At a hair salon on the west side of Cleveland, Kritzia Basmeson is finishing her shift, packing away brushes and curling irons before going to pick up her two daughters from school. She just arrived in Cleveland from Puerto Rico a few weeks ago, one of the thousands of people being resettled in Northeast Ohio after Hurricane Maria.
For Basmeson, the memories of the storm are still vivid.
"Around 4 o鈥檆lock in the morning, we felt the house shaking and everything," Basmeson said. "And then you can hear the trees, like, cracking. And the neighbor鈥檚 house lost the roof, so the roof fell behind our house鈥� everything was filled with water."
Basmeson was diagnosed with anxiety as a teenager. Since the hurricane, she鈥檚 been experiencing symptoms again.
"I had like, two panic attacks with the hurricane on those days, which I didn鈥檛 have that for almost three years before that," Basmeson said. "You know, I couldn鈥檛 rest for nothing, for nothing on the planet. I was like, I can鈥檛 do this insomnia again."
Several months after the hurricane, national officials are concerned of a growing 鈥榤ental health crisis鈥� among Puerto Ricans, with signs of post-traumatic stress disorder or anxiety and depression on the rise. And people who had pre-existing mental health conditions may be even more vulnerable, says Dr. Debra Wentz, executive director of the New Jersey Mental Health Institute.
"The immediate impact of a hurricane exacerbates mental illnesses that have existed prior to the storm," said Wentz. "So while it鈥檚 normal for victims to feel a range of emotions such as irritability, and night terrors, depression, hopelessness and anxiety, the challenge is to keep these feelings from keeping root and having a long-term impact on people鈥檚 lives."
At El Centro in Lorain, a social service organization that provides support to the Latino community in Lorain, a group of families are taking an English class. This is where many Puerto Ricans will come upon arrival to find help adjusting to their new lives in Northeast Ohio.
El Centro is already receiving some 8-9 families from Puerto Rico every day, and is expecting a huge rush of people being resettled in the coming months. Many of those require mental health help, says Thelma Cruz, a social worker and mental health navigator at El Centro.
"We鈥檝e many times had families come in and break down crying because it鈥檚 very difficult when they start talking about the situation in Puerto Rico," said Cruz. "They鈥檙e happy to be alive, they鈥檙e happy to be here, but it鈥檚 still鈥� it鈥檚 a big loss, it鈥檚 a big traumatic event in their lives."
Local agencies are bracing to meet the growing mental health crisis 鈥� first by getting people who suffer from more serious mental illnesses like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia back on medications鈥� because most people were unable to get their prescription drugs on the island after the hurricane.
"It鈥檚 kind of a race against time trying to hurry up and get them back on their medication, because some of these medications are serious medications that kids or families or adults have to be on," Cruz said.
Directing people into counseling with a bilingual therapist or an interpreter is also a priority, says Ramonita Vargas, executive director of the Spanish American Committee in Cleveland.
"They鈥檙e coming to Cleveland, a place that they don鈥檛 know鈥� They need counseling, they need some help, they need follow-up every 30 days or 60 days," Vargas said. "Because this isn鈥檛 going to go away overnight."
After picking her kids up from school, Kritzia Basmeson is back at the hair salon helping them with homework. For Basmeson, the first steps to coping with her increased anxiety is getting back to a normal routine鈥� and relying on her inner strength.
"My mind is focusing to get my life back," said Basmeson. "You know I gotta go to work, I gotta do this, I gotta do that, take care of the kids. So I try to be positive as much as I can. That鈥檚 the key to not being depressed."
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