Coping with the Stress of Relocation After a Disaster (Part 2): Emotional Healing
After the initial emergency has passed and the shock and confusion from disaster relocation have subsided, the physical rebuilding and long-term emotional recovery phase begins. This longer recovery phase has two steps:
- Assess all physical and emotional losses. This inventory can help you identify practical actions to take in rebuilding the physical losses the family has experienced.
- Develop an emotional understanding of the disaster experience and your relocation situation to help rebuild family life. Working through emotions takes time. There is no set time frame or stages for it.
Resolving emotions is a natural healing process that relies on talking to friends about your feelings; mentally sorting your emotions; and receiving practical and emotional help from family, friends, your place of worship, or other organized support groups in the community.
Emotional Healing
Your personal support groups can help you process your emotions and understand your experiences. Emotional processing involves experiencing the emotions associated with the disaster and figuring out what the disaster means to your life. One way that many people work through their emotions is by telling the story of what happened.
Many people who have lived through a natural disaster or terrorist attack have an overwhelming urge to tell the story over and over again. By sharing stories, you and those around you can sort out the sequence of events associated with the disaster, which at first may be a confused jumble. By telling the story, you can get input from others about what they saw and begin to put meaning into the experience.
Generally, as you heal emotionally over time, the story will pull together into an organized account that will have vivid details, emotions, and reflections about lessons learned during the experience. With emotional healing, thoughts and dreams about the disaster will be less painful. You will have gained some emotional distance from the events of the disaster. How long this process takes depends on what happened during the disaster and your own unique mental and emotional makeup. You will always associate some pain with the disaster, but it will not be so overwhelming after the passage of time allows for emotional healing.
Signs That Professional Help Is Needed
Here are some signs that the person is overwhelmed by emotions and may need help:
- The story is too painful to tell.
- The person creates a wall of silence around the event for a long time.
- The person cannot express or experience his or her feelings.
- Dreams and thoughts of the experience continue to evoke very painful emotions that do not go away.
- The person's behavior dramatically changes.
- The person has thoughts of self-harm or hurting others.
If these signs are present, an appointment with a mental health professional should be arranged to help with the healing process.
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). (Reviewed 2024 [Ed.]). Relocation and stress (pp. 2–3). Relocation stress: Helping families deal with the stress of relocation after a disaster (B. Schuette, Ed.). Retrieved May 28, 2024, from https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov