Feeling heightened anxiety with the early bushfire season? Help is available
- ellie978
- Oct 17, 2023
- 1 min read
As vast plumes of smoke from the Coolagolite Road bushfire billowed into the sky across the Bega Valley last week, trauma therapist Colleen Weir's phone began to ring.
Ms Weir said she received emotional phone calls from many of her past clients in the far south of NSW who are still recovering from the 2019/2020 Black Summer bushfires.
She said residents on the far south of NSW were sent into panic mode, so she shared techniques used to help people suffering trauma reconnect to the present, in order to disconnect from dark memories. Think: What can I see? What can I hear? What can I smell? What can I taste? What can I touch?" Ms Weir said.
Ms Weir said past trauma could flip people into heightened emotions like "hyper arousal" where people could feel panic or fear, or the opposite "hypo arousal" where people could shut down.
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