Continuing Effects

I completely know what you mean too @Frangipani1 , @YouAreNotAlone

maybe slightly different as i Have not been through a bushfire but have been through cyclones

During our cyclones seasons in far north queensland , when there is lots of winds and pressure in the air , i wonder if there is a cyclone around @Former-Member

Hey @Frangipani1 TideisTurning here, one of Sane's peer support workers 😊Thanks so much for sharing your experiences with us. It can be so hard to go back to some semblence of 'normal' after an experience like that, and then to have to go through it all again... To me, that speaks to you and your daughter's resilience and your strength in continuing to move through it all.

Those moments of brief panic definitely sound like a normal reaction to what you've both been through. I'm curious though, what ways do you have of working through these experiences? Maybe even together with your daughter, especially as you've re-experiened bushfires? How do you come down from those moments of high alert when it's been a false alarm?

Thanks everyone for your replies 🙂 To answer your question TideisTurning, I think that the main way that we were able to reassure her when she was young, was to validate her fear when hearing a helicopter and explain that helicopters flying over can mean something different to a fire - there are lots of things that people in helicopters are doing and pretty much most of them are aimed at keeping people safe. Assuring her she was safe and that there was no smoke or other indications of fire in a calming way - really just using some basic trauma informed principles.

I think that children really absorb what is going on around them. They don't always have words to verbalise what they are seeing and how it is making them feel, especially when they are very little so being aware of possible effects is really important.

It sounds like your daughter is a lucky girl, having a parent so aware of not only the potential impacts, but of some ways to go about addressing those impacts. Those strategies sound really simple yet powerful and I imagine they would help lessen some of the trauma's impact a great deal. Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom with us @Frangipani1 😊

@Frangipani1 thank you for sharing! Although and adult I feel the same ever helicopter too! We didn’t have any helicopter help with our fire but every buzz I hear I jump straight to it! The other day I heard and saw 5 of them and was thinking some horrible thing has happened. No it was the tri monthly helicopter pilot meeting at the local pub 😂

how is your daughter now?