Diary of a Flood Survivor

on the Sunshine Coast a few weeks ago in the 16-year-old girls 5 km distance fnishing with a silver medal in 2nd place with a 3-minute PB and fnished in 11th place at Nationals in 2023 in the 7.5 km race. We are travelling to Sydney in December for NSW State Championships and in January we will be travelling to Busselton in Western Australia for a week for the Swimming Australia National Championships.

How is your mental health?

So many of us work very hard, some not so much, on our physical health, but how many of us ensure we are ft mentally?

Do you talk about anything that is worrying you, or do you tend to build it up inside?

I am asking because, while it’s been lovely to get the rain we have had recently, there is that teeny tiny knot in my stomach that reminds me of what we went through 20 months ago.

Don’t get me wrong. I love a cosy settled-in rainy day where I get to read or give Netfix a

good going over.

It’s the storm warnings that have me in a slight dither.

And while ‘tis the season to be jolly, ‘tis also the season to be stormy.

I fnd it helpful to chat, just in a casual way, with neighbours about the weather as we all have similar concerns, but we also react differently. When I asked my neighbours what they felt about a recent storm, they were very upbeat, saying we needed it as the ground was very dry, so it was a good thing. There you go… perspective! I liked that and it stopped me from falling down a stress hole over something that was actually positive.

I also realised, it takes quite an event for fooding to happen, as most of us know.

So rather than stressing over every little garden variety storm, I should just appreciate the magnifcence of such a weather event.

There will be other things that will take up our stress time, why add to it?

If you are not sure, have a chat with a friend or neighbour. If nothing else, you will have had a nice talk.

Little steps