Sonia Connolly

Crisis Planning: The Hit-By-A-Bus Plan by lb_lee.

The hit-by-a-bus plan is for when you are suddenly unable to perform your usual duties or communicate the need to get them done to others—such as when you are suddenly committed to a mental hospital, kidnapped, or hit by a bus and put in a coma. The plan is especially for people without spouse or families. Getting hit by a bus may be unavoidable, but less so is getting fired (or a pet dying) because you aren’t there and nobody knows what happened or what to do. It has two components: prep work for yourself (for psychological crisis), and stuff for helpers to do on your behalf afterward (general purpose).

This is a great post. I find it overwhelming to try to set all of this up at once. I might take small steps, like giving my immediate neighbors an emergency contact's phone number.

For those of us who have pets, having a pet sitter who already knows the situation and can get in if needed is useful in an unexpected absence.

Declaration of Interdependence by queerspacepunk (aka emmett) via jesse_the_k. I love this vision of easy interconnectedness, although a followup post brings up the need for clear communication and respect for boundaries as well.

I recently went through, "Where the heck is my neighbor and how do I make sure his cat gets fed." (All ended well, thank goodness.) While it might feel vulnerable to share information and ask for help, it's a kindness rather than an imposition to the surrounding community in case of unexpected emergencies.

In response to asakiyume's post about finding a creepy site in the woods, I said:
I believe you about the site you found. The day after the knifings at the Hollywood MAX station in Portland, OR in 2017, I went to the Hollywood Farmers' Market, and felt an unfamiliar silent ringing of tension in the air. Then I remembered what had happened just a block away. I wonder if you found the young man's camp, but he died elsewhere?

You're right, odd that no one has cleaned that up. If it felt right, you could choose to do that... At the Hollywood Transit Center, Sarah Farahat (the sister of a friend) painted a beautiful tribute on the stairs and ramp to get to the station.

And then, in response to comments:
Watching the video about the creation of the mural now made me cry, too.

The mural is a powerful piece of art for sure. Not just a commemoration - it keeps the sense of sacred space that was created with the spontaneous altar of offerings from the community in the days after the attack. Here's a photo of part of it via Wikipedia, but it stretched for half a block.

Sadly, in looking for photos of the original memorial, I found an article that sounds like they destroyed the mural, suddenly dubbed "temporary," a year ago. Augh.
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I've been thinking about my word of the year, Love. It's such a huge, complex, amorphous topic. I'm struggling to carve out smaller things I can post that don't feel painfully cliched or too vulnerable or both at once.

But I can say, I love that mural. It was a 15 minute bike ride away from where I lived, not my closest MAX station, but always a pleasure to go up that gloriously painted ramp with my bike when I did go through there.

It felt like sacred space, like a communal affirmation of love, joy, inclusion, all the things we need for healing and creating a better world. I was sad to leave it behind when I left Portland, and I'm bereft to hear it has been destroyed. Love and grief are so intertwined.

ETA: I thought about it more and changed devastated to bereft. They both feel like intense words to apply to a mural in a city I don't live in anymore, but it's also entwined with everything else that's going on politically, socially, environmentally, and both words definitely apply to all that.

I sang in a Balkan choir concert last night and it went well! I am proud of being brave and showing up, and also of practicing and preparing. When I'm not biking and dancing I have more time to sing. I linked to some of the songs earlier.

Then this morning at work, I presented a document I've been writing at the every two weeks' Demo Day. The document was a technical deep dive on the options to get two different systems to talk to each other, and I presented it at a high level. To my surprise, I got all sorts of kudos for moving the project forward, presenting it in an understandable way, and collaborating with my teammates.

And being thorough. That one made me flinch a bit, because it was used as a negative at my last job. But these folks seem to mean it in a positive way. I hope. I'm just doing the messy unwieldy research that needs to be done in preparation for actually doing the programming work, and maybe that's actually being appreciated.

This afternoon, a friend stopped by to pick up some more boxes and bubble wrap for her impending move, and she brought me a cute glass vase with flowers and said she appreciates my friendship. Again I was surprised and felt like I hadn't done anything special. But it's nice to be appreciated!

There's a part of me that worries about not understanding the rules, when results are more positive than I expect. I guess I can take a breath and enjoy the positive and hope I don't trip over any hidden landmines.

Over the past year, I've gradually come to own that I'm neurodivergent. It's a small shift in perspective from "sensitive" and "detail oriented" and feeling slightly askew from society to, "oh, all those things fit under this one label."

I'm proud of making that shift in perspective. I'm not sure I can say I'm proud of neurodivergence itself. There's more of a flinchy sense of doing it wrong associated with it.

Lately, a couple of old friends have gently included me under the neurodivergent umbrella in conversation, as an aside of, "we both know this probably applies..." In a way it's a relief to be seen that way, as normal for my own frame of reference.

I have a cousin who is formally diagnosed as autistic. He lives in a special community where he receives the assistance he needs to be semi-independent as an adult. When I look around at the rest of my family, there sure are a lot of socially awkward geeks, possibly above and beyond the expected traits of Ashkenazi Jews.

I took an online diagnostic questionnaire for autism in women a few years ago, and didn't score high enough to make the cutoff. I hesitate to claim that more specific label, although I do wonder if I'm just really good at masking. It's hard to untangle what's innate from what's caused by trauma and head injuries.

It also makes me wonder if I was a difficult kid, which is a big shift from looking at my parents' inadequacies. Now that I'm writing this, though, I think I needed some help and accommodations I didn't get around socializing, and my parents didn't have those things to give. But overall I was a pretty good kid. silveradept has been writing about Twice Exceptional, and I think there was (is) some of that going on.

