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'Quake brain': coping with the series of earthquakes in Christchurch.

‘Quake brain’ is the excuse we use here in Christchurch to explain our forgetfulness, preoccupation, irritability, hypervigilance, sleep deprivation, anxiety, avoidance, and a whole raft of cognitive, physical and emotional responses that we have developed after three significant earthquakes and over 7000 aftershocks. The first earthquake occurred at 4.35 AM on 4 September 2010. While there was some damage (and in some areas, such as Kaiapoi, Avonside, and Bexley, this was serious damage) and some injuries, we mostly thought we had dodged a bullet. If you have never been in a significant earthquake, it is hard to imagine being suddenly thrown from your bed amid the roaring of the ground beneath you as the earthquake waves pass through, and the sounds of smashing as things crash down around you. This was incredibly frightening and disorienting, but as the weeks passed, we became used to the aftershocks and startle effects that accompanied them. However, we could no longer trust the ground beneath our feet or the control we thought we had over our lives. Then we had the 6.3 earthquake on 22 February, which was accompanied by some of the most violent vertical movements ever recorded in an earthquake. This time we did not dodge any bullets; we copped a barrage of bullets. I do not think the lives of those of us living in Christchurch at the time will ever be the same again; Christchurch itself will never be the same. We have lost 60% of our CBD, whole neighbourhoods have gone, while other neighbourhoods have sustained so much damage that only a handful of houses are still safe to live in. Roads heaved up and cracked open; buildings shuddered violently and fell apart; people were crushed by falling buildings and rocks; and liquefaction bubbled up though the ground, resulting in rivers of silt and mud, where previously there had been lawns and roads. It was impossible to stand up as you were thrown to the ground. It is the violence and unpredictability of the earthquake on 22 February that sticks in our minds and has turned our normally-functioning brains into ‘quake brains’. We are all still having to cope as the aftershocks continue; sometimes up to 12 a day, and sometimes only a couple. Most natural disasters are a single event, but the number and magnitude of quakes we have experienced is unusual. We had another large seismic event in June that led to further damage and resulted in a general loss of morale and sense of hope for the future. It is very tiring, both physically and psychologically, to be continually startled. This overexposure to startling experiences also contributes to our ‘quake brain’, as we wonder if there is an end in sight. Many of us have lost our homes and our workplaces. Some of us lost family and friends. We do not expect others outside Christchurch to know what it is like to experience such violent earthquakes or to understand ‘quake brain’. Platitudes wash over us. Our experiences have set us apart from others, but have also drawn us closer together as Cantabrians. In the aftermath of the quake neighbours, communities and people we did not know arrived to help us clean up. University students, farmers, and people from within New Zealand and internationally arrived to help us. Government agencies, such as the Ministry of Social Development, swung into action, quickly primed to go from their experience of the September earthquake. Most of us did not feel alone in our trauma; we knew we could rely on others to help. This facilitated our recovery. While we lost 181 people, the rest of us have survived, and we are different from how we were before. For one thing, we are better prepared; most of the women I know now carry ‘quake bags’. We have our usual handbags, but also smaller ‘quake bags’ that contain torches, whistles, cell phones, keys, transistors, and all those other everyday items we could not locate after we were evacuated from buildings. Most of the men keep their cell phones on them at all times and know how to locate the nearest torch. At night, we sleep with similar supplies close at hand. We all have plans now to enable us to communicate with family and friends during the chaotic few hours following a quake. We behave in this rather odd way because we have had further big quakes since February, and we know what it is like to leave our cell phones or keys behind as we are rapidly evacuated from buildings. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing (2011) 20, 381–382 doi: 10.1111/j.1447-0349.2011.00772.x