Post crisis focus needs to be on support
Massey University Senior Clinical Psychologist Associate Professor Kirsty Ross offers advice on supporting friends, whānau and colleagues affected by the Auckland Floods.
With the flooding in Auckland, some people, they have lost a sense of security and a sense of optimism that 2023 was going to be the start of better times after the impact of COVID19. People were already recovering from that crisis and carrying a level of residual fatigue before the floods created such a devastating impact.
Psychologically, a natural disaster holds no one to blame, no sense of responsibility for what caused it to happen.
The other side to that is a sense of not being able to control or prevent these events, which can create a sense of helplessness. Increasingly, the changing climate of our world means we are seeing global weather events that are unheard of and that we have not had to deal with before.
It is crucial we do not have a sense of hopelessness in the midst of the challenge of the clean-up after these floods.
What is helpful is to focus on what is within your control.
Let us also focus on the heroes and the good we see when events like this happen. What we have already seen are communities banding together, helping one another, dealing with this as a group.
That is psychologically so beneficial – no one really understands what the floods were like more than those who went through it.
Feeling part of a collective with those who ‘get it’ leaves people feeling less isolated and alone.
However, people are still being affected differently and have suffered different degrees of loss.
So even within these communities, getting outside support can be helpful so that those who are struggling are able to get support and offload to those who are ‘fresh’ to the situation and not managing their own distress and challenges.
A balance between support within and outside these communities can be helpful.
Parents – remember that you need to care for yourselves in
order to be able to provide calm, reassuring support that your young people need.
They are more likely to be ok if you are OK. Focus on trying to eat well, sleep as well as you can, get outside and move your body, stay connected to people you care about and try to reinstate some routines and structure, while being flexible to roll with changed circumstances.
It is certainly understandable to feel angry, sad, worried and a sense of this not being fair – all incredibly valid emotions to be feeling.
You don’t have to sit with these feelings on your own. I encourage anyone who is struggling to reach out and let someone know if they need support, or make use of helplines available for advice or just a listening ear.
As people affected are continuing to manage their daily lives, national support can drop off as another story takes centre stage on the news.
So, it is important as a nation that we remember that this disaster has not stopped just because the storm moved away.
People are living in difficult situations, facing long roads of financial, physical and emotional recovery, all while watching the skies nervously when it is looking like heavy rain may fall.
What we need to do is continue to reach out, check in and offer support to our fellow Kiwis in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland as they rebuild after a difficult start to what we all hoped (and continue to hope) would be a better year.