I feel like having Pride as a Word of the Year has opened the way for this shift. When I allow myself to own and be proud of my strengths, I can more clearly see the patterns behind them.

Alok Vaid-Menon is a wonderful, kaleidoscopically colorful person. Their serene self-acceptance is a pleasure to watch and listen to, and also they're gorgeous. Via radiantfracture.

29. I'm proud of trying to learn and grow and be a better person. My explorations with a word of the year are part of that, for 15 years now. I'm proud of slowly accreting habits that work for me, and continuing with them long-term. I'm also proud of checking occasionally if something still works for me, and stopping if it doesn't.

I'm proud of listening to my body about what does and doesn't work for me, rather than taking other people's word for it. I'm also proud of considering advice, and trying it on to see if it fits.

Wait, having words of the year for 15 years means I've had this dreamwidth account for that long too! I'm proud of that too, reaching out to you folks and being part of this community in an ongoing way with my writing and reading.

27. I'm proud of being a flexible friend.

This past weekend, a friend and I planned to go to a solstice event, but it was sold out, so we planned to go for a walk, but then she asked for a raincheck because of logistics when a close friend of the family died recently. Of course, I'll catch her later!

Saturday I had plans with a friend to go for a bike ride, and he called to say he had slept badly and could go several hours later, or would need to cancel. I didn't have other plans, so we had a nice ride starting later in the afternoon.

Sunday I had plans for a walk with another friend, but she texted to cancel not long before because it was her husband's birthday and he decided he wanted to go for a hike instead of out to dinner. I texted back 'ok' and left it at that. That one was painful, being reminded that I don't rate in comparison to family, but there's no point in fighting about it.

In general, I try to make room for people to live their lives and have crises and change their minds or be too tired, and enjoy when I do get to see them. I also try not to flake on people, but I appreciate being given flexibility in return when I need it. I'm sure I've benefitted from people's spaciousness when I didn't even realize I needed it.

25. I'm proud of being a homeowner. I bought a condo in Oakland at age 25, and only now looking back does that sound really young. There was a fortunate confluence of having a programming job, real estate prices not being as extreme as they are now (although they looked plenty extreme then), and a brief dip in the market.

I'm proud of having owned and managed a whole house and yard in Portland for 17 years. In the end it was deemed a "fixer-upper" because I hadn't done any major indoor renovations, but I replaced appliances and the roof and the exterior paint along the way. I took pride in being a good steward as best I could.

I'm proud of owning a condo again in Oakland a few blocks from the first one. It's a relief to have stepped down from a house to a smaller space, and while I eye houses when I go for walks, I'm not sure I want to own one again. We'll see what the future brings.

I'm grateful to the real estate agents that have guided me in buying and selling real estate along the way. I'm grateful that I was born long enough ago and have enough privilege and saved enough money to get into the real estate market on my own, without a partner or parental help. I'm grateful for the friend who suggested I consider buying, when I hadn't really imagined it.

The whole idea of real estate as an investment contributes to inequality, especially since it is applied in racist ways. I have bought in gentrifying areas and benefited from that. I live with the cognitive dissonance of understanding the inequalities of American capitalism, and still having to live within it.

23. I'm proud of running a successful business offering bodywork for trauma. If I had known what I was getting myself into and how difficult it was, I would never have started. But I had no idea. I took it one step at a time, exploring and learning and struggling as I went, and eventually after a lot of years it was a full-time practice. I ran the business 23 years in all, in two different cities.

My grandmother had a business in Chile, a handbag factory. I can only imagine how hard it was to get that going as an immigrant in a new country with a new language. I don't know very much about it, and she died when I was 10 years old, long before I would have thought to ask her. My parents both worked for the federal government, and I didn't learn anything about owning and running a business growing up or in college. I had to learn about marketing from scratch.

I found bits of support along the way, business coaching and book coaching and people who were ahead of me on the path so I could learn from their example. There were kinds of support I looked for and never really found, especially supervision around working with trauma. I was off to the side from the formal support that therapists get (and pay for), and I didn't realize until later that I needed that.

I'm glad I did it. I made a difference in people's lives, at the very least as a kind witness to their struggles to heal. I learned an immense amount about being with other people and being with myself and about the human body and how it works, and how it changes under stress.

I'm glad I stopped when I did. My nervous system felt worn down from supporting other nervous systems. I will eventually use my skills as a volunteer somewhere, but two years after stopping I still don't feel ready when I check inside about it.

21. I'm proud of my books. I'm proud of having written an article every month for 14 years, and I'm proud of sticking with the process of turning them into books. That process is much longer and harder than one would think, starting from existing articles. I'm proud of doing the design and layout myself, and of paying people to help with copy editing and cover design.

I'm proud of sticking with the process of turning them into ebooks when each print book was complete, which is also much longer and harder than one would think, especially with illustrations.

I still want to figure out how to market them, because there's more and more trauma out there, and the books are a way to help. This summer I might have more time to update my website and explore what it would take to create audio books.

Wellspring of Compassion: Self-Care for Sensitive People Healing from Trauma Welcome to support and comfort whether you are new to healing or an old hand, whether the trauma is long past or ongoing.

Presence After Trauma: Reconcile with Your Self and the World This book is a non-judgmental companion for your healing process after the initial crisis is over.

Embodying Hope: Living in Difficult Times with a Difficult Past We embody hope when we keep moving forward, one stubborn step after another, and when we take shelter for protection and rest.