Showing posts with label helplessness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label helplessness. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Kaine Horman Files for Divorce
Kaine Horman has filed for divorce from his wife, Terri, moved out of the house with the couple's toddler daughter, and obtained a restraining order against Terri Horman. Kaine is the father of Kyron Horman, the second grader who disappeared from his elementary school in Portland, Oregon on June 4. Terri was the last person to see him, walking away from her towards his classroom that morning. She has been the focus of intense speculation in the blogosphere after reports that her cell phone records do not match her account of where she was that day.
If you Google this case, you can find numerous blog posts speculating on why the Hormans are splitting up. Just about everyone with an Internet connection seems to have an opinion, and most of them believe that Kaine knows something about Terri's role in Kyron's disappearance. Terri was already an Internet villain, and became one early in the case after she posted to her Facebook page that she was "hitting the gym" in the days following Kyron's disappearance.
For the record, I have absolutely no idea whether Terri Horman knows anything the general public doesn't about Kyron's disappearance. I watch the same cop shows on TV that everyone else does, and I know that when a child disappears there's a good chance someone close to them is involved. If this were a Law & Order
episode, my money would be on the stepmother. But it's not a Law & Order episode, and all I can assume from Kaine Horman filing for divorce is that the Hormans don't have a particularly happy marriage, at least not right now.Putting to the side the question of whether Terri Horman is involved in Kyron's disappearance, the Horman's marriage breaking up shines a spotlight on a real issue for families that are experiencing or have experienced traumatic stress. There is a popular notion that crises bring families closer together. In fact, the stress of crises put tremendous stress on family relationships. Marital trouble following a traumatic event is quite common, and the fact that most people think otherwise only serves to make people feel guilty about the troubles they are having.
At the end of every single Critical Incident Stress Management intervention, there is some form of education provided about typical reactions to stress and what people can do to mitigate their reactions. One of the standard things we tell people is not to make any major, life-changing decisions while they are in the acute aftermath of an event. It's not at all uncommon for people to say, at moments like this, that they are going to quit their job or move or leave their spouse. We caution them not to do anything they can't undo, because they may feel differently when the dust settles.
With that advice in mind, I cringed a little when I saw that Kaine Horman had filed for divorce. It is possible that the Hormans were having difficulties long before this, of course. It is also possible that Kaine knows something we don't know about Terri and Kyron. My worry is that neither of those things is true, but the last three weeks have been incredibly difficult and, in a situation that feels out of control, Kaine Horman is exerting control over one thing he can -- his marriage. If so, I hope he'll hold off a little longer, until they find Kyron or until the main investigation goes cold. There's no sense in doing something he can't undo.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Kyron Horman and the Urge to Do Something
Kyron Horman is still missing, more than 5 days after he was last seen at his Portland, Oregon elementary school. There are twice-daily briefings from the sheriff's department about his case, but they don't seem to contain much information. The family issued a statement today asking everyone to keep looking. The search has not been classified as a criminal investigation, and is still largely confined to the local Portland area despite tips coming in from Washington State.
In the absence of any hard information, the media, of course, is making up their own. It seems like every media outlet has a former FBI profiler or an expert in missing child cases explaining what the police really mean when they say nothing. Interestingly, not one of these people seems to think the police don't have any idea what happened to this child, and none of them seem to think this is not a criminal investigation. Apparently, there are clues to the Sheriff's thinking all over the place if you know where to find them -- or imagine them.
One interesting phenomenon of this story has to do with the search. Police have asked that people not just show up to help look for Kyron, but rather leave that to the folks who are trained in search and rescue. Apparently, people are showing up anyway. Today, police took a different tack and asked for donations of food and water for the search and rescue teams. Searchers are coming from all over Oregon, and they are going to need to be fed. The press in Portland is now announcing drop off centers where such donations can be left.
