9/11 attacks lead to more study of post-traumatic stress disorder

9/11 attacks lead to more study of post-traumatic stress disorder
There are widespread symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder among those connected to the attacks. Mental-health professionals have a greater understanding of the disorder from studying them.

Two women hold each other as they watch the World Trade Center burn on Sept. 11, 2001. Symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder have been seen in a number of people affected by the attacks. (Ernesto Mora / Associated Press / September 5, 2011)

By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times
September 5, 2011
For New York City resident Esperanza Muñoz, the attack on the World Trade Centers is not over 10 years later — not by a long shot. At odd moments, the stench of death still rises to her nose, and the 55-year-old woman slides into a haze of nausea and tears. She suffers headaches and is awakened several times a week by nightmares of headless bodies and shoes with bits of feet left inside. She dreads the sound of sirens or a passing plane.

Muñoz lives in the New York City borough of Queens, and can't — or won't — go into Manhattan, even to attend her support group for Latinas still scarred by the events of Sept. 11, 2001. She went to a meeting a few blocks from the site of the former World Trade Center once, six or seven years ago, but she became so panicked she had to leave.

Muñoz has a classic case of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, even though she is not a classic victim of the disorder. She has not survived a violent crime, warfare or even a clear sense that her life was threatened. She watched the fiery collapse of the World Trade Center towers from the roof of her apartment building in Queens, horrified but safe.

Two days later, the office and residential cleaning company that employed Muñoz assigned her to the blocks surrounding ground zero, where she picked up office mementos, charred debris and body parts from the ground almost every day for nearly four years. By 2009, the woman who had left a peaceful life in Colombia so she could send her son to college had twice attempted suicide.
read more here