DISTRESS CALLS Traumatic citizens turn to psychiatrists and counsellors with complaints of helplessness

The city that never sleeps has become the city that never slept.

Evidence of more and more citizens losing their sleep have been reaching counsellors and psychologists in the eight days since the most brazen terror attack the country has seen. They are receiving countless calls everyday, not just from policemen who took part in the operation and residents of areas around the sites of the attack, but also from homemakers and schoolchildren who watched it all on television.

“The kind of calls we are getting on the helpline is alarming from a psychiatric point of view. They are much more serious than those after earlier attacks, higher in number and more intense. People are more fearful than ever before; they say they cannot work, eat or even sleep peacefully,” said Dr A M Gabrani, a director at Matcheswalla Counseling Centre who also answers calls.

“The worst affected are school children and housewives, who mostly sit at home and watch TV.”

The Matcheswalla Counselling Center had also

set up helpline in the wake of the 1993 serial bombings in Mumbai.

“Doctors have not been unaffected either. A surgeon operating on a victim was trying to dislodge a bullet when he was suddenly gripped by a panic attack,” added Gabrani.

Some groups like the Art of Living Foundation are reaching out to people in the affected areas. They have initiated a workshop just outside the Nariman House Lane since Wednesday specially to “remove fear from the mind and heart” of the residents.

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