Talking About Crisis
A little 13 year old girl when quizzed by a reporter about her experience in hurricane Katrina said: “I don’t want to talk about it.”
How foolish of the reporter to think that the girl would unburden her heart in front of the entire nation. Of course she will have to talk about her experience at some time. What I was hearing her say was “I don’t want to talk about it to you, now.”
Such a young person should be gotten together with a group of her peers and let them talk. They will be full of stories of what they saw, did and imagined. All children need to know that what they say will be held in private and will be respected. I thought that she was very wise to realise that a reporter was the ideal person to spill her guts to.
There is an entire process for helping people, young or old to talk about such catastrophes. Get them together and take time through a carefully leveled process which allows them to get support from their peers and to gradually let the genuine pain out.
The second thing that could be very helpful for this young lady is to encourage her to keep a journal. When we keep a diary, we write the briefest notes about the weather, social occasions, etc. In a journal we write down our deepest hearts concerns. Keeping a journal is one of the best ways for anyone to keep their psychological balance in this mad world, Anne Frank kept a journal in the midst of profound chaos and thousands have been the richer for it. Many others have also kept journals which have helped to enrich our culture.
In addition to these two comments I should note that the girl may well be an introvert. She was certainly being pushed into an introverted place by the reporter. We will have much more about introversion and other aspects of type when our site is up, but that may be part of her legitimate reason for wanting to be quiet.
That is what I think. What do you think?