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The Inferno That Almost Ruined My Life

 A brief description of the event

It was on a Wednesday, September 11, 2016, at around 4 p.m. in the evening when I received a phone call from my younger sister, Debra, informing me about a situation at home. She was crying on phone but refused to disclose the problem insisting that I rush back home urgently. Perturbed and disturbed emotionally, I left school immediately for the home with no clue about what the problem could be. On arrival, I was welcomed by huge dark smoke from our house, the only tangible asset left behind by our deceased parents and that was the only home my sister and I knew. It was going up in flames with everything inside. It was like having an encounter with hell as the flames were bright, big and gushing out in all directions. It was so unreal and looked more like a movie. Indeed, it was like a dream to me. Few minutes after my arrival, the fire crew arrived at the scene and began to put off the fire. Unfortunately, it was too late to save any item since the fire had grown into a raging inferno that engulfed the whole house and was spreading fast to the nearby houses. In fact, by the time the fire crew finally took over the situation, the fire that at first seemed manageable had grown into a raging inferno and had swallowed three neighboring houses. However, in two of the houses affected, a few items were evacuated and saved. My sister aged 10 years and I were rendered homeless on this day and were subsequently evacuated to an evacuation center on MacDonald Island.

My actions and reactions

When I received the phone call from my sister, I immediately got disturbed emotional and was afraid for her safety. Indeed, when got home, my first reaction was to seek out for my sister among the gathering multitude who were witnessing the incidence. I found my sister in tears and terrified by the thought of being homeless. She was shaking and crying at the reality of losing everything in a day. The state of my sister moved me emotionally to try to correct the situation by saving what I could and so I moved into the house to save a few household items that I could access despite the fact that the fire was already out of control. I remember my experience inside the burning house, hell cannot be any worse. The fire was literally on each item, the room was smoky and with no oxygen, I found myself suffocating so I run out of the house without saving anything. Upon getting out, the fire crew was arriving, it was too late already. I felt angry with the conduct of the fire crew as I believed that if they would have responded swiftly, the situation would not have been that worse. Although the thought of homelessness and losing everything in a day was too much for me, I certainly believed that my younger sister was worse affected. Indeed, the girl was seriously traumatized by the incidence. Therefore, for the sake of my sister, I chose to communicate a message of hope to my sister by demonstrating confidence, optimism as well as resilience to the situation besides demonstrating positive attributions so as to instill a sense of hope, self-efficacy, optimism, as well as psychological resiliency in the girl to help her overcome the trauma and move on (Hechanova, Waelde, & Ramos, 2016). Indeed, fostering these components of trait PsyCap significantly helped the girl to link her recollections of the experience to more positive emotions thereby overcoming the trauma and returning to normal life (Siu, Cheung, & Lui, 2015). Indeed, the girl overcame the trauma and accepted the loss with positive emotions thereby becoming an example of benefits of demonstrating the trait PsyCap.

My learnings and action implications

From this experience, I have learned that hope plays a key role in the recovery after trauma as it fosters positive, future-oriented emotions in affected individuals thereby inducing resilience that is central to coping processes. Indeed, my actions had a positive implication on my sister as it fostered hopefulness for the future thereby making the girl consider life after the incidence as worth living (David, Gelberg, & Suchman, 2012). Moreover, I have learned from this experience that the actions of individuals during stressful situations have a significant influence on the emotional states of those who depend on them. For instance, when a parent is terrified by a situation, the children would get more terrified and be greatly disturbed emotionally (David, Gelberg, & Suchman, 2012). Therefore, remaining confident, optimistic and resilient to a stressful situation is key to instilling hope, optimism, and resilience in other individuals affected by the same situation thereby helping such people to link their recollections of the experience to more positive emotions thereby overcoming stress and trauma (David, Gelberg, & Suchman, 2012).