How floods affect our mental health
I am writing this essay while stranded due to flooding, away from my own house. I have been unable to get home since the floodwater in my area has become waist-deep—despite the paused rain and returning sunshine. This is not a new problem, but it is a regular, yearly one.
It always floods in my area whenever it rains hard. It is a residential area—people have lived there for decades. Streets have been paved, basketball courts and churches have been built, and businesses have come and gone.
And yet yearly flooding is the inconvenient price of living there.
Why is it still an issue?
But also, if people have lived there for decades, why is flooding still an issue? If I walk the same path and I keep tripping over the same rock, I can either choose a different path or do something about that rock. If it floods yearly, I could move to a different place, or we could do something about it. Basically flood control and prevention.
The Philippines is a tropical country. It has always been a tropical country. We have always had rough storms. We have always faced strong winds and flooding and landslides, year after year after year.
At this point, we should already have the best technologies, the best policies, the best disaster response. But… do we?
The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction has said that there is no such thing as a “natural disaster.” We have always looked at storms as disasters, but as I wrote about before, storms are just natural hazards. A “disaster” is what happens when hazards are not addressed properly. A “disaster” is what happens when over-logging has weakened the mountainside, or when garbage has clogged a creek.
Disasters are when lives are lost due to weak policies and poor communication. Disasters are when communities are destroyed due to bad design. Disasters happen when people pocket the tax money meant for flood control projects.
Mental health effects
I am a psychologist, so you may be thinking: Why is a psychologist talking about societal and environmental issues? Psychology is just for personal problems, right?
But think about it—is it not distressful when a flood enters your home? When you have to evacuate or relocate? When you are stranded somewhere, away from loved ones? When you are unsure whether your loved ones are safe in the storm?
That’s because societal issues related to disasters are absolutely mental health concerns. There’s a clear bridge between the corruption scandals surrounding flood control projects, our physical safety, and our mental well-being. Seeing politicians pocket money that could be used to build better roads enrages people. Seeing floodwater enter our homes and not being able to do anything about it stresses us out.
And seeing our fellow citizens suffering saddens us. These are all connected, and these can also be addressed properly.
So what do we do?
Providing trucks and boats to ferry people across flood waters is like taking painkillers to treat the symptoms of a sickness. It might help you function, but you are still sick, and it may get worse. You need to get the right medicine.
There is already a lot we are doing on a personal level. I have seen people volunteer their services to help others. Everyone has a role in any community—some provide timely updates of flood levels, others deliver necessary goods, others coordinate with local government units, and so on.
We have seen over and over that there is no lack of malasakit and damayan on the ground, especially when it involves people we personally know. We are already providing community-based interventions that can improve and strengthen each other’s mental health.
But also, on a larger level, investigating flood control anomalies is a political action that can also be seen as a mental health intervention. Clearing canals and creeks, rehabilitating and upgrading flood control technology, improving infrastructure and urban design to account for flooding—these are not just development concerns. These can also have positive mental health effects in the long run.
Do we just sit and take it?
In his 1959 book, “The Sociological Imagination,” C. Wright Mills pointed out that many social issues are minimized as personal mental health problems. Instead of fixing the system to ensure the well-being of people, the people are forced to adjust to a toxic system.
What that looks like—at least in our case—is that we are taught to control our reaction to constant flooding (“Just be patient, aaraw din…”), rather than demand real action on flood control issues. We are told to accept that this is how it is year after year (“Ganiyan talaga…”), rather than demand better systems, protocols, and infrastructure. We are told to adjust to existing systems, rather than demand that these systems adjust to our needs.
Once we are aware of this dynamic, we can start to challenge it.
Yes, seasons are cycles. So, it is not as though we were ignorant about the fact that the rainy season comes every year. Ideally, we should even be preparing for these times.
Are Filipinos really “resilient” in times of crisis? Or have we just been forced to use our own diskarte because we have learned that nobody else will take care of us? And if so, why do we elect leaders at all?
But as I wrote about before, storms are just natural hazards. A “disaster” is what happens when hazards are not addressed properly. A “disaster” is what happens when over-logging has weakened the mountainside, or when garbage has clogged a creek.
