As many of you may or may not know, I grew up in Queens, NY. My mother and I moved to Jackson Heights five months before I turned nine. My welcome party included snow (which I had never seen in my life) and my cousins throwing a coat at me as we walked out of JFK. The following winter would bring us the blizzard of 96’ which gave us 20 inches of snow. For us kids it was phenomenal. For our parents I would imagine not so much.

So snow and cold I know. Hot Caribbean weather I know. But fire? Not even a little. Well, maybe in the metaphorical sense, yes. As in the fire that I feel in my soul when I hear Los Olivos and I’m spiritually transported back to the Dominican Republic. Pero, fire that is life threatening and can spread like gossip on the family WhatsApp? Nope. Not something I was built for I’m afraid.

In the back of my mind I registered that living in LA would bring the potential of dealing with earthquakes and fires. So it is not to say I was completely unaware of what the state of CA faces in the natural disaster category.

And let me tell you, if you have not experienced the wave of an earthquake in the middle of the night where the ripple is strong enough to open and slam shut your bedroom door, making you reach for the bat that sits next to your nightstand because you think someone has broken into your home at 4:44am, I hope you never do.

When the first fire started in the Palisades, on Tuesday January 7th, I bunkered down in my apartment and did not stress out about it. Not because I didn’t think it was a big deal, but because fires do happen in CA, so I remained calm. A few hours later the winds picked up, and knocked out the power grid in our neighborhood. You might think this would make me panic. But remember, I am Dominican. The lights going out for a few hours don’t alarm me much. I had a lantern, and it was around 9pm, so I figured it a good time to go to sleep anyway.

By the morning things had escalated. The situation went from something to keep an eye on, to people being evacuated in both Palisades and Eaton. My sense of worry went up a few notches, enough for me to pack a night bag as well as all my most important documents and head over to a besties house so that I wasn’t alone during this situation. It was a precaution, and at first it gave me peace of mind. Flying solo during a worsening situation is a double edge sword. On the one hand, you are making choices that only impact you. As my mother would say, “sola you fit anywhere.” So you are able to hopefully make decisions quicker. On the other hand, you have no one to share the emotional burden with.

Like the majority of the city, I could not stop looking at the Watch Duty app. Notifications were rolling in every few minutes, charging the battery on my anxiety backpack. At one point we received an evacuation notice, which sounds like an amber alert. I felt like what I imagine a gong feels like when its hit with a mallet. An unstoppable vibration through your entire body that demands your attention in the worse way possible. It did its job, my soul was ready to evaporate through my ears.

A minute later it was announced it was a… false alarm.

Two hours later the Hollywood fire began. It felt like we were in a movie starting the Rock where only he could find a way to save us through an unimaginable act of heroism that involved him jumping off a helicopter directly into the Hollywood sign.

It was, coocoo-bananas.

One of my best friends evacuated, with her husband and their dog. We spoke on the phone, and while she sounded as steady as you’d want your team lead to, I could hear the panic right below the surface. I hated it for all of us.

By Friday I decided to head home. What a paradox it was to not know where safety would last, given the unpredictability of the fires, and yet still want to be “safe” at home. I spent the day in my apartment washing my hair and updating family and friends on the latest news. I found my anxiety slowly dissipate. I told myself I would pack things in the morning, as a safeguard.

Knowing so many people had to run out of their homes with only the clothes they had on, if I could grab my most precious belongings and put them in my car, just in case, that would give me some peace of mind.

If there is an opportunity for a plan, I am taking it.

If you’ve never been in an active fire zone, there is language that should be kept in mind. Specifically: “Ready, Set, Go”. All of which can happen either very fast, or be put on hold in one category until further developments. Early in the night, around 7'ish, I got a notification that the neighborhood adjacent to mine, a mere six minutes away, had been put on “set”, and I went into organized panic mode. I started to pack my things as neatly and as fast as I could. When I had gone to my car to load the first round of things, I saw my neighbor packing up his own car. I asked if he was leaving, and he said after seeing the notification we had received, he “wasn’t taking any chances.” A part of me felt validated in that exchange, even if the other tenants weren’t making so much as a peep.

