Lived and Living Experience

While visiting is something that will impact everyone, this can be particularly challenging for people who have lived experience of immigration detention or forced migration.

If you have lived experience of detention or forced migration, as you connect with people, parts of their history or current circumstances might remind you of your own experiences. This can bring up past memories that can be painful, and when there is trauma involved, it might feel like you are actually reliving those experiences.

Sharing lived experience allows you to understand and connect with people on a deeper level, but this also means that the impacts of trauma are not just experienced vicariously – they relate to your personal stories as well.

It is also common for people with lived experience to express a sense of 'survivors guilt' for being free from detention whilst others continue to be detained.

It is important to take extra care because of this, and some additional strategies might include:

Ground yourself after a visit

• As visiting might bring up upsetting thoughts, feelings and memories, it is especially important to try and keep yourself grounded in your own body and the present moment. Grounding can help you get out of your head and reduce the likelihood of flashbacks or disassociating.

• Grounding techniques usually involve connecting with your senses (sound, touch, smell, taste, and sight). Examples of this can include: create a playlist with songs that make you happy and listen to this, name everything you can see around you, eat a piece of confectionary or a mint and focus on the flavour/ texture, smell something with a strong scent (essential oils can be easy to carry around) or even stomping the ground/ physically shaking yourself off.

Connect with other people who have lived experience

While it is important to also speak with other people in your support network, there is a unique capacity for validation and understanding that you can provide each other.

• You can contact AVID to be connected with other people/ groups.

Be clear about your boundaries

• It is important to know which parts of your story that you want to share (if any) and in which contexts. Thinking about this ahead of time can prevent you from sharing something you’re not comfortable with during conversation.

• It might also be helpful to think about how you might shut down or divert a conversation if someone asks you something that you do not want to answer or that makes you uncomfortable.

Try to identify your ‘activators’

We all have certain topics or experiences we are particularly attuned or responsive to. When we are reminded of this, we might feel activated in that moment and experience distress. Before you begin visiting, think about which topics or issues might activate you and how you might respond or remove yourself from a situation if that happens.

Create a self-care plan

As with all other visitors, it is important to be proactive (rather than responsive) with your self-care. Create a plan for how you’ll keep yourself feeling balanced and supported while visiting, as well as strategies for how you’ll manage any distress.

Remember that it’s okay to take a step back!

All visitors will have periods when they are able to be more involved and other times when they will need to prioritise their wellbeing or other parts of their life. The kindest thing you can do for yourself and others is to recognise this and have realistic expectations of your own capacity.