Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Dear listeners, you know there are places that stay with you long after you leave them. Not because of what you saw, but because of what you carried away in your body and the mind. So for four months in the early 2002, my guest worked inside the pit at Crown Zero as a safety monitor. One of the only four women among 1500 rescue workers. So today, but more than two decades later, she's here to talk about the mental and physical after effects that followed her home. And what it takes to live with an experience that never really ends. So welcome to Healthy Mind, Healthy Life, dear listeners. I'm your host, Savik, and this is the space where we talk about mental health in real terms with real people and about the things that shape us and the ways we learn to carry them forward. Please welcome Solanz Colbeck. So welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me, Avik. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Thank you. Thank you so much for being here with us. And um, Delus Meslick, before we get into the discussion, I'll quickly love to introduce with Solanz. So um Solanz spent over three decades as a motion picture sound editor in Los Angeles before retiring and moving to South Lake Tahoe. But it was her four months as a rescue worker at Ground Zero in 2002 that changed the course of her health and her understanding of the resilience. So our discussion will be uh really great to read your listeners. So I'll I'll just say sit back, relax, just be with us. Let's get started.

What People Miss About Ground Zero

SPEAKER_01 2:27

So um like um when people think about the ground zero rescue workers, they often picture the immediate heroism, right? The adrenaline, the solidarity. So what do you think? I mean, what is the what's something people get wrong about what that experience actually does to you over the time?

SPEAKER_00 2:56

What what um what do people get wrong about the experience? Well, I've not been asked that question because there's really nothing that I can imagine being wrong with what people imagine what it was like to be in ground zero, because the solidarity was so severe that it didn't matter where you were from, who you were, what sex, race, creed, color, none of it mattered. We were all there for one reason, and we all worked in unison. And um I can't imagine anything that people might get wrong about what it was like to be in the pit of ground zero.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

So

When Trauma Becomes Permanent

SPEAKER_01 3:44

I mean, was there a moment when you realized that this was something? So something that you could just move past, that it had become part of your long-term reality.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

There was no chance that any of this I would have been able to move past it. Not there's nothing about what happened in the pit of ground zero that I can actually move past. It has stayed with me for the last 25 years.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

So looking back, what do you think made the mental and the physical toll so deep? Like, was it the environment itself, the nature of the work, the lack of preparation for what comes after, or is it something totally different?

SPEAKER_00 4:35

No, it's all of that. I had no preparation at all. I had no training, I had no right being there, I had no insight, foresight, nothing that would prepare me for what I was about to endure in the pit of ground zero. And um the work was severe, the environment was hideous, and uh the smell was awful, and it was bodies and body parts every day, and it was working under this environment that had just been unprecedented unprecedented and so severe that no one could imagine what it was like. If you see photos of a pit, you're not looking at dirt, you're looking at zone dust. Zone dust is a mixture of chemicals and um chemicals and gases and glass and uh body parts and all kinds of horrendous, it's a horrendous mix of of elements that we had to work in and around. It was sticky and it smelled bad. It was awful, it it penetrated everything. It was really zone dust, it was really bad. And um the uh noise factor was so high you could barely hear yourself think. There was so the noise level was so high that it was after a while, you just shut it out. You can't hear it anymore. And um, but the people were amazing. The camaraderie and the joy of being with these people every day, day after day, made all of it tolerable.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

It sounds like the isolation was not just the physical, it was also the emotional, like being in a role where you couldn't show vulnerability and uh where your presence itself was an animal, so I mean obviously, I mean that adds a whole other layer to carrying something heavy, right? So

Symptoms Triggers And Mental Health Gaps

SPEAKER_01 7:07

and uh if I talk about our daily life, everyday life now, years later, how does that time at the ground zero still show up? Like, are there triggers, physical symptoms, patterns you notice in like how you move through the world?

