PUERTO RICO'S PAINS

Her memory of the storm came in flashes : neighbors' screams, gushing water, swimming against the current with her son.

For Milagros Sarrano Oritiz, a 37 year old grandmother with long, curly hair, the nightmare did not end there.

After two days of sheltering upstairs in a house across the street, she returned him to find the walls-

Caked with mud and a vile stench emanating from her cherished possessions, which were rotting in the heat.

Anguished and overwhelmed, she confessed recently to the psychologist at an emergency clinic that she had begun to have disturbing thoughts and worries that he might act on them.

''Like what?'' the doctor asked.

Like swallowing a bottle of pills, she said. ''never waking up, and not feeling pain anymore.''

The violent winds and screeching rains of  Hurricane Maria were a 72 hours assault on Puerto Rican psyche.

There are warning signs of a full-fledged mental health crisis on the island, public officials say, with much of the population showing:

Symptoms of post traumatic stress.

Puerto Rico was already struggling with an increase in mental illness amid a 10-year recession that brought soaring unemployment, poverty and family separation caused by migration.

Public health officials and caregivers say that Maria has exacerbated the problem.