Voices for Voices®

How Natural Disasters Impact Your Mental Health | Episode 166

• Founder of Voices for Voices®, Justin Alan Hayes • Season 4 • Episode 166

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How Natural Disasters Impact Your Mental Health | Episode 166

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Chapter Markers
0:00 Impact of Natural Disasters on Trauma
22:12 Rebuilding, Recovery, and Mental Health
28:32 Importance of Sharing Real Stories

What if the next natural disaster could change your life forever? Join us on Voices for Voices® as we confront the harsh realities of trauma and recovery, drawing from personal stories and high-profile events to examine how deeply these experiences affect us all. From the profound impact of my father's passing to the emotional aftermath faced by Stephen Twitch Boss's family, we explore the universal nature of grief. The recent wildfires in Southern California serve as a stark reminder of the irreplaceable value of human life, urging us to prioritize safety and community support in the face of such devastating events.

Our conversation shifts to the daunting journey of rebuilding lives after disaster strikes, diving into the murky waters of insurance claims and government assistance. This episode casts a critical eye on the stigma surrounding mental health and the urgent need for open discussion, especially when tragedy strikes unexpectedly. Through sharing true stories, including those of victims silenced too soon, we aim to shine a light on difficult issues like sex offenses and drug-related tragedies. By confronting these topics head-on, we hope to foster better understanding and push for prevention, while emphasizing the power of storytelling in healing and advocacy.

This episode examines the common theme of trauma in the context of recent wildfires in Southern California, drawing parallels to personal experiences of loss and the psychological implications on individuals. It invites listeners to reflect on their values during crisis situations and the importance of mental health discussions surrounding trauma.
• Trauma’s far-reaching effects discussed
• Reflections on personal stories of loss and connection
• Importance of preparedness in emergencies highlighted
• Mental health’s role in recovery emphasized
• Need for open conversations about difficult subjects addressed
• Encouragement to learn from collective experiences offered

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As you can see, the Voices for Voices® podcast publishes episodes that focus on case studies, real life examples, actionable tips and "in the trenches" reports and interviews from subscribers like you.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to this episode of the Voices for Voices TV Show and Podcast. I am founder and executive director of Voices for Voices, justin Allen Hayes. Thank you for joining us, thank you for all the support you've given us as an organization for our show, and we couldn't do this and have this platform without you. So, again, thank you. Whether you started at the beginning with us or whether you're just hopping on and catching us for the first time, welcome aboard. We'd love to have you. And if you're able to share and like our TV show and podcast, regardless of what platform it's on whether it's the video platform like Rumble or YouTube, or an audio podcasting like Odyssey, iheart, spotify, you name it we're there. So you can rest assured that there's a lot of great content that we have already and there's even more, so excited for 2025. We've got a new and improved merchandise shop that's up on our website, so take a look there's. There's something for for everyone, and we were, we're still, going towards that goal of helping three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond.

Speaker 1:

So we've done a few of these episodes off cycle from our Wednesday launches, and we're going to continue to bring content to you when it comes to mind. So, whether those are in-studio episodes or whether those are remote episodes on location at my residence, we're going to do that because we don't want to. As an organization and as a human, we don't want to limit ourselves to have to be creative at always one specific day and time, day and time. So there are again stipulations and there are guardrails for our studio time and and so we we do that, but with an idea if news, if an experience occurs off studio hours, that could be the day, night, weekend, weekday, we're gonna do that. We're gonna bring as much helpful content and through guests, through experiences, through news, and we're bringing up a which I would say like made the last six months or so, six, seven months. You know we're we're putting episodes around true crime and you know celebrities and some yeah, just some experiences that are happening in Northeast Ohio and some that aren't. But the thing is, whether those experiences are happening in Northeast Ohio or not, there are parallels that we're bringing to to light. Like one of our previous episodes we talked about the suicide a couple years ago of Steven Twitch boss and how that hasn't continues to impact his children and his widow, but the children still not fully grasping that their father was not gonna be able to come home. And so I went through the parallel of my story, my experience with my father's passing and a couple of experiences with my daughter that had occurred. And so, while we talk about the story that's in Hollywood, california, we bring that right back home to the Northeast of Ohio. So I wanted to cover that right here at the outset. Another big story, and it again, that's a huge parallel.

