A Flood of Emotion

I mean this all too literally.
 

Flooding in Stafford, 2012

 As I may have explained at some point during the inception of this blog, my day job involves trying to protect Staffordshire from becoming shafted from the impacts of severe weather, particularly with consideration of the fact that is likely to, and already seems to be, increasing as a consequence of climate change.  I know everyone has a view about climate change (even if it's "I don't give a flying freezing fog patch") but regardless of whether you believe in the concept or not, too many people in this country become affected by the impacts of flooding, cold, heat or snow when, quite frankly, the impact is avoidable.  Factor in a likely increase, and we risk a future of utter carnage, with the odd duck floating in through your front door and death by over consumption of ice-cream thrown in for good measure.

I work in this field, so I could have a website about this on it's own - so I won't go off into any heated debates here.  You'll get used to the "jokes."

There are obvious impacts from extremes of weather, most of which are, on the surface, physical, practical or financial.  Let's take flooding as an example (why not? We've had enough of it lately).  These impacts could include damage to a building due to water coming in through doors and plugs, logistics and travel being hampered due to flooded infrastructure and the cost all of this could generate by way of recovery.  Then of course there are the health implications, such as the spread of vector-borne diseases.  Heatwaves and cold conditions, in particular, also have direct health impacts. 

But what about the mental health impacts of such events?

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) have recently written a couple of reports on 'Climate Change and Social Justice,' which aims to assess what the wider social impacts of climate change could be, and where they are likely to be most prevalent.  I'm pleased to say that mental health is covered within this, and from recent conferences I've been to, it is beginning to get noticed on the agenda.  The physical health of climate change and severe weather has been known for years, albeit with improvements in this knowledge year on year.  Heat causes heatstroke, cold cause hypothermia and wind causes... well, discomfort for everyone around you.  But it's not difficult science to know this; indeed, we have a frankly scandalous number of winter deaths per year, especially scandalous as we're not a particularly cold country and we're of high economic development (current situation aside). 

The JRF reports go into more detail about this, but let's have a look at the flooding of your home as an example.  Here's just a few possible questions you'd need to ask yourself:

How am I going to cope to pay for the damage? 
Can I get insured?
Can I get a loan? 
What if it happens again?  All this will be multiplied.  I'm struggling to make ends meet as it is. 
Should I just move out; it might be cheaper in the long term. But where to?  I don't want to start afresh, I like it here...
How will I support my family?
What if we get a health problem as a result of the polluted water?

All valid questions, but consider the scenario... imagine your mind spiralling out of control.  All of these questions would cause greater strain and stress and generate feelings of anxiety.  This could mean that your thinking becomes foggied somewhat and you start making rash decisions, wrong decisions, that in turn generate more anxiety.  Then the vicious circle begins... and it all becomes duplicated if a second flood was to happen.  One can also develop trauma from such an event - something as simple as shock can easily happen, if you've never experienced it before.

And what about those people who already have anxiety or another mental health problem?  How do they cope?  Such an event could cause incredible strain, and it's something that we need to really look at in light of increasing damage, displacement and disruption from severe weather.

In other words, the anxiety becomes worse than the event itself. 

Of course, any external event can generate similar, if not worse, anxieties.  Take a house fire for example, or a road traffic accident.  But I speak of weather as it is my interest, I know more about it and the impacts from which do appear to be happening more often. 

Perhaps one with anxiety could recover better from such an occurrence.  Those with a chronic condition will have had some real challenges to deal with, potentially making them tougher, more durable, more able to cope with scenarios like this.  It may just be another day to them.  I like to think of chronic anxiety as something to strengthen you, despite the weakness one may feel when it's at its worst.  So perhaps we will laugh in the face of increasing extreme weather and say to the world's natural phenomena - BRING IT ON!

It was just interesting, and pleasing, that mental health is starting to be factored into big issues, like climate change.  I'm sure other such global challenges are starting this factoring process too, or at least I hope so.  And for me, it's great that I can look at mental health and climate change together and not, necessarily, get funny looks!

Best wishes

Al