a new refrigerator, time to decide whether to stay in New Orleans or head elsewhere, time to register the kids for school, time to sell the house, time to buy the house, time to find a job, time to leave a job, time to figure out the rest of your life.

Could we maybe, while dealing with all those time issues, take a minute
and remember\? Remember that there was a time when all of this was different, there was a time when slaves were sold in the Napoleon House, a time when Mid-City was considered the country, a time when people staged sit ins downtown, a time when there was no McDonald's or Wendy's or even Popeye's, a time when the Quarter burned, a time when people spoke French or Spanish, a time when the Opera House was open, a time when this was all uninhabited, a time when your refrigerator worked, your house was whole, your neighborhood wasn't flooded and your city wasn't defined by a Hurricane.

More than any other city in this country, this is a city defined by the
quality of the times people have had here. Maybe it's because it's a port city, maybe it's because of the food, maybe it's because of the heat, but this city remembers everyone who has ever lived, loved and laughed here.

People visit us because they can feel the difference as soon as they get
here, they can feel how time is honored here, in the time to craft our
houses and the time to make a roux. They can feel that the city holds all
of our memories, our joys, our sorrows and our triumphs. That any time spent in New Orleans is kept in the breath, air, water and sky of New Orleans. What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but what happens in New Orleans changes the city and its people, minute-by-minute, day-by-day, year-by-year, so that we can't help but live in the past, present and future.

Time will tell what we will end up looking like, how strong the levees
will be, how many houses will be repaired, but we will tell time how strong the people of New Orleans are, how deep our commitments to each other are, and that sometimes the best stories are the ones we write for ourselves.

Once upon a time in a city called New Orleans......

:cry:

:hi:

:cry: :) :cry: :) :cry: :) :cry: :) :cry: :) :cry: :) :cry: :) :cry: :) :cry: :) :cry: :) :cry: :)

I totally understand Eberhart and her friend... I wish I didn't. :cry

:kick::


Demand category 5 protection for New Orleans and Southern Louisiana!!!

Join me in flooding Washington! Louisiana groups have launched an effort to generate 300,000 e-mails demanding category 5 protection for New Orleans and Southern Louisiana. That means effective levees and flood control projects as well as comprehensive coastal wetlands restoration to give Southern Louisiana a critical storm buffer. Please take a second to help spread the word!

Take action now at http://www.democracyinaction.org/GRN/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1521

Why it's not on the Home Page, I'll never know.



Keith’s Barbeque Central

American city.

Keith’s Barbeque Central

Demand category 5 protection for New Orleans and Southern Louisiana!!!

Join me in flooding Washington! Louisiana groups have launched an effort to generate 300,000 e-mails demanding category 5 protection for New Orleans and Southern Louisiana. That means effective levees and flood control projects as well as comprehensive coastal wetlands restoration to give Southern Louisiana a critical storm buffer. Please take a second to help spread the word!

Take action now at http://www.democracyinaction.org/GRN/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1521

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