When the planes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, Dr. Sophia Thomas was 18 years old, six months pregnant and working on the 92nd floor of the South Tower.
After 25 years, she now lives and works in Denton County, and has made the bold choice to recount her experience during the tragic event.
Thomas will release her book, “92 Reasons: A Journey of Faith,” Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Cafe Mila, her family’s business in The Colony.
According to Thomas, a PHD-level Licensed Professional Counselor-Supervisor with training in trauma, neuropsychology, rehabilitation and forensic assessment, the book isn’t just about sharing her story of escaping the tower that day – it’s also about understanding and dealing with the trauma that followed her every day after.
“When I was in the building, I wasn’t scared,” she said. “But when I came out, looked back and saw the fire and chaos from the outside, my brain couldn’t comprehend and that’s when the fear kicked in.”
In the 25 years since, Thomas has dealt with that lasting fear everywhere she went.
Her family arrived in the United States from Trinidad after winning the green card lottery. They lived in Florida first and moved to New York in 2000 before moving to Texas in 2003. Thomas took the train because she was afraid to get on a plane.
It wasn’t the only uneasy situation she faced following the attack, and it took her working as a therapist to find a true lesson about everything.
“I teach clients about self-sabotaging your own life,” said Thomas. “One day, I told a client, ‘Randomly, someone crashed an airplane into a building I was in, and for many years after, when it came to living my life, I was so afraid that I found myself crashing planes in my own life, but I couldn’t blame anyone else.'”
The metaphor helped Thomas and her clients realize something important about life and control.
“I had to stop and see that I was sabotaging my own life,” she said. “I was ruining a lot of things with my own fear, my own guilt, my own shame and my own self.”
Not only has Thomas used the attack to help in her profession, she found that it also brought her family together in a way she hadn’t seen in a long time.
When the planes hit the towers, Thomas was inside the South Tower, her dad was in Midtown, her mom was in downtown in a building near the towers and her sisters were in schools in different parts of the city.
Thomas said the last member of her family made it back home after the sun went down, which is why her book launch event is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. – near sunset.
“When I entered the building that morning, my family wasn’t happy with me and we weren’t close,” she said. “But coming home that night, when I felt my world had completely ripped open, my family came together.”
That sense of closeness continued when Thomas and her family moved to Texas. Despite being mostly isolated the whole time they had lived in the U.S., they opened Cafe Mila.
Her once isolated parents suddenly became social butterflies, helping cook and chatting up the customers.
“My mom’s heart is tied to that cafe,” said Thomas. “If anything happens, might as well take her with it. The whole community became our family.”
Another part of Thomas’ story is support. Just as the community helped support her family through the cafe, a strong support system helped Thomas get through the trauma and fear left by 9/11.
Thomas added another interesting point to her story, which is the baby she was six months pregnant with.
Her son is doing great, and was part of the support system that helped her continue to survive, but he also reminded her to live.
After the attacks, Thomas said her son was her crutch – helping her survive because she could focus on him rather than her past trauma.
One day, he celebrated scoring a run at his youth baseball game and, as all the parents were cheering, Thomas sat emotionless.
“Mom, you can start screaming now,” he shouted to her in the stands.
“It hit me,” said Thomas. “All the other moms were excited and I was hyper focused on being vigilant. I was always on guard. And I realized I wasn’t enjoying being a mom.”
That was just one of many lessons Thomas learned from her son. Another was that she wasn’t the only one dealing with the trauma from the attacks.
According to research from Mount Sinai, which Thomas and her son participated in, children born to mothers that were pregnant during traumatic events, such as 9/11, had memories of the events that the mothers never told them.
Thomas said her son would have nightmares and freak out about fire alarms in elementary school, but it wasn’t just a kid thing – it was him being taken back to Sept. 11, 2001, while he was in the womb.
“He would wake up in the middle of the night and tell me things he had seen in his dreams that I hadn’t told anyone,” she said. “It explains why children born to parents who go through trauma can be a little troubled.”
Thomas would never wish for another attack like the one she lived through, but would be remiss if she let it control her life or make her lose faith.
“If we try to control faith too much, it’s not really faith,” she said. “I trust that if something is going to happen, good or bad, it’s going to be ok.”
To learn more about Dr. Thomas and her book launch, visit the 92 Reasons website and the book launch website.
