but what is the right choice? She loves her boyfriend, so she thinks it would be okay to become intimate with him. But she is scared, wondering what it will be like, wondering if it will change their relationship, wondering if it really is the right thing to do.
•Sophia lives in a rural area in the Northeast. Superstorm Sandy’s torrential rains flooded her modest two bedroom home, and she and her dog had to evacuate and are currently staying in temporary shelters. It will be several days before she can go back to her home to survey the damage, but she is preparing herself for the worst. At 51 she can’t imagine starting all over again, but she begins to think about where she will live and how she will rebuild her home and her life.
If you have been in a similar situation, how did you manage your response? What were you thinking? What were you feeling? Were you satisfied with the way things turned out and how you moved forward? Were you able to overcome?
Over the course of your life you will experience several types of crises with varying degrees of severity. Some may seem more manageable than others. The major crisis types are listed in the table. Perhaps you can identify examples for some of these crisis types from your own life.
| CRISIS TYPES | |
| Human Caused | Acts of Nature |
| Anticipated Event | Unexpected Event |
| Brief Consequences | Long-term Consequences |
| Occasional Event | Recurring Event |
Human caused events include marriage, divorce, problems with children, school shootings, job interviews, auto accidents, crime, and the like. Acts of nature are beyond our control, such as floods, earthquakes, or a flat tire. Human caused events seem to involve more self-doubt, guilt, and anger than do acts of nature. We react differently to someone injured in an auto accident caused by the carelessness and negligence of another driver than to someone injured in a tornado or an earthquake. For the careless driver, we might feel anger, assign blame, and want revenge. Robbery victims often experience feelings of helplessness and vulnerability along with depression and hopelessness. It is important to identify the source of these crises, and how various kinds of crises affect us.
An unexpected event brings about the most psychological and social disruption. Anticipated crises, such as upcoming financial difficulties, provide an opportunity for us to plan our strategy in advance. Brief events, such as worry about an annual physical exam, are quickly resolved. But a diagnosis of cancer at our annual exam becomes a very stressful long-term crisis that is much more difficult to confront. We all face occasional minor crises in our day-to-day lives, but if these brief events are recurring—such as the neighbor’s dog barking every night to interrupt your sleep—minor crises can become increasingly disruptive.
A seemingly minor crisis might affect an individual significantly, but a major disaster may not. Crisis responses are individual, and some of us have developed better coping responses and can react in a positive way to resolve the situation more quickly. Although even a minor mishap may feel like a major crisis to some of us, it is safe to say that crises involving injury or death have the greatest impact on us. In addition, the closer we are to the crisis situation and to the people involved, the more frightened and traumatic our reaction will be. Seeing the destruction from a tornado in another state on TV has less impact on us than watching the tornado pass close by and destroy a neighboring community.
How Do Children React to Crises?
Children react to crises differently than adults, but like adults, their reactions are highly variable from child to child and from event to event. Their reactions can be immediate or delayed. Common responses are a loss of trust and a fear of the event recurring. Children don’t have the ability to conceptualize distance, so they may feel vulnerable and stressed when hearing about a crime or a natural disaster that occurred hundreds or even thousands of miles away. If a child watches the television news that describes a series of kidnappings and murder in a distant state, or even another country, the child may be fearful that this could happen to her or him. Many children across the country were traumatized by the 9/11 attacks in New York City—they felt as though it had occurred in their neighborhood and believed that the same thing could happen to them even at home.
A young child’s reactions to a crisis are strongly affected by the parents’ reactions to the event. If you show a great deal of emotion and fear, chances are your child will too. Children display a range of behaviors as a result of fear from crisis events, including becoming clingy, regressing to behaviors of a younger age, nightmares and sleep disturbances, social isolation, school difficulties, poor concentration, physical complaints, constantly reliving the event, and more. (See Chapter 7 for detailed information on preparing your child to cope with a crisis.)
Factors That Influence Your Crisis Response
Your current life situation and current level of stress will influence how you cope with a crisis. Stress reactions to a crisis involve physiological, emotional, and cognitive components. If you are in the throes of a divorce, facing bankruptcy, and dealing with your child’s behavioral problems at school, you will be much less effective in handling a new crisis than you otherwise would be. We live with increasing stress today, from economic stressors to world events. On top of that, people just seem busier in their lives and have less time to relax and replenish the energy needed to handle life’s demands. In general, the more stressors in your life, the more difficult it will be to cope effectively with crises.
If you experienced a crisis in the past, a similar kind of crisis may awaken previous reactions. The victim of a hurricane may show strong emotions when exposed to even the slightest wind and rain. Depending upon the severity of the crisis, some individuals may lose their equilibrium about life. Conversely, you may have learned how to cope effectively with a situation that will help you in the future.
If you have been successful in the past and believe you will be so in the future, that expectation most likely enhances your ability to succeed simply because you have the experience and success to back it up. When the high school softball team members know that their team has not beaten their cross-town rival in 10 years, they may expect to be defeated again. But if they have beaten them on occasion and know it can be done, their belief that they can succeed may affect the outcome. Do not underestimate the value of self-confidence.
Oftentimes, our mind tries to tell us that there really is nothing wrong as we seek to “normalize” a situation. You might see someone holding up a convenience store attendant but think it must just be a stunt—some friends trying to surprise the attendant. When a crisis occurs, it can take some time for the situation to “sink in” that this is really happening. The more quickly and accurately you can identify what is happening, the more quickly you will be able to formulate a plan to manage the situation.
Common reactions in a crisis are disbelief, disorientation, and feeling disorganized. Most people are able to overcome those feelings and do what they need to do, but some 10–20 percent of individuals become immobilized and are unable to act or respond. Generally, this occurs in more serious crises.
We all have experienced the fight or flight reaction—heart rate increases, breathing rate increases, muscle tension and blood pressure increase, and vision and hearing become sharpened. This is the body’s emergency response system, but in today’s stress-filled world, this stress response may be activated many times a day, leading to fatigue, exhaustion, an inability to cope, and eventually to physical problems such as headaches, illness, and even heart attacks. It isn’t quite as useful today as it was in earlier times where our ancestors needed to fight predators or flee for self-protection. We experience the fight or flight response when we have a near miss in the car, walk into the job interview, or walk to the podium to give a speech. Every stressful event uses up valuable energy from your personal fuel tank. Eventually you will run out of fuel and shut down just like a car with an empty gas tank. Effective crisis management will help you make this fight or flight reaction work for you as a mobilizing force and limit the amount of time this system is activated and the amount of fuel you use for these