I kept having to quietly calm myself down and take deep breaths while packing my things. Part of me felt like I was maybe overreacting, and the other was pushing me to move faster. It wasn’t until after I had driven to a friends house who was out of town, and when I finally felt a little safer, that I understood that part of what was happening was that my eight year old self had once again tried to take the wheel. I’ve told you about her before. She showed up when I first came back from my sabbatical in Europe and didn’t have my own place for a few months. She is intrinsically tied to my sense of safety when it comes to our home.

This is because eight is the age at which we moved to the states and we spent the next decade moving around, sharing a home with family members or my mothers boyfriends. Homes that I was not always welcomed at. Homes where I didn’t always feel psychologically safe at. Homes where I was told or shown were not mine and therefore should take up the minimal amount of space in. She is the version of me that shows up when that part of my life feels threatened.

This act of, “taking the wheel,” is called enmeshment.

Psychotherapist Dr. Richard Schwartz's created the Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy model, to help people address inner parts that may contribute to enmeshment. IFS helps people recognize and heal these parts, which can lead to a more integrated sense of self.

Within his model, Dr. Schwartz argues that our consciousness, or personality, can be broken down into multiple parts, each with distinct characteristics that fall under three categories: exiles, managers, and firefighters. Exiles are the parts of us that experience anxiety, fear, or trauma—often when we’re very young. Our other parts begin to protect those exiles from being triggered by events and experiences. Managers do this by dictating how we interact with the external world and firefighters seek to protect us by pushing us toward distraction to numb our pain.

All of our inner parts contain valuable qualities, Dr. Schwartz tells us, but when they are left unattended, they may lead to damaging impulses, causing us to write them off as damaging in and of themselves. On the other hand, when our parts are acknowledged and their needs are addressed, a confidence and openness emerges—what Dr. Schwartz has come to call the Self. It is in this state of Self, that we can begin to heal all of our parts and become integrated and whole.

via - Elise Loehnens’ Newsletter

Eight year old me is very concerned and triggered by the feeling of displacement. Having a home base that is my own, where I am safe, where I can dance, cry, and move around furniture as I please, is crucial to my mental wellbeing. This experience was like the boggart in the Harry Potter series, my biggest fear popping out and hovering over me. So I spoke to young me, acknowledged her fright and I reassured her that as the adult, I would make sure we would be safe. That conversation and putting things in my car allowed little Yari to relax.

Also, I want to add what my bestie Yuvi (a therapist) said to me via text:

Ma’am, this isn’t anxiety. It isn’t perceived. Your home is literally at risk. Your brain is actually working like it’s supposed to, to keep you alive. Flight, both neurological and literal, are quite appropriate in this case.

By the time the fires passed I was mentally exhausted. I mean, who wouldn’t be?! I moved back into my apartment and took about a week to unpack my car, JUST IN CASE there was another boggart waiting for me.

To top it off, the fires also brought me an unexpected and unwanted gift. My scalp had flared and dried up (still working on getting it back to normal!). I had no idea that high cortisol had a direct correlation to an irritated and flaky scalp. Cortisol disrupts the skin's barrier function, as well as cell production, triggering flakes, inflammation and irritation. I wish I had known this in 2020 when the pandemic, my depression, and my crumbling relationship brought me the first wave of scalp problems.

In conclusion. Ya girl was disregulated and TAPPED OUT.

The month from hell was followed by donald’s gazillion executive orders. Which I hate to admit put me in a 24 hour panic spiral. All of these things were the wake up call I needed to set the tone for 2025. I made the decision that I would not spend this year running around like a chicken without a head, giving away my power to a walking spray tan bottle or disasters that are beyond my control.

Since January, I’ve practiced harm reduction by working out steadily (this helps remove anxious energy from my body), having a social media curfew (none before 10am none after 8pm — I give myself a B+ here), and only seeking out news updates on Sunday’s (that doesn’t mean the news doesn’t find me during the week though). And for eight year old me, I made a to-go bag with what I might need for a few days that is easily accessible should we have to swag-and-surf our way out of LA.

Life is full of changes, and I am choosing to surrender and trust in my ability to navigate them as they come. I hope you are finding ways to do the same.

Talk soon,

Your Substack bestie

Yari B