STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
When a hurricane hit the Southeast, mental health providers had a job to do - help their communities through a natural disaster while also living it. NPR's Katia Riddle spoke with therapists in Asheville, North Carolina.
KATIA RIDDLE, BYLINE: Asheville is a town of bespoke creativity. Artists of all kinds reside here, as well as healers and helpers - therapists, chiropractors, massage. So when Hurricane Helene hit, the small army of mental health professionals here didn't hesitate. They knew they were needed badly. But the kind of therapy they've been practicing since the storm - many say it's like nothing they've done before, like Ann DuPre Rogers.
ANN DUPRE ROGERS: There's a therapy session where somebody has signed up, come in, may or may not be using their insurance to have a session with a therapist. That is not what has been happening since the hurricane.
RIDDLE: Rogers is a licensed clinical social worker. She says in the days and weeks after Helene, she fell back on her basic training.
ROGERS: Helping people get food, water, find each other, and knowing sort of supportive things to say or not say during those times.
RIDDLE: And yet in the midst of that chaos, Rogers was also experiencing shock and trauma.
ROGERS: So when your thinking brain is what helps you plan and problem solve and organize and find your car keys and think about what you need to do next, when you're in survival mode, you can't really put all that together. So - I mean, this is a true story. I put dog food in the coffee maker instead of coffee. That was just, like, just a moment of, yeah, this is real.
RIDDLE: Rogers says having these experiences alongside her patients - it's changed her.
ROGERS: I have more empathy than ever before. And that's a huge part of being a good supporter of others, is empathy.
RIDDLE: Two other therapists here are Jenny Shealy and Cynthia Shealy. They're sisters. Neither of them grew up here, but they both fell in love with the land and the people. Now they have their own separate therapy practices here. When Helene hit, they describe a dystopian shift in reality they experienced together.
JENNY SHEALY: No power.
CYNTHIA SHEALY: We shared meals.
J SHEALY: We shared meals. You didn't have power. You didn't have cell.
RIDDLE: No access to information. No idea what was going on.
J SHEALY: Yeah. And then on that...
C SHEALY: And then I rode to the river, rode my bike to the river.
J SHEALY: Yeah.
C SHEALY: And we saw.
J SHEALY: You showed us.
C SHEALY: We saw the destruction.
RIDDLE: Cynthia Shealy remembers looking out at her town for the first time, it was submerged.
C SHEALY: That was really hard, to stand on that bridge and see that water.
RIDDLE: At the fire station that day, they saw a sign that said there was no way in or out of Asheville.
C SHEALY: That was a lot, to think...
J SHEALY: What about - I feel that right now.
C SHEALY: I do, too. Like, it was a lot to take in. We only had one lane open. We didn't have cell service.
J SHEALY: This is what's happening with the storm (laughter). I think when you least expect it, it just sort of shows up. And this is what we're working with everybody with. Like, you don't know when it's going to show up.
RIDDLE: They don't know when this trauma will show up, either with themselves or with their patients. These sisters say they are still feeling the storm's destabilizing impact with their patients weeks later.
C SHEALY: When my clients came in, there was this look at each other and an immediate hug and a holding-on, right? And I cried with people as they were sharing photos or their story.
RIDDLE: Both these therapists say because of this experience, they've renegotiated boundaries with their patients. They're giving more of themselves. They're more in the room.
C SHEALY: And that felt real. It felt authentic, and I definitely want more of - that is how I want to practice.
RIDDLE: Mostly, Hurricane Helene was a thief of lives, of land and of health. But for these therapists, she did leave this one gift.
Katia Riddle, NPR News, Asheville, North Carolina.
(SOUNDBITE OF YASMIN WILLIAMS' "AFTER THE STORM") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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