Losing important sentimental belongings 鈥 those items that represented who you are 鈥 can be traumatic for those who go through disasters that destroy homes. Some tips on how to get through it, emotionally and practically:
Soothe yourself, and be patient
Grief can be hard on the body, says Mary-Frances O鈥機onnor, a psychology professor at the University of Arizona and author of 鈥淭he Grieving Body: How the Stress of Loss Can Be an Opportunity for Healing.鈥
Move. Get good sleep, but accept that you might have insomnia. Establish new routines to replace the old ones.
鈥淥ur body is reacting to not having habits, to uncertainty,鈥 O'Connor says. 鈥淥ur body also takes time to absorb the blow.鈥
Recovering from loss requires 鈥渦nderstanding the impact that it鈥檚 having,鈥 says O鈥機onnor. Have patience, she says.
Document the memories, let the material things go
鈥淵ou've got to write down the stories. Document the stories,鈥 says Matt Paxton, a decluttering expert and author of 鈥淜eep the Memories, Lose the Stuff.鈥
Pass on what those lost treasures represented. Capture their meaning for yourself and future generations. The actual things themselves are, in the end, just things.
鈥淭he old adage that you can鈥檛 take it with you is true,鈥 he says. 鈥淚t's not the items, it's the stories they tell.鈥
Preserve and document the keepsakes you still have
Use technology: Photograph your sentimental belongings, scan and digitize. Start with the top five most important things, say, and top 20 photographs that matter, Paxton suggests. Use apps that help catalog things and documents. (Paxton's company is , and he recommends , and the Artifcts app, among others.)
Offline, label things so the next generation will know their sentimental value.
In many cases, friends and acquaintances will have photos and meaningful items to share.
Be open to help from friends and community
Friends and acquaintances might want to pitch in on recovery or send things. Let them. Share stories and talk.
Disasters and trauma often affect whole families, communities, 鈥渆ven a whole state and country,鈥 says O'Connor. So it helps to remember 鈥渢hat our shared response builds meaning and memorializes, and it's often by turning to others that we find the strength to go on.鈥
Look forward to a meaningful future
Disaster and recovery will create new precious memories, and new photo albums full of photos. 鈥淐hoose to keep living and creating new memories and recording old memories,鈥 says Paxton.
Besides mourning the past, O'Connor says, another aspect of healing "is restoring a meaningful life: Who am I now, in this new chapter of my life? How does it change my interactions?鈥
鈥淩estoring a meaningful life is also stressful, but what we see in research is that being able to move back and forth between coping with loss and coping with restoration is a sign of mental health," she says. "Accepting that both are part of the process.鈥
