I have 'issues' with floor vibrations and deep thumping sounds.In 1982 I finally left northern Israel after living on the northern border on the Golan Heights for two years. During those years, my settlement in the Gallilee was exposed to Katyusha rocket fire, terrorist infiltrations and Syrian and Lebanese tank deployment and other military posturing for nearly the entire time. Those years of explosions, nights in the bomb shelters and near misses in the fields near South Lebanon left me with an aversion to loud noises and shaking floors and walls. I stayed on as a volunteer for the first three months of the Lebanon War and then returned home to America to pursue my college education. I will always regard those volunteer years as some of the best and most important years of my life.
At 5:04pm on the afternoon of October 17th, 1989 while in organic chemistry lab, I found myself ducking for cover under my lab bench as my University and, the whole Bay area was struck by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake. The epicenter of the quake was near my home in Santa Cruz, California. The area would rumble for weeks and hourly records of the aftershocks would be printed in the morning paper each day. We had no water or electricity for over a week and both my home and the hospital where I worked suffered major structural damage. Students who lived near the epicenter had to sleep on living room floors of their friends near the University so they could attend classes because Highway 17 which connected Santa Cruz to the central valley was erased by landslides. I was reacquainted with the strange feeling of dread sleeping out in the backyard as aftershocks rocked our damaged home night after night. A recent study at Oxford University poses an unusual therapy for people who have just gone through a trauma or stress that is likely to leave them with fear and anxiety. The therapy consists of playi
ng a video game. According to researchers, people who are asked to play the popular game, 'Tetris' soon after psychological trauma are less likely to live with post traumatic stress disorder. The theory is that if the victim is forced to play the game for a couple of hours soon after the event, the game will limit the possibility of the brain developing the well worn pathways it needs to establish a post traumatic stress disorder. Tetris requires the player to recruit so much of the brains resources to play the game that, "the brain would be unable to form the memory links that form the basis of a trauma flashback" according to the New Scientist publication.
Children and adults who grow up in and around violence or disaster suffer nightmares, anxiety and panic disorders, mood disorders, eating and sleeping problems and so on. They perform poorer in standardized tests and have difficulty concentrating on tasks and problem solving.When we have the option to speak a little quieter and a little kinder to one another and to make a little less noise in the world, then we should take that opportunity. Some of us value a little peace and quiet.
Photograph Notes: These photos are from my personal portfolio of some of the settlement children during one of their trips to the firing range near Kibbutz Gonen, Israel and of scenes in the town of Santa Cruz, California during the earthquake in 1989.
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