Flood continues to take a mental, emotional toll on many

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    MIDLAND, Mich. (WNEM) — Though it was six months ago…

“We had about two hours before we had to leave,” Midland resident Vanessa Maxson said. “I could hear the water and trees and stuff like breaking back there…”

Maxson remembers the flood like it was yesterday.

“So, we decided it was probably time to go at that point,” she said.

What happened next was historic.

When Maxson got back to her Midland home a day later, it looked like a tornado ripped through it.

“I sat on the ground and cried. I was like, I can’t go home,” she said. “There isn’t a home to go to.”

Then began the painstaking clean up and for some, the rebuild.

When the floodwaters receded, they didn’t just leave this massive dry lakebed behind me.

They also left a huge emotional and mental toll.

“I almost feel like, guilty, being where we’re at and having recovered as much as we have,” Maxson said. “And what really makes me feel guilty is when I say things like we don’t have baseboards and we don’t have doors. Because some people don’t even have houses.”

Vanessa suffers from what she describes as survivor’s guilt and more.

“Depression, insomnia, trouble sleeping, trouble eating,” she said.

Though she’s slowly recovering. Every week she’s reminded of those who didn’t.

“It’s very hard when you’re a compassionate and caring person and you’re a doer, a giver, a helper, and there’s too many people to be able to help,” Maxson said.

Maxson also felt guilty that she was able to get lots of memorabilia out before the water arrived while others only got necessities like Deana Beckham.

“I can’t drive down to my neighborhood,” Beckham said. “It’s just, I can’t go down there. I can’t think about it.”

The month of May was Deja vu for Beckham.

In twenty 2017, her house was flooded, and she and her family had to be airlifted out.

So, this year, they evacuated early but the flooding was much worse.

“And I know we’ve had a couple of amber alerts recently, and as soon as that alert goes off, it’s an immediate like, what’s happening, what’s happening,” she said.

That’s where Ed West comes in.

“Grief leaves you a different person, and that’s what this is about, grief,” said West. “After you’ve had an experience of this magnitude, you’re changed.”

West is a retired social worker.

He decided to start a support group after seeing people post their struggles in the Facebook group, Sanford Strong.

“I’ve seen incredible pain, and various manifestations of that,” he said. “But I’ve also seen just an incredible spirit, it’s just pretty overwhelming.”

The group meets at the Midland First United Methodist Church.

“It was a sounding board of all the people feeling the exact same thing that I was feeling,” Beckham said. “And all of them were so understanding and we just had so many like-minded people stories.”

Today, Maxson has a counselor and is doing better.

And the same Facebook group that caused so much of her survivor’s guilt, gave her a little relief in return.

“I had quite a few comments that were made that spun my perception on what I was going through,” Maxson said. “I had the people I was feeling guilty over being like ‘We’re proud of you’ and that like helped a lot. Them being like ‘we’re not resentful. We’re not jealous.’”

Maxson, Beckham and many others and rebuilding their homes and lives one day at a time.

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