Trauma with a “little t” after Hurricane Irma

Hurricane Irma is over, well, sort-of. . .  Most of you know that I live in South Florida. We spent a week preparing, a couple of days going through the hurricane and are now going through the after effects, Almost everyone was out of power for several days to a week, and there are still people without power. The roads are still lined with debris –  branches and huge trees with their root systems in the air or on a roof. If you went through it too (or any other natural disaster), you may be experiencing the following:

• Low concentration level
• Low motivation to work and/or clean up
• Anxiety rising randomly or whenever it rains (or power flashes)
• A sense of impending doom following you around
• Increased level of irritability
• Increased fatigue

This is what we call trauma with a “little t.” Now if a tree fell on your house or windows blew in, that’s trauma with a Big T! Definitely give yourself some time to process but also consider getting some help if you find that symptoms of trauma aren’t going away on their own.

For everyone else, give yourself some time to process. Just because the kids are back at school and you’re back at work doesn’t mean that your brain isn’t still processing what happened, particularly when it passes all the debris still on the roads.and it sees the huge trees down sometimes on your neighbor’s roof! Be sure to give yourself extra time to just relax, read, have a cup of tea or coffee, or listen to music.

If you have kids, make a little book with them about what happened to help them process their feelings. This doesn’t have to be fancy – some words with pictures stapled together will help them tell the story of what happened.

I specialize in hypnosis for anxiety and chronic conditions in Broward county and the Fort Lauderdale area. To see if we’re a good fit to work together, schedule your free consultation:

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Dr. Liz