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Yes. I have what I call a ground zero cough. Okay, it is from the throat, and it is um very annoying, but it's never gotten worse, but it's never gotten better. It's the same for the last 25 years I've had this cough, and it has nothing to do with a physical ailment. It is unto itself, and it drives me crazy. There are so many people who have died, and there are so many people who have committed suicide since Ground Zero. We have readings of the names of the people who have died since, and there are thousands, there's more than the people who were killed that day, and we got to the point where there are so many people who have died that we can only go back one year in the readings of the names. And the um the um the major uh cause of death is cancer. There's 49 cancers associated with ground zero, and there's respiratory blood poisoning, and um uh the problem is that the victims fund, which takes care of everybody's ailments, and it doesn't matter what you are or where you're from, but um, they don't take care of mental health. There's no funding for mental health, and I have always wondered about that. I am medicated, I'm in therapy, and um it's that there are many triggers for me, especially anytime ground zero is in the news, especially this year, it's in social media, it's on television, uh, and all you see, all you see are the attacks over and over and over again. And people talk about the aftermath and the conspiracy theories is so overwhelming, and all of that are triggers for me. And it's just become an obsession for me, and nobody understands. Unless I'm in New York City, nobody understands what I'm going through or what it feels like. No one. And um, it's a matter of um trying to work past it. If I talk about it, people just blow it off. They don't want to hear it, they don't want to talk about it. And it it's the mental health has been compromised because um I can't seem to get a thought straight in my head. I do think about ground zero all the time. It's like it happened yesterday. And um I ended up writing a book because I could not stop thinking about it. And I so I thought I'd put it down on paper.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

I totally can understand. I mean, when no one understands, that's really a pain. And and also like apart from that, making someone understand also of that situation about that pain, it is much more painful than it is really, really very painful. So

Why The Pit Is Hard To Explain

SPEAKER_01 10:43

uh how do you explain this to people who were not there, like who might not understand like why something from two decades ago still affects you today?

SPEAKER_00 10:58

Well, that's an impossible that's an impossible uh question to answer because it's just that nobody gets it. Nobody knows what it was like to be in the pit. No one, unless you were in the pit, there was no television, no cameras, no news, no newspapers, no radio, nothing. There was nothing in the pit. No one was allowed in. And so trying to explain what was it like and what happened in the pit is impossible. It's it's literally, you cannot even imagine what it must have been like. And um I I carry that with me all the time, and it doesn't go away. The the the the thoughts, the aftermath, the the trigger points. And like I said, I'm medicated. I have to be because I would not be able to function as a as in a normal society, um, based on the depression and the PTSD and the anxiety is pretty severe. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

So um, I mean obviously, like there there's something powerful, and naming the fact that healing is not linear and that some experiences don't get you know smaller with time, they just become part of the landscape that you navigate. So obviously, I mean that takes a just in kind of a sense. So

Writing Therapy And Hiking For Grounding

SPEAKER_01 12:30

uh what's what's helped you to stay grounded, like uh or or I'd say if I have to say like find moments of the piece, like given everything your mind and body have been through, uh is there a practice or the perspective or even just a way of being uh that's made a difference?

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Well, um, like I said, I wrote this book. I'm not supposed to know this. It's very cathartic. It was uh it was a purge of feelings and history and thoughts. I um, besides being medicated, I have I live in the mountains, so I have the ability to hike every day. And um the hiking in the forest and keeping me grounded is what um helps me. Talking about it in therapy helps me because there are uh different elements that happen that trigger ground zero, and I have to um face it instead of trying to bury it. I can't bury it, I have to face it. Got it.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

All right, so um, and uh obviously, like as uh it sounds like you have uh had to become your own advocate in a lot of ways, uh learning what you need even when the world around you doesn't automatically offer it. So uh definitely that's a kind of wisdom that's uh hardworn, but uh invaluable.

Isolation And The Heaviest Days

SPEAKER_01 14:07

So um and on the days when weight of it feels heaviest when the mentally or the physical effects played up, what helps you keep it going? Like how do you handle the setbacks uh without losing yourself in them?

