Posttraumatic stress disorder after the earthquake

Dear Dr. P,

I moved to Seoul a year ago in order to marry my Korean boyfriend. However, before I moved, I was living in Tokyo and was working in a kindergarten during the huge March 11th earthquake. While the earthquake was occurring, I actually believed I would die. Although I was physically unhurt, since the earthquake and all of the following aftershocks, I have been unable to board an airplane because the take off and turbulence is so similar to the feelings of the beginnings of those quakes.

I believe I have a form of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), since the few times I have had to ride in an airplane have caused me severe anxiety and my heart rate jumps. Soon I will be traveling again to the United States to visit my family. Even thinking about getting on an airplane again makes me feel extremely anxious and I would like to know how I can calm myself down so I can travel the friendly skies in peace. Any advice you can offer would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Dear sender,

You might feel tremendous fear and anxiety because of the earthquake. People live in a perpetual fear when they have experienced the trauma beyond their control. And they become very sensitive to even a minor stimulus that resembles the traumatic experience. In some sense you are suffering not only a post traumatic stress disorder but also a panic disorder.

The proverb “A burnt child dreads the fire” is true for your case. You need to keep in your mind that the present stimulus is totally different and has nothing to do with your past fearful experience. If it is not easy for you to have such confidence, I recommend you to take psychotherapy or cognitive behavioral therapy.

If you need to travel to the United States by air in the near future, I suggest you take medicine first. Anti-anxiety medicine such as Xanax will be helpful for you. Of course it will be very difficult to deal with these kinds of fear and anxiety in the beginning, but you can overcome them by dealing with this problem step by step.

I have been married to my wife for a little more than six years. I was a U.S. soldier stationed in Korea at the time we got married and we moved to the United States. Two years after moving to the United States, my wife went back for the first time with my one-year-old son. Then they came back after several months, but I remained home as I had just got out of the army and was going to school full time.

So this year all three of us went back to Korea. I came back to New York one week ago, and they stayed six days more. I noticed that every time when she goes to Korea and gets back, she gets very homesick and wants that we drop everything and move close to her father there. Please help me help her deal with this.

My next plan to return with her is in three years for her father’s 60th birthday and she told me that Koreans hold a big party for their 60th birthday. Please help as my heart cannot bear seeing her like this. For a long time it was just her and her dad as her mother left them when she was 11. Her father married a woman three years ago and is living with her now.

-Lonely Husband-

Dear Lonely Husband,

You seem to be having an extremely hard time having to see your wife, who wants to return to her homeland. However, I think it is necessary to see why your wife wants to go home so much. In most cases, women want to return to their families because they are going through a difficult or painful period.

Truthfully, from your wife’s point of view, she wouldn’t be entirely welcome even if she was to return her home when considering her father has already remarried. On that note, one can equate the fact — that your wife wants to return so badly despite knowing that her father has a family and life aside from her — with her life being just as empty and lonely.

With that in mind, express and give your wife a lot of love and interest. Find out what she is really suffering from and if there is anything she truly wants. If you can pinpoint the source of the problem, it can be easily resolved.

If you could fulfill the role of her father that she is away from right now, then her longing for her father will also be reduced.

In order to do that, you must be able to sympathize and understand her circumstances and her heart. If you can lead and guide her well through sympathizing and understanding, the situation will take a turn for the better.

Park Jin-seng is a psychiatrist who runs a clinic for foreigners in Seoul and operates the personal therapist forums on www.lifeinkorea.com. Please submit questions for Park to mdoctor@korea.com or call the hotline at 02-563-0678.