Recall a time when you were in an accident, surgery or something from which you had to recover. Maybe you tore an ACL or had an injury requiring physical therapy. Or possibly, you have given care to someone in physical or occupational therapy and listened to the feelings, frustrations, and pains of one in recovery. Do you remember how you felt? Do you remember your frustrations? Frustration-the feelings we have in the gap between expectations and reality in which we feel powerless. Frustration can present as anger, fear, maybe sadness but its source is feeling we have no power or control. I believe there are five principles that are necessary in helping someone recover and meet healing expectations: choice, time, deliberateness, position, and resilience.
Nearly six months have passed since the Lee County Tornado. We are now, as a community, in the recovery period. Survivors are stabilized. Their immediate needs after the storm have been met and there is no longer a need for rescue related urgent needs of food, water, clothing and shelter. Those with storm injuries are coming back to the community although their home may be gone. We are in the stage of long- term recovery.
“Long-term” recovery often needs more definition. Our definition is based on a formula developed by FEMA. The number of days for search and rescue (rescue phase), multiplied by 100 is the number of months in long term recovery. The search and rescue process was 3-4 days. Therefore, it is 30-40 months for the long- term recovery process. This could be recovering through grief, medical trauma, getting homes repaired or replaced and various combinations. It is also reflective of individual recovery as well as the community rebuilding.
Our community’s long- term recovery group, called MEND, represents a beautiful image of healing. Rich with meaning, the name MEND recognizes care, compassion, and a deliberateness to each person as well as the Lee County community. For me, the word mend evokes the image of a grandmother carefully mending holes in worn socks. With painstaking patience, the crochet needles methodically work to patch, one stitch at a time, the ragged hole as a sweet smile gleams over her face. Mending is a process and it takes time, deliberateness, and love. Our healing process, in the stage of long- term recovery, is much like physical therapy. There are five principles I believe represent the processes needed in physical therapy.
Choice: In physical therapy, the therapist recognizes each survivor’s therapy and recovery is unique. An individual recovery plan is developed. The survivor or patient hears the principles but is the one directing the process. The physical therapist becomes a trusted guide to aid the patient/survivor in his/her recovery process. This is the role of the case managers working with the survivors. With deliberateness and love, they are learning what each individual person needs for their recovery and helping develop the plan so they can mend, heal, and ultimately recover.
Time: In physical therapy, the pace is based upon the patient and survivor. Although the physical therapist sets goals with the patient, it is up to the patient to live into those. The patient can shut the process down and circumvent or even jeopardize the healing. They can also set high expectations and even exceed goals initially set. How many times have we seen where a doctor or therapist told someone they might never walk again… and the patient beats those odds? Conversely, how many give up to soon because the process is too hard or difficult?
Deliberateness: Physical therapy is not a fast process. It can be long and sometimes painful as new muscles and tendons are stretched and worked. Overcoming the trauma from loss or a frightening memory can slow the recovery process. Having to replace a home, grief from loss of a loved one, being out of work, and feeling powerless all at once can be overwhelming. The careful and deliberate therapist and case manager recognizes all these factors and therefore paces the recovery with the survivor and patient. To go too fast and rush a survivor can cause significant damage and even more long- term injury. Moving too slow and not helping get aspects of new ways of living into place can also cause damage. The therapist/case manager balances the tensions of not moving too fast or too slow, instead focusing on the deliberate actions from agreed upon goals and processes.
Position: The therapist/case manager is not the hero! It is never about the caregiver and always about the survivor/patient directing their own recovery. If the physical therapist played the role of the hero, then the survivor would most likely still feel like a victim and possibly never mend completely. Because part of the recovery is repairing and rebuilding homes with volunteers, even the volunteers must realize they are not the heroes either. They must intentionally position themselves as community participants in a survivor’s recovery, part of the therapy team. This means we are working with the survivors not doing things forthem or to them. An important part of recovery is never doing something for someone they can do for themselves.
Resilience: Lastly, the therapy and mend process is building back stronger, tougher, and ready for whatever else a survivor might face. Each step in the case management recovery process is building the resilience damaged by the disaster trauma. Every choice and decision the survivor makes in their recovery helps build their resilience. To move too quickly and bypass the survivor’s decision- making ability and “do it for them” so that we can deep down, at the metaphysical level, feel good about ourselves, can cripple them in the long term. The recovery and mend principles described above culminate at this place; resiliency and the ability of the survivor to not only bounce back but have the tools for whatever hardship they may face again. That is where love really shines.
As we work to mend and heal with each survivor and our community; as we recognize our own trauma, I pray we continue intentionally healing and mending together. The recovery process may be uncomfortable. As healing practitioners, we desire to help not hurt. Following these principles are a good start. It takes a community to heal and we are certainly better together. I pray Christ’s spirit will continue guiding us as we rebuild and recover together.
Grace and peace
lisa
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