Fighting FEAR

By IAN HILL
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Go to a baseball game. Donate blood. Take a vacation. Talk about your fears and concerns with a friend.
No matter what, social worker Rick Hall said, don't let anxiety rule your life.
"You can't stay in and live in fear," said Hall, who works with the Help Hotline Crisis Center in Youngstown. "You have to go about your life."
Hall and other mental health professionals and counselors in the Mahoning Valley have been giving that advice to local residents in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Help Hotline received 40 calls between Sept. 11-16 from local residents wanting to talk about the attack, he said.
Effect on patients: Dr. Alice Neuman, a psychologist at the Canfield Counseling Clinic, said the attack has had a particularly strong effect on her patients with other psychiatric conditions. Neuman said the attack left those patients and other Americans feeling vulnerable.
"Some of them cried for three days," she said of her patients.
Joe Sylvester, the executive director of the Eastern Behavior Health Center in Struthers, said many Americans had "heavy anxiety" as a result of the attack. However, Sylvester stressed that people shouldn't change their daily routines as a result of that anxiety.
"We don't have to change what we do, we don't have to fear flying, we don't have to fear going into the market," he said. "We need to continue to live our lives."
Hall noted he feels that, "you can't give into [fear]."
However, the Rev. Don Monaco, the associate pastor at Trinity Fellowship, said few of his parishioners have been paralyzed by fear. He said that instead, many of the parishioners want to know how they should contribute to the relief effort.
Donating food, blood or clothes to the effort allows people to overcome the helplessness they may feel while watching broadcasts of the rescue effort on television, Monaco said.
"They feel that they're contributing," he said.
Express yourself: Dawn Wiley-Mitchell, the bereavement coordinator for Hospice of the Valley in Youngstown, added that people shouldn't hesitate to express their feelings about their attacks.
"I think everybody in America is going to be willing to talk to you about this," she said.
Yet Sylvester noted that Americans often avoid talking about their experiences with trauma. This was evident during the Vietnam War, he said, when Americans often avoided talking about the injuries sustained by veterans.
By not talking about a traumatic event like the Sept. 11 attacks, Americans allow the anxiety and fear they associate with that trauma to grow, Sylvester said.
Wiley-Mitchell noted that television can add to the anxiety and grief by repeatedly broadcasting the traumatic event.
"Those sorts of things bring grief closer to home for us," she said.
People who don't vent their fears can develop irritability, eating problems and difficulties communicating with family and friends, according to Vince Brancaccio, a licensed independent social worker at Parkview Counseling Center in Youngstown.
Let it out: "The worst thing you can do is hold it in," he said, adding that people who develop such problems as a result of the attack should seek professional help.
Ron Marian, the executive director of the Mahoning County Mental Health Board, said people should check that therapists they visit are licensed or certified.
Counselors should have a Licensed Professional Counselor certificate, social workers should have a certificate from the Association of Certified Social Workers, and psychologists should have a license from the state, Marian said.
"A counselor should be experienced in the field," he said, noting that people should seek counselors at hospitals or established practices.
Marian also said people shouldn't fear visiting a counselor at their church or synagogue, but they shouldn't seek counseling from an unfamiliar faith.
Neuman said she tells her patients that if they express their feelings, they may find that their fears are irrational.
Wiley-Mitchell said people who vent their fears will be pleased to find that others share their feelings.
"It's not going to be difficult to find a support system," she said.
hill@vindy.com