Louis Degnan Samka, victim of the attacks, or music as therapy

Louis Degnan Samka made his wish come true: to produce a short musical film, called Fantasia, in tribute to the victims of the attacks of November 13, 2015 in Paris, in which he plays and composed the music. We met him nine years ago at his mother's house where he lived at the time, a few days after the attacks. During the terrorist attack which caused the death of 130 people, he was working at Bataclan café. He had been shot in the left thigh, which fortunately did not hit the femoral artery. Operated the next day at Saint-Antoine hospital in Paris, he walked again five days later. “I was very lucky, I have a lucky star”he tells us today.

Although he hesitates to talk about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), he suffered from“passive depression, anxiety” shortly after the attacks. “I started to leave the house less, to see less people, sometimes with visions of scenes where we were shooting at each other, but without really realizing that it was not going wellstory Louis Degnan Samka. It's a form of combat where we are so disconnected from reality, outside of time. Above all, we wonder why this happened to us. » His mother gave him the contact of a psychologist. He begins therapy in 2020. The term PTSD is coined.

“I had trouble considering myself a victim, I was in a sort of denial, more in survivor mode. » His psychologist and his lawyer encouraged him to seek compensation. It's not that simple. “Every year, we are invited to attend the commemorations, but at the same time, I had to have several expert opinions to obtain compensation, because my injuries were not physical but psychological…. »observes the artist.

“I am one of them and I do not forget them”

The trial of the November 13 attacks, which was held from September 2021 to June 2022, helped him. If he initially hesitated to testify, “the fact of externalizing, of addressing the terrorists… helped me, and allowed me to really acknowledge the fact of having been a victim”. Testifying can help some survivors better understand what they experienced.

Compose, create… without a doubt, music has it rescued. He says that he already had this outlet relationship with rap before the attacks, “a means of expression, a means of existing too”. In 2015, he signed with an independent label, then started music production and launched his own label. “Despite everything, I was a little in survival mode, a little in pain”concedes the thirty-year-old. Finishing in the final of the Emergenza Festival in 2017, which takes place at the Bataclan, constitutes a turning point for him.

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