Profile Coping With Stress
By Patrick Butler
Aid Volunteers in Ukraine Face Trauma Volunteers helping refugees from Ukraine are becoming distressed themselves
olu n t e e r s se e k i ng to aid some of the 3 million refugees coming across the border from Ukraine are experiencing anguish themselves, a trauma therapy counselor told Insight on March 15. “It’s essential that volunteers who have little or no experience dealing with traumatized adults and children get ready for what they’re about to see,” said MaryDale Salston, who has worked for years in post-traumatic stress counseling. “Volunteers will be traumatized, too, and definitely impacted by the brutality of the stories they hear. They need to be prepared to manage their responses and remain calm to be effective.” Salston has worked as a trauma counselor during the San Francisco earthquake of 1989, the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995, and hurricane disasters in Florida where people’s homes were destroyed. She has also led groups of patients who were survivors of violent crimes and those who have had family members murdered.
FROM TOP: COURTESY OF MARYDALE SALSTON, DANIEL MIHAILESCU/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Delayed Symptoms There are some simple steps nonprofessionals can take to be more effective, Salston said. “Step one is that volunteers should not forget to breathe slowly, deeply, in and out. Remain calm. Don’t react to what you see with jaw dropping or eyes rolling,” she said. “People facing life and death stress situations stop breathing normally. They clench down and breathing becomes shallow, or they just hold their breath. Volunteers will experience that as well as they encounter shaken people and children.” There are “identifiers” that volunteers staying for extended periods will see. “Acute trauma is the duration of symptoms for less than three months. Chronic trauma symptoms last longer than three months,” Salston said.
“Thirdly, there are delayed-onset symp- had been impacted in a positive way,” toms where at least six months have she said. passed since people experienced the “Responses such as ‘My family has been trauma and onset of symptoms.” there for me,’ ‘I have developed better Some refugees will cope via perrelationships with friends who have sistent avoidance, experiencing gone through this,’ or ‘My relaa restricted range of emotions. tionship with God is stronger.’” “They will not be able to be as Volunteers shouldn’t be overloving, thoughtful, or concerned whelmed by the sheer number for others as they were,” she said. of refugees in need of help. “There are people who formerly “I always have hope that if a could laugh easily, and all that volunteer is reaching out, even Dr. MaryDale shuts down. They were able to Salston Retired to just a few people, that this have empathy for somebody, trauma therapist will eventually have a positive but can’t any longer.” impact on a larger number,” People experiencing life-and-death Salston said. “A colleague and I led a hosituations can lead to what’s called “hy- micide survivors’ group of 30, and they pervigilance.” ended up doing all the work. We may “That’s where people are on guard all have led the topic, but they were the ones the time because of the traumas they’ve helping each other. experienced,” Salston said. “Coupled “When they read of a homicide in the with that can be the exaggerated startle paper, they would write a letter to the response. Simple sounds—like a book survivors and say, ‘You should come dropping or a car backfiring—cause peo- to this group. It’s going to help you.’ ple to be startled, a symptom not present They helped each other a great deal. If before the trauma.” the volunteers to Ukraine can promote that—helping each other rather than Positive Outcomes a professional doing it all—that would Not all responses to traumatic stress are have a powerful impact.” negative, she said. Prayer is important, she said. “I once did a survey of individuals “We need to pray for volunteers for asking how trauma impacted their dai- guidance and good leadership,” she said. ly lives. I was surprised to find that in “That’s what we can do for them here as every case, the narrative was how they they are going over there.”
Refugees from Ukraine enter Romania after crossing the Danube river at the Isaccea–Orlivka border crossing, on Feb. 26. I N S I G H T April 1–7, 2022 51
