Therapy for fishing families
Post categories: Robyn in New Orleans
| 00:21 UK time, Thursday, 3 June 2010
Roy Vanderhoff's eyes are amongst the saddest I have ever seen.
He's a commercial fisherman here in Louisiana. He's had to stop because of the oil spill.
"What's hurting me, is that we uncertain about our future," he told me.
Roy fears his youngest son nicknamed Lil' Buddha (for his round belly) won't get to experience life in a fishing boat.
"It's not just fishing either, it's the animals. I bring my kid out in the marsh and I show him the alligators. I ain't gonna be able to do that no more, maybe if this oil spill keeps spilling."
I met Roy and his wife Ladonna at a charity called the in a town called Chalmette, just east of New Orleans.
The St Bernard Project offers free counselling to fishing families affected by the oil spill.
Liz McCarthy is the co-founder of the St Bernard Project. She says the charity was originally started to rebuild homes for people who had lost them during Hurricane Katrina.
"But once we got out and started building homes, we found that people were alive, but they weren't living."
The idea to have a mental health and wellness centre was born. The centre is staffed with a psychologist, a psychiatrist and a clinical social worker.
Ladonna told me that since the oil spill, Roy is a different person.
"He's depressed. His angry at times. He's not the same," she says with tears streaming down her face.
"It's hard to see him this way."
Somehow I doubted that a burly, manly-man fishermen would feel comfortable seeing a shrink.
Roy said that was definitely the case. He told me he told his friend Steve about the project's counselling services. Steve reacted by simply driving away.
"Most fishermen would consider it like you were taking away their manhoods," Ladonna said.
But all the same, Roy said it felt good to open up.
"I'm not much of a talker, but talking to different people, it just helps me."