Speaker 1:

While the actual event itself might be a little bit different, the impact and the trauma is similar to other events. And so what are we talking about? We're talking about the wildfires in Southern California. Acres upon acres, home upon home, car upon car are completely at a loss. Cars, melted houses, multi-million dollar houses, no more. These, these wildfires. You know we're in Ohio, we don't have wildfires.

Speaker 1:

Or probably saying what a wildfires have to do with us in Ohio, the Northeast Ohio? Well, maybe the wildfire, maybe that term, that natural disaster unless it turns out to be arson, where somebody purposely started one or all of those fires, trauma, whether Whether it is due to losing a house, a car, a school, a place of worship, a restaurant, a sporting venue, concert hall, concert venue. We take a thing and that is a house, and we have all those memories that have have occurred in that, and we take a school, all those interactions with teachers and students and students and students. We take these experiences and these things and we move them in one way or another. And so wildfires, unfortunately, are taking a lot of, a lot of structures, a lot of buildings, a lot of cars, just a lot of things just totally destroying, burning into the ground literally. And so there are people who have had, maybe, maybe some had a day or two, others maybe they had a matter of minutes of, but we got to evacuate. It's a lot of time.

Speaker 1:

How do we decide what to bring with us? What do I absolutely need? What is unreplaceable? Well, I'll tell you what one thing is and it's at the top of the list it's life, it's you and I, it's humans. We're not able to, and I, it's humans, we're not able to replace those. So that's first and foremost. So, at the very least, hey, let's get everybody out and that'll be our first step and we'll go step by step, and we'll go step by step, minute by minute, and go that route. Okay, where are we going to stay? Where are we going to get food from? And all those questions need to be answered. But at the outset, we can't replace the human lives.

Speaker 1:

So that's happening now in California, here in Ohio or anywhere across the United States of America or across the world. We can't replace life. So it's a similar type of an event where we're to be happening, where we're awoken in the middle of the night and the residents where we live in somehow caught on fire. That's what we're doing, right, first thing is wake everybody up, get everybody out of that, out of the house, out of the condo, out of the apartment, out of the dorm, out of the duplex, first and foremost. So, while the wildfires are on a much greater scale of acreage and the amount of homes and structures and vehicles and the like we bring that to anywhere in the United States, anywhere in the world, that could occur to any of us Talking in singularity here, could happen to my residents, and if that were to occur, hopefully I would be awoken before the flames and the smoke filled the lungs and all that.

Speaker 1:

But those same decisions will be going through my mind of okay, let's get everybody woken up, let's get out of here, and if we have any, I'll say extra time, what else are we going to? I say extra time, but what else are we gonna? What can we take? And that's gonna be dictated by how much time we have. So again, we're taking a story that's not happening in Northeast Ohio. We're not having wildfires here In Southern California.

Speaker 1:

They are, and at the time of our airing of this show, we hope and pray that all the wildfires have been put out and all the lives that were in those structures can be accounted for and we have the least amount of casualties. We hope for zero. We don't want any casualties, and so that would be the same as I am here talking to you, either by video TV or your audio podcast, that if any of that were to happen to my family and my residence, we don't want any loss of life period, full stop, and so that would be again, that's the top of the list, that's the number one thing, the A thing, the first thing, and then from there we work our way through the process. So, whether again, we're in Southern California, we're in Northeast Ohio, whether we're in Buenos Aires, argentina, whether we're in Tokyo, japan, whether we're in Rome, italy, similar events could potentially happen and have happened, unfortunately, at one time or another, no matter where we live. And so we think about that impact of how, regardless of where you live and how the fire started, and that that's called trauma. So we're taking something that we have, so we have a residence of some sort, hopefully and we displace something. So we talked in the previous episode Displacing, taking a family member and having them pass away.

Speaker 1:

Then how do we move on from that? Or do we? And how, how can we? And how that, how does that impact us? And so in this case, for this episode, we're talking about a fire event, either on a small scale or a large scale. We would be taking a home, a residence, a dorm, whatever that structure is, and we're moving that. Or, in this case, taking it away of.

