About
This site has been through a few iterations since I signed up on Ghost in November 2023. There was "Here Be Dragons," a reference to a newsletter I'd started on Medium. That became "Getting By (Was: Middle Class)" after my freelance livelihood went belly-up.
I then settled on "Growing Through Concrete" to reflect my recovery during that time of hardship. I republished some pieces I'd written for Medium, and published some new ones, too. Under the gun to survive – to prove I could make it on my own – I was burning out.
Still, the "survival job" I'd taken in local civil service put me in the direct path of a couple of local manmade and natural disasters. I remembered that once upon a time, emergency management had been a career path of interest. And my new managers encouraged me to follow it.
This site's latest iteration, "Trauma : Disaster :: Healing : Recovery," reflects the intersection between recovering from my private catastrophes, and learning how to manage and recover from community ones.
In particular, I've found that emergencies expose the extent to which our healed or unhealed traumas affect our response – whether we loot from, or step up for, our communities; whether we fight, flee, freeze, or fawn in getting our needs met during and after a crisis.
Why I think this is more relevant now than ever
I don’t use the word “trauma” lightly. We live in traumatic times, under systems that trigger old traumas and introduce new ones.
I’d go as far as to say that trauma, “perhaps the most avoided, ignored, belittled, denied, misunderstood, and untreated cause of human suffering,” is virtually ingrained in us; dividing us at a time not just when we most need connection, but when connection may be the only thing that ensures our resilience when disaster strikes.
In fact, we need each other now more than ever. Life is becoming objectively more difficult for all of us by the year. As the world warms and the systems we’ve built continue to fail — through either neglect or destruction — we will become more and more vulnerable, more and more reliant on one another. To quote one of my favorite recent television series, The Haunting of Bly Manor:
"You know, in the old days, I mean the really old days, they used to build bonfires like this and talk about the people they'd lost. Toss in offerings to drive away evil spirits, bones mostly. That's why they call it a bonfire, from the old English "bone fire." Build a pile of old bones and burn away the shadows. Because from here on in, the shadows get deeper, the nights get longer. We're heading into the dark, and we have to hang onto each other."
Over the last year of starting a new career, I've learned to make order out of chaos, space out of crowding, and connection out of isolation. We are social creatures, after all; we need each other, as Bly Manor’s Jamie also understands:
“So yeah, everyone is exhaustive. Even the best ones. But sometimes… once in a blue goddamned moon, I guess… someone… like this moonflower, just might be worth the effort.”
Thus, this site has a twofold purpose:
- A place for me to examine the various ways in which my trauma responses affect my ability to connect with other humans, and how my personal healing informs the way I approach emergencies or other risks.
- A community that encourages readers to (re)consider their own traumas, healing, and approaches.
My hope is that by learning how to make space for ourselves as well as other living beings, we will challenge ourselves to observe and care, to see our similarities, and to help one another build stronger, more resilient selves and communities.
About Me
Currently a n00b civil servant, I've previously authored journalism, books, research, and marketing content. I'm a neurodivergent sometime swimmer / hiker / paddler, mom to adult sons, raccoon stan, and probably other epithets I’m not thinking of. Find me on Bluesky and Mastodon.