So, now is when, in the absence of any hard information, I'm going to make up my own. In my experience and training, it would be fairly unusual for the authorities to need donations from the public for food and water for the rescue teams. These sorts of needs are often either covered by donated supplies and services from local restaurants or supplied by the Red Cross, or both. In a truly huge operation, you can imagine the need outstripping the established methods of getting volunteers fed, but it would need to be truly huge, on the scale of 9-11 (and even there, companies donated tons of food). So why are the authorities asking the public for this?
My guess, and it is just a guess, is that they are trying to channel the energies of people who want to help. They don't want people showing up to search, because they aren't properly trained and they may well hinder the operation more than they will help it. But people don't like to be told to go away at moments like this. When they are turned away, people tend to interpret this as meaning that the authorities are not doing everything they can, or they simply ignore the instructions and go searching anyway. People who are scared do not like to do nothing, and helping makes them feel more in control. This is a natural, understandable reaction, but it needs to be sent in a useful direction so as not to sabotage the very operation people are trying to help. Asking people to bring food and water for the searchers gives them something to do that is arguably necessary that will not get in the way. The helpers feel like they're helping, the searchers get food and water, and those with the proper training carry out the search. Everybody wins.
If there's one thing I know about myself, it is that I am very prone to the need to do something when things go wrong. That is almost certainly a big piece of why I do crisis response work in the first place. That's not a bad motivation, and the outcome can be helpful. It's just a question of sending me off in the right direction, so I don't get in the way.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Man Traveling with Family Dies at the Grand Canyon
A man fell more than 200 feet from the south rim of the Grand Canyon on Saturday and died. His name has not been released pending notification of family members, and it is not clear how this happened. Some of his family members, however, already know. He was visiting the park with his son and daughter-in-law and "other extended family."
If we assume this man was not pushed, there are two possible scenarios, both truly awful to contemplate. The first is that the victim was either looking out over the edge or hiking when he fell, in which case he was almost certainly with members of his family who saw him die. The second is that he spent the holiday weekend with his family at the park, and then went off by himself and jumped. Obviously this is a tragedy either way, but it seems to be even more of a tragedy because his family was there in the park. Why is that? Why is it worse to have a loved one die while you are traveling with him than while he's off with some tour group?
Having someone die before your eyes has a particular impact. Our naive but deep-seated belief is that we have control over what we are close to, and particularly what we can see. When we see someone die, it very much shakes up this understanding of how the world works. Having this particular belief shaken, furthermore, is especially damaging because trauma makes us feel helpless as it is. It's bad enough having to deal with the notion that trauma happens and we can't control it. It's more distressing when it happens in a way that, on a visceral level, we feel like we should be able to control. Feelings of helplessness and loss of control are, as any mental health professional will tell you, warning signs of depression and red flags for suicide risk. As much as traumatic incidents always put people at risk, this sort of event may be even worse.
If this were a suicide, on the other hand, it might be even messier. Suicides leave behind a lot of guilt about what survivors could have or should have done to stop it. They leave that sense of helplessness that can make suicide contagious. If this man completed his suicide while traveling with family, however, it adds the additional sense that people have that they are responsible for one another when they are traveling together or even just engaged in an activity together. "I should have known" becomes "it was my personal responsibility to know."
There are two or three deaths by falling every year at the Grand Canyon, and most of them are accidents. In all of 2006 there were only 11 violent deaths in the entire National Park system, and only one was a suicide. Two were people being pushed over cliffs, so, at least that year, a fall from a cliff was more likely to be a murder than a suicide. Anecdotally there are many more suicide attempts by jumpers or people wanting to leap into the geysers at Yellowstone. When we imagine the final scary moments for a visitor who falls into the Grand Canyon, we tend to imagine the fall itself -- particularly if we're afraid of heights and have peered nervously over that edge. Sometimes we forget that every visitor has a family, and sometimes they're watching the tragedy first hand.
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Meet the Quarterback
- Naomi Zikmund-Fisher
- is a clinical social worker, former school Principal and a Crisis Consultant for schools and community organizations. You can learn more about her at www.SchoolCrisisConsultant.com
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