Speaker 1:

You know, a fire occurs and our house, our residences, there's no more, there's, there's nothing left. You want all the smoke clears there's. You can see right right through the yard or next door. There's no walls up, there's no roof up, there's no doors, there's no windows, no siding, no brick, everything is leveled and completely gone. So that's going to affect us, right.

Speaker 1:

So first thing is we want to have no loss of life. That's the A number one goal. But then we want to work through the list from okay, we have everybody, or as many as we possibly can, or that the first responders were able to help us with, and then we go to the next thing. And so in the moment, right, sometimes we make these rash decisions like let's do this because, right, we're faced with oh, I got 20 minutes and I gotta get everything I can. I got to get out.

Speaker 1:

So one of the big things that we can do is to put some type of doesn't have to be some huge elaborate plan. But you know, if event a were to happen, here's what, here's the order of importance of what we want to try our best or have a first responder help try their best to help bring with them, bring with us. So if we're able to do that, that helps lower the stress when we hope the event never happens. But for the individuals on the large scale the California wildfires to go through that list and have gone through that prior to the event happening of the wildfires starting and moving and gaining strength with the winds and hopping across roads and going from one area to area B, you know, from area A to area B, from street A to street B. If we go over things ahead of time, makes things during the time of stress of when that event's happening, we can go through that a lot quicker and a lot more efficiently and have a better chance.

Speaker 1:

Again, given the again, given the time, what, how much time do we have? We don't, we don't really know how much any of us have time-wise on earth, but if there were a fire event on small scale, large scale, that were to impact you and I as individuals, as family members, the more things that we would have been able to prepare for would make it in that moment of okay. I went from one moment everything's okay, the next moment everything's not okay. And then we know we get scatterbrained. I get scatterbrained with a lot of humongous of events that happen. So I I'm speaking for myself events happen that raise that cortisol level, raise how stressed, and call that trauma, you know. So there's low trauma and then there's, you know, high trauma. It just depends on the event, the thing, the experience, and then you and I as human beings, where we all, we process things a little bit the same and a little bit different.

Speaker 1:

So we have that communication plan or the list of what we'd like to bring. If you know, lord have them forbid. I found like that were to occur and then so we call that like short term too, right, so it's happening right now. I got 20 minutes, I got a minute. I so those are short-term, high, high levers. High, high leverage. Decisions need to be made, like I need to make it now. I can't wait three hours to make that decision. So it's high leverage.

Speaker 1:

Like everybody out, can we get to a vehicle? Do we have gas? Or, if it's an electric vehicle, is it charged? And then we go on to the next thing and we do the best we can. Right, we're just humans, we nobody's perfect, so we shouldn't expect yourself or myself or anybody else to be perfect. We can, we can try our best, but we know that nobody, nobody's perfect sounds where that that plan would be would be helpful.

Speaker 1:

So again so that was her colleague short-term decisions that need to be made. And then we talk about, you know, medium, short-term to medium-term. Okay, where are we? Where are we going to stay? Do we have family in the area? Do we have access to a hotel, a motel? We have access to a hotel, a motel, and we work that way. Okay, then we go what about food? And then what about clothing?

Speaker 1:

And so we talk about short-term and like, okay, what are we going to do right now? Where are we going to do right now? Where are we going to go right now? The medium term is in a couple weeks, a month, two months. What are we going to do for those things? What are we going to do for living arrangements? What are we going to do for clothing, for food, for security? And then, longer term, you know we're looking at, are we going to let's just hypothetically say it's a house, we're gonna rebuild a house, or we're gonna look at a condo, you know a pre-built, and so those will be the longer term. But we're not going to go from things okay, things aren't okay. So one second, things are okay. The next second, things aren't okay. And have the third second be like, well, no, we're going to start rebuilding the house tomorrow. That's just not feasible. We can have thoughts in our mind, but we're not going to start rebuilding the house tomorrow. That's just not feasible. We can have thoughts in our mind, but we're not going to be able to act on it, no matter how much we want to.

