Sept. 11: Where Are We Now?

Two years after what we now refer to as 9/11, or the day that changed America forever, are we still saying "I love you" to our partners as they head off to work? Are we still making efforts not to go to bed angry or to perform random acts of kindness for our neighbors?

To find out, WebMD spoke to the very experts who were on the front lines in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania when disaster struck and those on the sidelines all across the map who fervently worked -- and are still working -- to heal our country.

Here's what they have to say.

"From a totally personal perspective, we are doing better than I ever imagined," says Randall D. Marshall, MD, director of trauma studies and services at New York State Psychiatric Institute and an associate professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, both in New York City. "Given the hell we went through and the way that the community was in danger of being destroyed after 9/11, we have pulled through remarkably well," he says.

Blackout Shines Light on Changes

"The blackout is a nice example," he says, referring to the blackout of 2003 that took out power across the Northeast and parts of Canada. "Perhaps there could have even been some panic before 9/11, but once we heard that it was not any kind of attack, people were remarkably calm and drew on their experience in 9/11."

Specifically, people were taking rides from strangers, enjoying free ice cream from local parlors, and there was no massive looting or lawlessness as was seen in previous blackouts, he says.

"Part of the joy of the blackout was that it wasn't a disaster," says Bruce Jackson, PhD, professor of American culture at the University of Buffalo in Buffalo, N.Y. "Everyone in New York City's first reaction was, 'They've done it again!' And then when people gradually realized it was not terrorism, there was huge wave of relief," he says. "People were talking to one another," even people who have lived anonymously in the same building for years, were talking to their neighbors for the very first time, "which is good but a helluva way to get to know your neighbors."

Studies conducted after Sept. 11, 2001, suggested that in some respects, Americans had become kinder, more loving, and more grateful since Sept. 11. Has it lasted?

Not really, says Barbara O. Rothbaum, PhD, an associate professor of psychiatry and the director of the Trauma and Anxiety Recovery Program at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.

When it comes to saying "I love you" every morning and trying not to go to bed angry, "What people said they were going to do has fallen off," says Rothbaum. "Those are the kind of things we are vigilant about after things happen, but we have returned to baseline."