Overwhelming Triggers

[epaklt]

I went through a major fire earlier this year. It was the bigest fire in Australia's history and I lost a lot of friends and neighbours. It was and still is for me, just horrible. I already had PTSD and so this just seems to have made things worse. I was trapped inside the firefront for over a week and with summer approaching I am finding my anxiety level is going throught the roof.

Not much has grown back even though it has been over 10mths. So I am reminded constantly of the fires, the hills around me are still black as most of the trees didn't survive. Leading up to summer, people have been burning off some of the dead trees and I have found the constant smell and sight of smoke extremely triggering. I can't relax, I am afraid to go to sleep in case something happens at night. Part of me knows the chances of it happening again is very small, but.... The week after the fires my husband and I had to constantly patrol checking for spot fires so we didn't really sleep. That's how I am starting to feel again, that I need to be on guard all the time. This is so tiring.

Any hot day now is such a stressful time for me. The local firies where back burning the other day and it got out of control, this sort of thing seems to just feed my anxiety. I seem to find triggers everywhere, a helicopter flies over it reminds me of the helitankers, if a car alarm goes off it reminds me of the smoke alarms on that day. The list goes on.

I just don't know how to settle and calm myself or reduce my reaction to these triggers. I try to ground myself but because I am struggling with sleep and nightmares my defenses are running on empty.

cheers
Keri

 

[Onefineday]

Heya, I can't say I know how you feel but I can only imagine. I live where Ash Wednsday happened, I know the posibility of being caught in that is not impossible. It really scares me to think of losing everything, as I have lost everything once before in a different situation. Just the other day I was standing talking to a neighbour and we could see smoke coming from the hills, it filled the sky and we started to worry, I remembered the road into the hills had been blocked off. It turned out it was only a controlled fire, but I was so worried, that night I opened the windows and my entire house smelled of smoke.
There are a lot of fires here every summer, I remember once the entire sky was this eerie brown and peices of ash were floating through the air but we couldn't figure out where the fire was coming from.
Every time I see smoke I start to worry, and I've never been in a fire, but knowing I live where the second biggest Australian fire happened is not really a comfort.
I know this isn't exactly helping, I just live in this constant fear of bad things happening, from people stealing my belongings, to being told I have to move out, to my house burning down. But enough of my problems, this isn't about me.

Are there other people from the fires that you speak to? I am positive you aren't alone in feeling the way you do. If you aren't already can you find people from Black Saturday to share your trauma with?

 

[Pixie]

Hi Keri. I'm so sorry you had to go through that fire and I can understand how that would increase your symptoms. Especially because the Aussie summer has arrived early this year. I remember that day too... seeing the fires from where we live was scary enough without being caught up in the middle of it.

Do you have a therapist or psych or counselor to help you to work on ways to assist with the upcoming summer?

Pixie

 

[tryintobreathe]

Keri,

Welcome to the forum. I am so sorry that you had to go through that. It must be horrible to have those reminders all around you every day. This is such a great place. There are some wonderful and supportive people here.

Jen