SPEAKER_00 14:28

Well, see, I live on the West Coast, I'm from Los Angeles, and no one gets it. I can't talk about it with anybody, and even my therapist is like she'll never know what it's like to be at Ground Zero. I could explain it forever, and she'll never quite get it. So when things get really bad, I have a tendency to um, well, I have two dogs and they help. Um, I'm not married, I'm not in a relationship, no kids. And so I'm very isolated and I have to deal with this by myself. And um, the hard times are just sitting on the couch and and just being numb to the whole thing where I can't move, I can't do anything, I just sit there and and you know, dwell on it. It's it's impossible. I try to be too busy, but that changed when I started writing the book. I just found myself with a lot of time on my hands and and spending a lot of time thinking about ground zero because of the book. And so I just cannot stop thinking about it. It is it's consuming, it is absolutely consuming.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Got it, got it. So,

Advice For Living With Trauma

SPEAKER_01 15:51

um, and what would you say to someone else who's carrying the long-term effects of trauma, like whether from a single event or accumulated over the time, like who's struggling to find a way forward? So, what is it?

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Well, I would ask them if they're in therapy. I would just the first thing I would ask them is are you talking to someone? Because talking to friends and talking to family, that's not going to help you. You need professional guidance. Therapy doesn't tell you what to do, therapy just gives you a guide. They don't tell you what to do, they just guide you through the pain and the trauma. And it's impossible to get that with your friends and family. You cannot, you cannot depend on your friends and family to give you guidance. It's impossible because they have no idea how to deal with depression, anxiety, and PTSD. It's impossible. So you got to get professional help and you've got to be willing and open to accept the the ideas that your therapist will give you. But it it's it's it's like there's really no choice. You have something as severe as ground zero has to be dealt with professionally.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Got it, got it. And um any practice or advice apart from uh the uh professional therapist if you have to give anything or any suggestion if you have to share with the listeners what that would be.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Well, I wish I had the patience for meditation, because meditation is grounding, very grounding. And I I just cannot sit still. I cannot stop the brain from functioning. I have to take medication to sleep, I have to take medication to be awake, I have to take medication for the depression and the PTSD and and all of the elements involved. I cannot lead a normal life, I cannot function without my medication. So I'm very dependent upon it, and I'm too afraid to let it go because I don't want to find out what it's like to not be medicated. I don't want to know. I I know that I'm a functioning human being and everything is fine in my life. I can work, I can I have a lot of friends, I have a great life, and I don't want to change that by changing my medication. So um there really is nothing that I do like meditation. I do hike, I will hike for miles and miles and miles on the trails in the forest. And that's my I think that's my alternate therapy, my meditation is the hiking in the forest.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Oh, that's interesting. And um that's really lovely to know. And also, like I think what you what you said is something a lot of people need to hear because that that surviving is not about being unaffected, but it's all about finding the ways to live fully, even when parts of you are still healing, still remembering, still processing. That's I'd say dear listeners, it's resilience in its truest form.

Book Links And Closing Reflections

SPEAKER_01 19:17

So uh Salaam's like if listeners want to connect with you, how they can connect.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

Well, my book, I'm not supposed to be there, is my outreach in society at this time. It was like I said, it was very cathartic to write it, and it's something that I wanted to share with everyone because um no one knows what it was like to be in the pit. Everything that's been written about ground zero has been the attacks, the aftermath, the conspiracy theories. Mine talks about the actual life, day-to-day, in the pit of ground zero. Um, my book is on Amazon.com. I'm not supposed to know this. And it's also on Barnes and Noble. And my website is I'm not supposed to know this.com. And my email is I'm not supposed to know this at yahoo.com. And um the book is it was just launched last week. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

With the listeners, what I'll do is I'll put all the links, details, everything into the show notes for your easy reference. And um you don't have to be the same person you were before something changed you. You just have to keep learning like how now, right at the moment. So thank you so much, Solanche, for sharing so openly today. And I I mean, if uh definitely uh people want to learn more about your work, they can definitely connect with you. But I'd say it's really great to uh know you, great that you shared with people and uh for everyone, I'd just say like I mean, thank you so much for being here, first of all. Um if you're listening right now, or maybe you'll be listening later, but just remember that healing doesn't mean kind of forgetting things, it means it means finding the strength to carry what matters and the grace to uh kind of set down what does not. Correct. Yeah, so with this definitely, I'll just say this is your host a weekend, this is mine. Uh is really uh great that you are here on Healthy Mind, Healthy Life. Take care of your mind and take care of your life. We'll see you in the next one. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Thank you, thank you for having me.