The old adage can be somewhat true: Time heals all wounds. From personal and professional experience as a psychiatrist, I say that healing is not linear, grief cannot be scheduled, and that with time, desire, and professional treatment, one can see new perspectives that spark the light of transformation. Self-reflection helps us get there.
For many, September marks back-to-school, High Holidays, and the beginning of crisper weather. For me, 23 years later, I’m transported to memories of my time as a first responder at 9/11, reflecting on the woman I was, changed forever by the repercussions of my trauma, with its own unique personal and cultural overtones.1 Sifting through the aftermath of my profound sense of loss and sorrow in reflection was not easy. Those days and months were hard enough. But I decided long ago that I wouldn’t remain a victim to the many lamentable keepsakes of that time. Doing the work to alchemize wounds into gifts may not happen overnight, but it’s a worthwhile endeavor that can lift the fog of despair. Here's one such story:
In 2001, Christine Todd Whitman, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency at that time, continually falsely reassured me and my fellow first responders and those who lived near Ground Zero that the air was repeatedly tested and found to be not harmful. On NBC news, despite Whitman’s overconfident and inaccurate report that the air was tested and not dangerous, I expressed my firsthand experience at being at Ground Zero, that the air continued to smell of burnt bodies and remained highly caustic to our skin, eyes, and lungs.
Sadly, much later, my concerns were confirmed. We learned that the air was “wildly toxic,” according to air pollution expert and University of California, Davis........