Posts by Hebe
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Hard News: Christchurch: Square Two, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Eloquently, if not elegantly, put Craig. But pleeease make me laugh again today. I did try to order 400,000 "harden the fuck up" wristbands from the Ronnie Johns website after Feb 22.
Maybe the sign near us in St Martins is more apposite: " Stay calm and Carry on" poster sprayed on a fence, then crossed out just before Feb22 and altered to "Now Panic and Freak Out".
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See the Stuff front page for the upgrade, also the 5.5 now a 5.7
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Life will never be the new normal. It is irretrievably different, on the physical, mental, and emotional planes. Bugger rebuilding, let's talk about building a city anew; probably in the same place but in a head-space sense. I loved some things about Chch but other bits like the insularity drove me crazy and drove me away for years.
Today my concern is: am I scarring my children, two 13 year olds, but staying here? Is it going to do more harm than good to stay or leave? I don't know, will staying teach them resilience? Or will going Somewhere Else relieve us all? I know that after Sept 4 I left with the children for 3 weeks, but I took the trauma with me, still didn't sleep, hyper-alert etc etc. And where is safe anyway?
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Hard News: Three months after, in reply to Russell Brown,
Yes please do. Wish I could think of something clever and sub-editorial to call it. By the way, does anyone know how Sally and Ian Dalziel are?
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A call from a psych trauma specialist friend in the US this morning (just who we needed to hear from). He says that this is an unprecented natural disaster in that three have happened in a short time along with the 6800 or so aftershocks. The first we we all unprepared for; the second we were in training and could dust ourselves off and do it all again.
This time he correctly surmised (in my case and from talking to others here) that many people will be feeling powerless and that picking up the pieces is futile and more will leave. It's apparently a recognised psychological stage called Repetitive Crisis something (I can't remember the last word but you get what I mean).
The advice: keep safe physically and mentally (be wary of retaumatising yourself with too much media or whatever your favourite way is), and don't make any big decisions for a few weeks because they would be reactive rather than thought through.
Hope this helps someone else; has worked a bit for me.
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Hard News: Three months after, in reply to Lilith __,
I'll second that Lilith. And Emma Hart's post; I'm just so fucking tired, and I'm a lucky one this time so I really should not feel put upon. Only had four hours without power, water seems to be running. But it feels like the family are running on empty this time around. Maybe we should bolt. Earthquakes and winter are not a good mix!
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Hard News: Three months after, in reply to Sacha,
Or just impatience because it's an unbelievably massive job. Alan Edge has never been shy of a grabbing an opportunity to make a buck or 10 million. He is in the same position as a lot of tradesmen: how big does he go and how long will the work last if he tools up and buys a new fleet of trucks, diggers and the rest. Employees aren't the problem, labour is easy to hire, easy to fire. But spending up large on equipment to find that the work has dried up in a year or two is another matter.
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Hard News: Three months after, in reply to Islander,
As the house is only half-poked, I thought it was a good time to arrange the overdraft. You're right many, many are at the end of a stretched rope here. Partner went on a rare trip to one of the big malls today and came home saying he could just see the desperation on faces.
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Hard News: Three months after, in reply to Lilith __,
Yeah but we survived the last one, and that was a 2g bounce, far greater than any other (Western) urban area has experienced since records began. Stay centred and try to believe in the positives. That way if it does happen again you'll be strong enough to deal with what you have to, and we all did excellently, eh?
I have found arranging a what-if overdraft helpful; it means I can take the offspring and run to a relly's bach in the Coromandel if I just can't cope.