Speaker 1:

I hope we're going to rebuild on this specific site, there's going to be probably insurance claims that will be filed. Hopefully there will be some assistance if insurance isn't able to, you know, recover and provide the funding and the things and the food and the vehicles and those types of things that maybe there is some government and or intervention that you can on an government intervention that you know can on an emergency level that would come through and it would come through fast and efficient, not like what we saw in North Carolina when the hurricane went, went through there and there were $750 vouchers that are given to people who have, like, lost everything and their vouchers because they would be repaid. It wasn't even just here's $750, you don't have to repay us, no, no, in that case. And people found out and that's one of the things about sometimes, things we think they can't get any worse and then they do. So we just do the best we can with the resources, with the people that we have and and we move on that route.

Speaker 1:

And so also with that is kind of mental health, like how are we doing? Or we would have added stress Like, oh my gosh, now if we have children, like how are my children holding up and how are they going to react? And on top of how we're going to react is, hopefully, the adults in the room to some extent, hopefully the adults in the room to some extent. And so we got to think about that, because if we don't have ourselves, then we don't have ourselves, that's that. And if we don't have our physical health, then that could be uh again, I not not a great way to go about things if, if we're able to impact those and then the same thing inside.

Speaker 1:

So we've talked ad nauseam. You know we're talking about mental health and the stigma. Well, the state, there's still stigma. Oh, it's taboo to talk about these things or this particular uh set of things. Like we got one of our, one of our videos where we were literally talking through an article that was written and the topics were dealing with sex offenses and how these were, these had happened, and there was, in this particular instance, that there was a doctor and this was the individual who we were talking about. This doctor was doing this, and so we're just kind of working our way through this and we're using terms, but yet there's still platforms, but we can't, you know, you can't use terminology, certain words, and I and we as an organization look at things and say, well, we're just saying what the facts are, we're just saying what would happen. And so, while we can sugarcoat things, I think we're finding out that the more sugarcoating we do, the harder things are going to hit us as individuals, like there's going to be a point, whatever we're concerned about. Oh, we can't use this term to talk about this story, even though it's the fact there's.

Speaker 1:

Eventually, people are going to find out and they're going to. Either they're going to learn through shows like ours, from experiences of our guests and ourselves and new stories and parallels that we draw, or they're going to go through things themselves. And then how are individuals going to react and how are they going to process information? So if there's a news story and terms are used and we say that use those terms that are in the news story, that's what's going to resonate with you, with people, with other followers, other supporters. That's what's going to.

Speaker 1:

We got to say say the quiet thing out loud and I even saw referring back to that episode about you know twitch taking his own life couple years ago and how their family and friends, they were given grief. I'm saying giving a hard time to his widow and talking about, like the drugs and you know were they his, were they? You know Twitch's, were they the widow of Allison? But their friends and family and others are saying we shouldn't be talking about that, like we can't talk, it's too taboo to talk about that, because they're taking a bad situation and making it worse. Well, if there are drugs involved, how can we maybe help things to a person in the future who might be dealing with some of maybe some similar things? And so the fact that people are giving me a hard time about the actual again, we're talking about terminology. Oh, we don't want to talk about this, we can't say that term, don't want to talk about this, we can't say those that turn.

Speaker 1:

Well, either, we're gonna, we're gonna learn it through an educational source, which I would, I would argue that are more of a, an educational, providing information, sharing, yeah, sharing voices for voices, so our voice for ourselves or somebody else in need, and when we share these stories, those voices might be people that are unfortunately no longer on earth, that they're in heaven, and so we have to share, we have to be upfront, we need to talk about those, because in that story, that doctor who was having these sex offenses against minors.

Speaker 1:

There was a victim that took this doctor's instructions and she hung herself and she's no longer living 13 years old. But, yeah, we're going to tell the family that. Oh well, we can't use those terms because, uh, I don't know. So we've just drawn some parallels this episode from the wildfires to a situation that could happen to us individually and how we just have to look out for ourselves and others and we need to just use the terms say what it is like, tyrus says what it is, and so until next time, we'll see you on another episode of our TV show podcast.

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Justin Alan Hayes

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