Deana Lytle felt nervous as she watched her 3-year-old son, Fitz, sit still in the back of the car, observing the pouring rain and falling trees as Helene bore down. They were fleeing toward her parents’ house in Swannanoa, N.C.
“Dear God, please let us get there safely,” Ms. Lytle recalled praying aloud.
They eventually made it. But soon after, Fitz started showing symptoms of post-traumatic stress. He didn’t want to eat. He cried uncontrollably at times, especially during downpours. Often, he wetted himself. And whenever it rained he would ask: “Is the storm coming back?”
One day Ms. Lytle saw a flier about a therapeutic playgroup for children in Asheville, the Verner Center for Resilience, and signed up Fitz. There, she said, he started processing his experience of the storm by drawing tornadoes. He wanted to draw only circular scribbles, even on a “Peppa Pig” coloring book.
In recent months, Fitz has improved, Ms. Lytle said. He no longer cries when he goes to school. One day he showed his mother his latest creation, a circular blob made from swirls of pink and white putty.
“It’s a tornado, Mommy,” Fitz said. “And I got it in my hand. And it’s OK.”
Ms. Lytle understood. Her son felt more in control now.
Fitz still draws tornadoes. But recently, he has begun to color rainbows again.