Topic Tuesday // Life After Bushfires // Tues 19th January, 7:00-8:30PM AEDT

Wow @Daisydreamer anniversary stuff is a reall trigger for so many.
So far in the past week I've been reminded about other anniversaries affecting people close to me - 10 years since devastating floods in Brisbane and only yesterday it was 44 years since the Granville train disaster .....
I personally feel it's important to recognise such anniversaries given the personal impact they have on you - it can be confronting I know but I try to build resilience from remembering such things

Some great websites I have discovered to add to, supplement any professional help you may be getting and engaging with others such as through forums etc is

Action For Hapiness:

https://www.actionforhappiness.org/

My goodness @Klutz. I can imagine how invalidating that would have felt, and frustrating to boot I'll bet! Triggers all around. I'm sorry that's the way you've learnt the meaning of the word.

@Daisydreamer , @Klutz , @KingParrot , @JLD , @TideisTurning , @Fizz

Mine is people always asking me how did the fire start

Or that you have only lost things in the fire or the cyclone

Harder for my Mr shaz who has multiple diagnosis of MI

For me, having been fortunate enough not to have been affected by bushfires, I feel like my triggers, related to other experiences, are a little different to many here. In terms of strategies though to help promote wellbeing and combat the triggers I do have- I’ve found letting some other people into parts of my experiences, as scary as that can be, to be really helpful. Also pausing and naming the reaction for what it is when I notice what’s happening and taking a breath and reminding myself that while the particular situation has acted as a trigger, it is just that and is in fact different to what happened before- this has at times been aided by the people I’ve let in, who have also prompted me with this and highlighted some of the differences for me.

yeah @Daisydreamer taking breaks from the socials and general media definitely help with the triggering - I was riveted to teh fire coverage on ABC and I could actually identify the exact spots where Hamish and other journos on ABC News 24 were standing when they did their reports during the fires from towns like Batemans Bay, Mogo, Broulee, Moruya, Narooma, Bermagui, Cobargo, Candelo, Bega, Tathra, Merimbula, Eden etc - it just made it worse but I kept watching .....

@Daisydreamer , yes it does not matter how many cyclones you go through, it still scares us on How big, what damage, when , where

Acknowledging the anniversary is an important step @Fizz, and it sounds like you did research to find resources that could help you manage the impact of trauma associated with anniversaries.

Question 5:

Are there any resources for self care and wellbeing that you have found helpful?

And what were you able to put in place for yourself to practice self care?

Action for happiness is a great one!

@Daisydreamer there's been so many triggers then sometimes it's nothing that triggers it 😞

Some things that keep irking me have been....

volunteer awards!! I know this sounds so stupid but it seems as though everyone has been handing out these awards Willy nilly to these people that have literally done NOTHING but torment and harass people! And those that actually have been helpful in the community get over looked because they aren't "loud" enough. They aren't loud enough because they're actually just genuinely helping people not for recognition but to just help! No one follows through with asking those of us effected what has actually been happening and who's actually been here helping so that's just been very frustrating. And it just falls back into not being heard again I guess.

our community have coped by just being there for each other which has been beautiful but also hard at the same time because I just want to give more to my friends and neighbours but we are all in the same boat together trying to empty the water of the sinking ship. So it's hard to support when you're also needing the support 😞

we held a community BBQ to mark the 12 months mark and it was nice because WE wanted too and WE did it. We didn't have people coming in telling us what to do or how to feel we just decided as a community to do it and it's what we wanted. The night was great, we hardly discussed the fires it was just about bringing our community back together after individuals came in previously and tried to pull us apart