The American passion to quickly return to "business as usual" our cherished and expected routines regardless of what life hands us may make for the most pitiful sights should Y2K totally destroy the infrastructure. There will be those who will search for a nail salon open or still be trying to get their car detailed, Lottery tickets or imagine the winter disruption will allow them some extra time skiing. The most cherished part of a routine is the gift of not having to THINK. Tomorrow, your needs your responsibilities, your time, your expectations for yourself, others and the world around you are solved or scheduled problems you needent spend a lot of time thinking about anything more than your little assigned part of the social puzzle when all goes well. It is also an utter abhorrence of THE TREMEDOUS AMOUNT OF TIME AND THINKING that survival requires and adherence to ROUTINE seems to make unnecessary. It is this utter faith in this division of labor as GN calls it that will make many DGI's expect that in spite of what they see that their needs will be met if they can just get to the office and put in a days work rather than seeing to their own survival. Post traumatic stress will make for some weirdly contradictory behavior in 2000 don't you think?

-- Ann Fisher (zyax55b@prodigy.com), December 20, 1998

Answers

I'm really not sure this is a PTSD or CISD situation as defined by Mitchell and teh rest of the folks who work in the area. It WILL be a stressful time. But I don't think it quite qualifies.

Chuck, who has done a few debriefs, and been to a few training seminars, and is married to a former member of a CISD BOARD.

-- Chuck a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), December 20, 1998.

Chuck,

I'd submit that where you'll see the ptsd will be later in the folks who survive an urban meltdown situation - one where everything malfs in short order and it's get out as you can with what you can...now THOSE folks are gonna have some trauma...but again it will most likely manifest after the fact.

I think what Ann is actually getting at is the idea that you'll have a lot of folks who flip over into uhm, I guess I'd call it 'survival space' - you know - thousand yard stare land...especially after the first couple of weeks...that isn't really ptsd per se, but it *is* an effect of continuing to function in a hostile environment for a period of time...

just my 2 cents' worth, Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), December 21, 1998.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm suffering big-time from PRE-Y2K traumatic stress syndrome. And I'm not sure if my HMO hasn't disallowed Y2K-stress-related mental health claims yet.

-- Lisa (righthere@right.now), December 21, 1998.

Hi Lisa,

this may sound a little dumb, but- BE GLAD YOU'RE FEELING THE STRESS. Anybody who isn't feeling any y2k related stress at this point is only relaxed because they are DGI, and THAT could be a terminal condition.

Stress at this point means you're preparing. Stress means you stand a much better chance of being alive and healthy on December 21, 2001!

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), December 21, 1998.

Every thinking person I know has PMS- that's pre-millenial syndrome.

-- nemo... (nemo@deepsix.com), December 21, 1998.

Arlin;

You are probably right. I wasn't disputing the possibility that the problem would occur, just the use of the technical term. There will probably be people who exhibit the symptoms of PTSD, but they won't until 2002 or 2003.

I just have a small problem with technical terms being used to refer to something which doesn't fit.

Chuck

-- Chuck a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), December 21, 1998.