How to Use This Site

Mysonomastrong.com is an implementation of My Disaster Recovery and has been customized to serve the needs of Sonoma County. My Disaster Recovery is free, and was designed by experts in the field of trauma psychology. The My Disaster Recovery site helps recent survivors of a disaster understand common stress reactions that may occur after such an experience, and helps survivors to learn better ways to cope with these reactions.

You can use the site as often as you want.  We believe that you will get the most out of the site by working through the different destinations in the site to help you with your recovery.

Follow these simple steps to begin your journey.

Step 1: Sign up for an account and login

  • Create your own private, free account so you can see your recovery progress and pick up where you left off.

Step 2: Take the Self-Test

  • The Self-Test will help you to find out how you're doing, learn about post-disaster stress reactions, and have the site recommend self-help destinations of recovery based on your responses.
  • We recommend that you complete the Self-Test about once a week and the site will graph your stress reactions and your confidence in coping as you recover.

Step 3: Begin exploring recommended self-help destinations of recovery

  • Learn 3 effective relaxation exercises to reduce your tension and anxiety.
  • Learn how social support can help, consider who might be a good support person, and find ways to deal with unhelpful people.
  • Learn how to worry less and challenge unhelpful negative self-talk.
  • See how reminders of the disaster can trigger distressing memories and physical reactions and learn how to better manage your triggers and memories.
  • Find out what kinds of coping can make things worse.
  • Find out how to seek out professional help and learn what to expect from counseling.

Step 4: Collect Mastery Tools as you work through the different sections of this site

  • These are various skills and tools that you will collect as you work through the destinations. They will be put in an easy-to-find location so you can access them in the future.  Focusing on mastery during your recovery will help to make you feel more and more confident to meet your recovery challenges.

Step 5: Return as often as you like to continue exploring destinations of recovery

  • The site remembers where you've been and takes you back to where you left off.

Step 6: Use this site with a counselor.

  • You can use this site as part of your recovery strategy with your professional counselor if you are in counseling.

Step 7. Access other local resources.

  • If at any time you need other assistance, please call NAMI (866-960-6264) to access other resources. Those resources include: a referral to a local counselor for individual or group therapy; a drop in session location for attending open counseling sessions; access to free yoga and iRest meditation sessions; or to book a trained facilitator to come out and educate your group of up to 20 people on signs of trauma and coping strategies.