How to overcome a burglary in your home
If you have experienced a burglary in your home, you know firsthand what it entails. It’s not just about losing valuable possessions that you have worked hard to acquire throughout your life; a burglary goes much further. It represents the greatest violation of a person’s privacy, leading to a strong sense of insecurity and vulnerability within your own home.
Here are the most practical tips to help you rebuild your life and live with confidence and peace of mind in your home:
1. Recovering your belongings
First and foremost, you need to have a plan to recover everything that was lost. Contact your home insurance provider, and they will guide you through the necessary steps. The process may be bureaucratic, slow, and tedious, but it’s the first step towards overcoming the situation. There’s nothing worse than entering your home and seeing it empty. These procedures will take time, but afterwards, you will be able to replace most of the lost items and restore your home to normalcy.
If you don’t have home insurance, you will have to rely on your savings or the support of family and friends to replace the lost belongings. Create an inventory of everything that was stolen during the burglary and carefully consider what you truly need. Make a list prioritizing each item, product, or piece of furniture. Based on this classification, start replacing each lost item until you regain full normalcy.
It’s important not to incur debt to replace what was lost unless it is absolutely necessary for acquiring something essential.
2. Enhance home security
Having experienced a burglary in your home makes you realize that your house was vulnerable, and therefore, someone could break in again if they wanted to. As a result, whenever you leave your home, you may feel that it could be targeted for another burglary at any moment.
This reality creates a great sense of insecurity that you must address by increasing the security measures in your home.
To learn about the best and most effective security measures to protect your home when you’re not there, refer to our next article on how to prevent burglaries in your home.
3. Regain Confidence
After a burglary, it’s normal to feel fear, especially in the dark or at the sound of any noise. To regain your confidence, follow the security measures mentioned earlier, and reflect on your new situation:
- By implementing new security measures, the likelihood of experiencing another burglary will significantly decrease. In fact, if you apply the most extreme security measures, it will be practically impossible for another burglary to occur. Therefore, there’s no reason to feel insecure or vulnerable. If you were living normally and peacefully before, now you should feel even more at ease.
- The burglars who targeted your home are aware that you will increase security measures, making your house the last one they would consider robbing from now on. Therefore, after a burglary, your chances of being targeted again are significantly lower.
If you manage to regain peace of mind while staying in your residence but still feel uneasy about leaving it unattended, you can restore that confidence by installing security devices that you can control from your mobile phone. Apart from increasing your peace of mind, this will enhance the security of your home. To learn about the best ways to monitor your home from your mobile device, take a look at our next article: “8 Ways to monitor your home from your mobile phone”.
4. Seek Professional Help if Needed
If, after following the previous steps, you still experience distress and even depression, don’t hesitate to seek professional psychological help.
When you’re in the dark, struggling to fall asleep, you might be unable to think about anything other than the burglary you experienced. You may imagine the burglars in your room, feel anxious about noises from the street or neighbors, or even hear sounds that aren’t real. In all these cases, you will need the assistance of a psychologist to start the recovery process.
It’s difficult to predict the time needed for a full recovery as it depends on the specific situation and the individual. Likewise, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to overcome the situation since everyone is different. As mentioned before, a good psychologist is the right professional to initiate the recovery process.
5. Consider Your Partner and Children
Even if you have overcome the crisis caused by a burglary, it’s possible that not everyone in your family has done so. To restore normalcy, it’s important that the entire family unit moves in the same direction and overcomes this situation together. Therefore, make sure to take care of your spouse and, above all, your children. The little ones may not fully understand what happened and feel bewildered. It’s crucial to explain the situation to them and ensure they overcome it. If necessary, don’t hesitate to seek professional psychological help for your children.
6. Take It Step by Step
Don’t worry if you can’t fully regain your confidence within a few days. It’s normal. Take small steps gradually.
It’s important not to rush yourself. In the first few days, it might be impossible for you to sleep, and staying at a friend’s or family member’s house could be a good idea. However, don’t get too comfortable and slowly take steps towards normalcy until you reach your goal and can return to your previous routine.
Conclusion
Overcoming a burglary in your own home is possible, but it requires your full strength and unwavering determination. Start the process of recovering your belongings as soon as possible, swiftly reinforce the security measures in your home, strive to lead a normal life and regain your confidence, and finally, pay special attention to your immediate family to achieve a complete recovery. Lean on your friends and family, and don’t hesitate to seek professional help if needed.