Three women held in captivity face long road to recovery

Three Cleveland women who were held in captivity for nearly a decade can begin emotional and mental healing with their families.

Denise Marzullo, CEO of Mental Health America for Northeast Florida says the women will most likely experience systems of post-traumatic stress. She says it will take a long time for the women to overcome mental and emotional duress.

“It’s going to be a really difficult road they have ahead of them. The fact of being held in a house for years is going to take its toll itself on their mental health.”

Marzullo says the women will have to create a new ‘normal’ for their lives after being held against their will for so many years. She says even forming healthy relationships with their families after being apart for so many years will be difficult.

“The trauma that the family has gone through and that they have gone through, they are all going to have to recreate their own normal.”

Marzullo says it will be especially difficult for the women to have healthy relationships with men since they were held in captivity by men. She says, “It will be years before these women will be at any point to form a healthy relationship with another man.”

Marzullo says they will need intensive therapy and counseling to heal the psychological, mental and emotional wounds of this traumatic experience.