Consider This from NPR - Rebuilding Life After Captivity

Episode Date: November 27, 2023

Dozens of hostages have been released by Hamas over the last four days. Now after 50 days in captivity, and joyous reunions, the long journey of healing and rebuilding begins. NPR's Ailsa Chang talks to Hostage US executive director Liz Cathcart about that process.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Videos have been coming out over the past few days of the hostages released by Hamas reuniting with their families. And one of the most powerful shows a nine-year-old boy named Ohad Mundurzakri. In the video, he's being led around the corner and he sees his father standing at the other end of a hospital hallway, the father he hasn't seen in nearly 50 days. Ohad sprints into his dad's arms, and his dad lifts him into a giant hug. There are barely any words in that video, but the sense of relief is overwhelming. A photo from the hospital shows Ohad solving a Rubik's cube, just as he loved to do before October 7th. But so much else has changed since Ohad and his mother and grandmother

were taken captive by Hamas during the attack on their kibbutz. They seem fine physically. Mentally, they're still in shock. It's been quite a nightmare for us and obviously for them. Itay Raviv is Ohad's cousin. He spoke by phone to Ohad and to his mother and grandmother after their release. They're slowly, gradually getting back into reality, into understanding what happened in Israel, what happened to their family. Ohad's mother learned her brother was killed in the attack. They learned that Ohad's grandfather is likely still alive, but still held hostage by Hamas. When Itay Raviv talked to NPR on Saturday, the family was still at the hospital,

surrounded by doctors and therapists and social workers to help them put their lives back together after this harrowing ordeal. I don't think you can recover that quickly from being held by a terrorist organization for seven weeks, especially if you're a nine-year-old boy. Consider this. Dozens of hostages have been freed, but that's just the beginning of the road back to a normal life, if normal will ever be possible after something like this. We'll talk to an expert who has guided former hostages through that process. From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang. It's Monday, November 27th. It's Consider This from NPR. Liz Cathcart's entire job is focused on Americans who are taken hostage or wrongfully detained.

So that is either by criminal groups, terrorist organizations, or state actors. She's the executive director of Hostage U.S., which supports the families of those Americans while they are held captive. And then on the other side of that, when hostages and Ron Fugizini's are released, we help those captives to get back to life. And we help the family to understand what that life looks like moving forward with the returned captive. So she has a good idea of what hostages released by Hamas might be facing right now, from profound challenges like loss and trauma to mundane ones like bills set to auto pay.

You know, if you don't have the money to cover those bills in your account that month, you'll get, you know, interest in penalties on that. And even in two months, these things can accumulate and you can come back to a really, really challenging, complex, you know, web of financial issues. So I wanted to talk to her about the road back to normal for these hostages or even where to start. The first thing we always say is your physical health, because without the physical health checks and making sure that your physical health is, you know, up to par, you're not able to then take the next steps to recovery and reintegration. And I understand that malnutrition is something that you see a lot.

And, you know, in reading about some of these people who have been released over the last few days, their family members are reporting that they have lost significant amounts of weight just in the seven weeks or so that they've been held hostage. Is that something you see quite often? It is. Unfortunately, it's incredibly common for a multitude of reasons. And we manage cases of folks who are held for days, months, years, and across the board, there are malnutrition issues, whether that's not getting enough food or not enough nutritious food, or because of the stress of being held, your body is unable to retain or keep down food, and that could be an issue as well. Right. Well, once the physical needs are largely taken care of and the immediate mundane tasks are attended to, I know that you focus on mental health.

What kinds of challenges are common in situations like this and what kind of support do organizations like yours try to provide? need to have continuing mental health care, but it is a fantastic idea and really encouraged to have a check-in with a trauma-informed mental health counselor when hostages are released. One of the most important skills that former captives can learn, or they might already have to some degree but can brush up on when they get home, are resilience skills and coping skills to cope with what will be their new normal, which is a, you know, a phrase that we have all heard a lot in the context of COVID. But, you know, Hostage US has been using that phrase for many years of you come back to a different picture of what your life is. And you really do need to become used to and become accustomed to and help create your new normal. And that is no small thing, because when we talk

about the idea of a new normal, I mean, for some of these people who've been released, their homes have been destroyed. They're just learning loved ones have been killed. I mean, how do you go back to a normal when the way things were has vanished? That is exactly right. And I think in the context of, of course, this hostage situation that we're talking about, there are so many other factors, like you said, where family members have been killed, missing, you know, loved ones have just, their entire life has changed while you were in captivity. And so in this instance, I would, you know, very much encourage the family members of the captives to really be open and honest about what has happened since they've been gone. Having those really tough conversations in the beginning with adults, of course, not talking about the children who were taken.

The adults is important so that the hostage can understand what has been happening, what was missed. And mental health counselors can be incredibly beneficial in scene setting for those conversations and helping to make sure that you're communicating to your loved ones in an appropriate way. So far, we've been talking mostly about the people who have been held hostage, but how does all of what affects them ripple out and affect the families of them? What have you seen in the past? It ripples out pretty significantly, right? Because as these families fight for two months trying to get their

loved ones home, they're used to a constant level of stress. And now their loved ones are released, and it is such a happy and joyous moment. But then the families need to start to learn how to take care of themselves, how to step back, take a breather from a two-month marathon. And now their focus entirely shifts to making sure that their loved one is okay. And what I always encourage families to do when their loved one gets home is to focus on yourself too, because it's so important that the families are mentally healthy, that they're fed, that they have energy.

Because if they don't, they're not going to be able to support their family member. They're not going to be able to support the captive who comes home. That's saying about put on your oxygen mask first before you can put it on for others. Absolutely. Finally, is there any individual or family that you tell people about how they weathered this experience to give people hope? The best story of hope that we can give is that the majority, the vast majority of cases that we deal with end with a family who is whole again, who recognizes that they went through an incredibly traumatic experience and they are built stronger and have learned coping mechanisms that they can apply to many different scenarios in their lives. And we feel very, very humbled

and also proud to be part of those steps. Liz Cathcart is the Executive Director of Hostage U.S., an organization dedicated to supporting families and individuals experiencing detention. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. I appreciate it. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang.