LOS ANGELES — The financial nightmare is no less than an economic 9/11 that is taking its toll on Americans’ psychological well-being, with many, feeling impotent as they lose control over their lives, sinking into a deep black pit of despair.
“This compares to 9/11 in terms of the impact, definitely,” Chicago-based psychologist Nancy Molitor told Agence France Presse (AFP) on Wednesday, October 8.
“It’s significant that it isn’t a Wall Street crisis as I see it — it’s affecting the entire consumer economy, and almost every individual that I see,” Molitor said.
Since the financial crisis began unfolding, a deep sense of anxiety has taken its toll on Americans’ psyche in a way that can only be compared to the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
“I’ve never seen something that has affected such a wide range of people,” said psychologist Molitor.
She added that the number of people seeking mental help because of finance-related stress has skyrocketed over the last month.
“The anxiety is through the roof.”
Molitor said the problems of emotionally-stressed Americans vary from affluent people who had lost a million dollars to families fretting over their children’s college tuition.
In one case, she recalls, a 79-year-old woman told her she “couldn’t afford to die.”
“I thought she was kidding.
“But she told me ‘I used to have a pretty good inheritance that I could leave my three children. If I die tomorrow they’re going to get half of what they were going to get.’”
The financial firestorm swept the US last month after the collapse and financial woes of a number of Wall Street giants.
US Labor department statistics show that some 159,000 jobs were shed in September, as the weight of the housing collapse and credit crunch hit a broad swath of industries.
The crisis has since knocked down markets worldwide, in what many described as the worst crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Impotence
Experts fear that many Americans, fearing for their homes, jobs and families, are sinking into an inescapable pit of depression.
“There’s a sense of total helplessness, which if it goes on long enough becomes hopelessness. And if that goes on long enough it becomes depression,” explains Molitor, the psychologist.
On Monday, Los Angeles police announced that a 45-year-old financial manager shot dead five members of his family before killing himself because of his economic woes.
In a letter to police, Karthik Rajaram, who has been unemployed for months, said he had been driven to murder after the Wall Street’s collapse wiped out his remaining finances.
The case came a week after a 90-year-old woman in Ohio shot herself as she was about to be served an eviction notice on the home she has lived in for 38 years.
A survey released by the American Psychological Association on Tuesday found that eight in 10 Americans say the economy is a major source of stress in their lives.
Nearly half say they are worried about providing for their families’ basic needs.
“It’s a perfect storm because what breeds anxiety is a fear of the unknown,” Molitor says.
Judith Bardwick, a professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, agrees.
“It is a sense of fear, depression and anxiety that says no matter how hard or well I work, I have no control over my future.
“So the present stinks and the future will be worse. And there’s no one to help me.”
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