How you may feel after a bad thing has happened
There are many different ways that children and adults might feel afterwards.
How you might feel
- You might feel shouty, or cross and want to hurt and hit out, maybe you feel tearful and have cried a lot, maybe you get horrid thoughts popping into your head or remember things you don’t want to about what you saw.
- You might feel mixed and muddled sometimes, or bad or heavy inside, or be scared that other bad things will happen.
- You might feel jumpy and be worried about going out or leaving people you love.
All of these feelings are okay.
Maybe you have stopped doing things.
Maybe you feel lucky.
Lots of grown-ups feel the same way.
Afterwards when you are safe, it might be that a noise, like a big bang or a smell, like a bonfire or something that you see reminds you about what happened and this can bring these feelings back very quickly. These are also okay and only happen because you have had a big shock. A shock means when something happens that you didn’t expect. This is different to when something that is unexpected that is nice happens.
Some children and adults try and stop thinking or feeling or doing anything that might remind them of what happened. It’s a bit like the feelings become frozen for a while. This is also an okay way to respond because you need time to understand what has happened.
How things might be different: Having to leave things behind like your toys, clothes or photographs can be hard. Waking up in a strange bed can remind you every day that your life is so different now and this can also be upsetting.
Parents, mum or dad or the people who care for you may also be struggling. Remember these feelings are okay and that you and the adults around you are not to blame for what happened.
It’s okay to feel angry with your parents or carers as you may think they shouldn’t have let the disaster happen. Adults understand that it is their job to keep you safe so it’s okay to ask them about why they couldn’t stop the disaster. Talking about your angry feelings is a safe way of expressing them, it doesn’t mean that you are being unkind or that you don’t love the people around you any less. In fact the opposite is true, if you feel safe enough to show them how you feel they will help you.
Perhaps you have other different feelings like these?
- Mixed-up.
- Wobbly.
- Frightened.
- Teary.
- Grumbly.
- Fed-up.
- Sad.
- Shouty.
- Muddled.
- Scared.
- Worried.
- Snappy.
- Angry.
- Very happy.
- Helpless.
- Prickly.
- Glad.
- Heavy in your tummy.
- Grumpy.
Draw a big gingerbread figure like the one below and write down or scribble whereabouts in your body you have these different feelings. Can you talk to the adult who is with you so they can understand how you feel?
Maybe if you have different feelings at different times of the day, you can write or draw these on sticky notes to show how the feelings come and go.
Activity zone
If you wanted to you could use some old wallpaper and get someone to draw around your body. Then you can use this special drawing of your body to show where in your body you have the feelings. You can show any muddled thoughts you have in the space you have drawn for your head. If you hang this up somewhere that both you and others can see, you can show how you are feeling on different days, if sometimes you don’t feel much like talking.
On the next page you will find out about what your brain does to keep you safe.