Blaire Arvin - e-mail Blaire ABC26 News

October 1, 2010
ST. BERNARD PARISH—
Charles Robin makes shrimp nets near his boat in Ycloskey. This 5th generation shrimper has been going through the motions in the aftermath of the oil catastrophe.

"We're coping," Robin says. "We live everyday day for day," Robin says.

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And everyday still -- a huge challenge. Robin is getting back out on the water and shrimping, but he's not pulling in the money, like he used to. Robin tells ABC26 news "the prices of the shrimp are 75% cheaper. It's unbearable."

This whole disaster so unbearable Robin admits, it has messed with his mind.

"One incident: I just lost my edge for one second and I wound up catching my hand in a lynch and I cut my finger off," says Robin. "Then I realized something ain't right."

A new Gallup survey finds depression cases are up more than 25% along the Gulf Coast. Friday afternoon, state officials held a behavioral health summit to tackle mental health and addiction problems post-oil disaster.

Anthony Speier, with the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals Office of Behavioral Health, says, "we're concerned about issues of domestic violence, substance use, problems children may be having in school and economic impact of this oil spill on our communities."

And because of those concerns -- and with funding from BP-- health professionals are coming together to find a way to respond, together.

"Over the next six months we're making available a lot of services using evidence based practices, self help models and we know that will mitigate long term effects," Speier says.

Charles Robin's breaking point made him seek help from a counselor. "She made me stop and realize and start thinking and it did me some good," he says.

He hopes others get help if they need it, because he says this recovery process is far from over: "We still have a lot of hurdles to jump over yet and we have a lot of work to do with this oil spill. We just gotta hang in there."