As people injured in Monday’s explosions continue to recover, the emotional impact of the blasts may pose a unique challenge for some families.
Everybody copes differently with grief and loss. And grief and loss is what a lot of marathon bomb victims are experiencing right now, says social worker Lisa Allee.
"It's the loss of a limb, its the loss of life as they expected it to be, the loss of the world as a safe place after something like this happens," Allee said.
Allee directs the Community Violence Response Team at Boston Medical Center. She’s been helping patients cope.
"Most people are having a lot flashbacks, intrusive thoughts and images of what happened while they are awake, while they are asleep," Allee said. "These are very typical, normal, expected emotions after any sort of traumatic event or disaster, so we are preparing them for them, normalizing a lot of those feelings, and again taking it a step at a time."
But for many, this will not be a normal recovery process. Boston Medical Center received 23 wounded on Monday, including a mother and daughter, and a mother and son. They also treated a five-year-old boy, who’s still hospitalized, and his aunt. The boy’s mother is being treated in a different hospital. Allee says the major challenge in these situations is that the people who would typically be there to help someone who’s been horribly injured, have also sustained serious injuries.
"The recovery process is just going to be different," she said. "We're trying to look at the positives of being able to share and understand each other's recovery process, instead of being, you know, the only person injured and having everyone else rallying around its recovering together.
Allee says she’s happy family members being treated in different hospitals can connect over the internet and Skype. It helps to know how your loved ones are doing.
