How did people with survivor guilt recover from 911

The Sun

Friday, November 17, 2017

Editor’s Note: Survivors of the Dec. 2, 2015, terrorist attack in San Bernardino aren’t the only ones afflicted with post-traumatic stress. Survivors of other terrorist attacks here and abroad also suffer from PTSD. Here, survivors of three attacks share their stories and how they coped.

Sept. 11, 2001

A blue-sky day can take him right back. When it’s 70 degrees, with no trace of a cloud overhead, Brian Branco is back in New York on Sept. 11, 2001. Back in the World Trade Center’s south tower, taking an express elevator to the ground after feeling a vibration and seeing papers fly outside his 78th-floor office window. He and Steven Weinberg wanted to go down to see what was happening, but his friend turned back to get something before reaching the elevator.

The elevator’s crammed with 50 to 60 loud, nervous people whose fear turns into hysteria when the elevator slows near the ground.

“They’re going back up! They’re going back up!” they scream, until the elevator doors opened and let them out.

FILE â In this Sept. 11, 2001 file photo, firefighters work beneath the destroyed mullions, the vertical struts which once faced the soaring outer walls of the World Trade Center towers, after a terrorist attack on the twin towers in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

Brian and the others exit through the shopping mall. A block away, he turns a corner and sees a plane coming at him. He runs into another building as he feels the Boeing 767 slam into the south tower. The wings hit from the 74th to 84th floors. But the fuselage, the guts of the plane, strike floors 77 and 78 with full impact. Steven is on the phone with his wife when the plane hits.

“He didn’t get out,” Brian said.

The New Jersey IT consultant was left with post-traumatic stress disorder and survivor’s guilt.

“A lot of it,” he said firmly. “Survivor’s guilt will kill you if you let it.”

For the first few years afterward, if he left for work on a warm, sunny morning, he’d relive 9/11 in his mind through flashbacks the rest of the day. He’d feel anxiety and guilt. If he was headed to New York, he’d be hypervigilant, worrying what would come next.

Two years later, when he couldn’t stop asking why Steven didn’t leave, Brian got therapy and was diagnosed with PTSD. He went for four months but ultimately says what helped him was his wife’s encouragement to talk and willingness to listen.

“She would be like, ‘Talk to me, honey,’ ” Brian said. “I would say, ‘How many times can I tell you the same story over again?’ She would say, ‘However many times you need to.’ ”

His PTSD symptoms were constant for about five years, Brian said, because of 9/11’s scale, PTSD’s complexity and living so close to New York, where the attack’s aftermath became part of daily life. Even 16 years later, weather can trigger a flashback. Only now, he can control it.

A few months ago, a new therapist diagnosed him with anxiety but not full-blown PTSD, partly because he doesn’t avoid the attack site or avoid discussing that day. Avoidance is a major PTSD symptom.

He’s talked to survivors of 9/11 and other attacks through the World Trade Center Survivors Network and other survivor groups. He and wife, Cynthia, lead tours at the Ground Zero site and donate time at the National September 11th Memorial and Museum. Brian recovered by sharing his experiences with others.

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