The Nature of Personal Crisis
My crisis situation happened three years ago, when I experienced armed robbery. That day I was not feeling well and stayed at home to rest, but later in the afternoon two friends of mine checked on me and we decided to get some fresh air for a change and went to buy fresh fruits. When we finished shopping, one of my friends went to the ATM to get some cash and another friend and I walked towards her car at the parking lot. All of sudden a man came from nowhere and stood behind me with a knife. He told me to give him my purse. At first I did not know what was going on because of the fear.
He repeated his demand for the second time since I had not obeyed his request. I barely said No, he then pushed me down, snatched my purse and ran. We yelled and asked for help but no one was there to help us. I went after the person but his runaway car was ready to pick him and it took off so fast. I could not even note the cars registration number or his face or faces of those who came to pick him. I do not remember how long it took but when the police came, the robbers were already gone. I made a police statement but realized that I did not remember anything. My response during crisis situation was not adequate, because I lost my psychological stability and self-control. As I was shocked I could not adequately control my emotions and was paralyzed for a while. Such response was caused by the unrestrained feeling of fear. Moreover, my memory and attention lost their stability, as I could not memorize the faces of robbers and car numbers and give adequate statement to police. All these factors certify to the fact that I had a difficult psychological crisis due to robbery attack.
How this crisis situation impacted on my emotional state
Immediately after the robbery I was so overwhelmed with the shock that could not behave in the adequate way. I felt the mixture of sadness, anxiety, fear, anger and hostility. I realized the difficulty of situation, because the robber took my purse, in which I had my wallet, house keys, car keys, cell phone and other personal things. I did not have a lot of cash in it, but my credit cards, some pictures and my drivers license. Some of them were not replaceable. Luckily, I had given my spare house key to another friend of mine for emergency reasons. I was able to get in but immediately I had to replace the keys (car, mail box, house for my apartment entrance).
It cost me about 600.00 and I think I was right to upset. I did appreciate all my friends support for that night. They had done so many things for me. One of them immediately called my credit companies to check for any activities and stop with immediate effect until I was given a new one. They made sure I was calmed down and able to stay alone for the night.
The following day, my boss told me to take some days off so that I was able to take care of my personal matters such as to replace my drivers license, car keys and take a rest. I remember it gave me a certain relief. Living without any family or relative in the US was not easy. Without my social support, I would not have able to recover.
A few months later I got a call from police department and surprisingly the police got caught of the guy and his group. The detective told me that he had done so many similar crimes and for that reason he will go to prison for a long time. I am glad to know that he got caught even though I will never recover my personal stuffs. To sum it up, the immediate consequences of robber attack were detrimental to my psychological stability due to the amount of problems caused by the robbery. However the cash loss was not substantial I had to spend much time to create new credit cards, documents, replace car and apartment keys.
How this crisis situation impacted my behavior
At first, I felt like this was one of the darkest days in my life, because stress and frustration consumed me everything that I depended on had been lost and I did not know where to start to replace them and there were no signs of having a break through. The incident resulted in paranoid fear of going out in the evening, which in its turn paralyzed by activities. I felt frustrated because of this fear, however, could not do anything to suppress and stop it. I also avoided going to the store where the incident happened. My fear was even more aggravated by long-standing depression and anxiety, which caused many problems to me in terms of doing my job duties. I had to rearrange my schedule andor go to different location of store. It was very inconvenient, but I just could not overcome it yet back then. At the same time, I wanted to change it.
How this crisis situation impacted my cognitions
Since I had lost my personal possessions at one time, the incident gave me a bad flash back of my divorce case. My ex was very hostile and mean. I am sure that he had right reasons, but I still do not know why even after divorced 6 years. However, back then I was just about to recover from the divorce, the experience was horrible. I felt really bad. Luckily I lived in California I got pretty much half of our assets. Otherwise I would not able to survive financially. However, I was too busy to take care of my daily life to the point of forgetting to take care of my mental health. For this reasons, this robbery incident took me back to my horrible divorce scheme. I was only allowed to take two suits cases until further notice. I was living in a hotel, two weeks latter I rented my own apartment. He never gives me a chance to go back to the house. I lost many memorable possessions at the time. This is why robbery gave me a flash back.
Moreover, the crisis situation caused instability of my mental conditions. It seemed as my memory, attention and will were demoralized, as I had great problems in analyzing situation. My sleep was anxious and weak and during several days I had nightmares, aggravating my depression. However, I tried to take anti-depressants their positive effects were quite short and did not radically change my condition. My friends tried to help me to overcome crisis, but I avoided communication and preferred staying alone with my destructive thoughts. I had an intention to visit psychotherapist, however, it was difficult to take such decision due to the lack of confidence in my ability to get over my fear and describe my crisis situation properly.
Most importantly, I realized that the crisis situation that happened to me activated other hidden fears and psychological agenda, which aggravated the results of crisis. Therefore, it was important to understand what the case was.
How this crisis situation impacted my environment
For me this incident was unexpected and instantly changed my perception of my environment. Of course, people around me were worried and very helpful but I am the one have to pay attention to my environment. I understood that to get over the crisis I should change my life make it more active and full of sense.
What did you learn from this experience
This incident taught me many things, such as how lucky that I was not got hurt. The robber could have stabbed me or cut me and recover personal stuffs quickly with my friends help. I do know now that the danger of death is always there for us. I am not one to blame for this awful incident, but for some reason I was in a position at a wrong time and a wrong place. So now, I will be more careful and pay more attention to what happens around me during shopping. Moreover, I will pay more attention to my psychological stability and mental health by doing more sports and psychological training..
What I would do differently
I would not go the same place at the same time. I would stay home. However, I think I have learned from this incident, I would not put myself in the same situation. I would be more concentrated and proactive to avoid someone hurting or threatening me. Perhaps, I will pay more attention to my personal safety.
My strengths and my weaknesses in managing crises
The main weakness during this situation is not fully understanding the circumstances of situation and panicking. However, when I accepted this weakness and took care of my psychological stability I realized my strengths, such as ability to analyze consequences, control my emotions and actions.. I believe that it is not easy to open up even though you speak with professionals and talking out personal problem is required personal strengths. That is why I have overcome this crisis.
What I can say from the Experience
Based on my experience, once a crisis has been identified, it must be assessed as to its potential severity of loss and to the possibility of occurrence. These quantities can be either easy to measure, in the case of the value of a lost or not possible to know for sure in the case of the possibility of an unexpected event occurring.
Therefore, in the evaluation process it is critical to make the best educated conclusions possible in order to prioritize properly the implementation of the crisis management plan. The important complexity in crisis assessment is determining the rate of occurrence because statistical data is not available on all kinds of past incidents.
In additional, evaluating the severity of the impact (consequences) is in many instances quite difficult for immaterial assets. Thus, appropriate educated opinions and available statistics are the primary sources of data. Each crisis is very uniquely different and complicated, however I hope each case, and person would see and found a way to see light. I am sure that such personal crisis that happened to me could not be statistically prevented, because such situation may happen to anybody. However, a well-prepared person would not have problems with concentration, would not panic and would make all possible to avoid depression and frustration. I hope that this crisis will teach me those abilities.
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