Tag: alive day

creativity

How to directly help the people of Ukraine stay alive

Christa Avampato
Photo by Max Kukurudziak on Unsplash

Today is my 14th Alive Day, and to mark it I’m directly helping people in Ukraine stay alive. (At the end of this post, I tell the story of my Alive Day at the end of this post for those who didn’t know me 14 years ago.)

My friend and Cambridge classmate, Iuliia Takhtarova, is from Ukraine and raising money to buy tourniquets for her fellow Ukrainians as they head to the frontlines of the war to fight for their country. All this money will be used to directly help them. Tourniquets save lives. I made a donation and I hope you will, too. 

A talented public speaker who’s curated over 150 TEDx speeches by NGO and business leaders, ambassadors, and government officials, Iuliia will provide a 45-minute individual session on impact-driven pitches and presentations to every donor who makes a $60+donation (the price of 2 high-quality tourniquets from a repurtable supplier). She will also provide all donors of any size with a detailed update on the impact of their gift. She has set up a Paypal account specifically for this fundraiser: takhtarovajulia@gmail.com. You can find more information about the fundraiser on her LinkedIn post: Iuliia’s fundraiser for Ukraine tourniquets. 

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A bit more about my Alive Day for those who have never heard the story:

Though I have never been in a war, I know what it feels like to lose a home. 14 years ago on this day I had to run for my life away from flames and into the terrifying void that followed. My neighbor accidentally set fire to her gas stove. Rather than turn off the gas, she ran out of the building and the rest of the building caught fire. I was home, just out of the shower, and went into the kitchen where I heard the radiator ticking on a very hot day. A closer look and I realized the tiles on my kitchen floor were heaving up and down. I grabbed my keys and went downstairs to see what was going on.

Seconds later I was surrounded by thick, black, noxious smoke. I had no idea where the smoke was coming from but I knew I had to get out of that building if I wanted to stay alive. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face and I ran for my life down 4 flights of stairs. At one point, I was flying so quickly that I felt as if I was being carried.

Out on the sidewalk, I was covered in soot and shaking as I stared at my building. Flames shot out of every window as the New York City fire truck sirens blared. Later I would learn that I was seconds away from running right into the flames when the fire in my neighbor’s apartment got so hot that the front door fell off its hinges and the entire hallway was engulfed in flames.

I was lucky to be alive, and the trauma from losing almost all my belongings, my home, and nearly my life started me on a difficult years-long mental health journey as I reckoned with an entire lifetime of trauma and unrelenting PTSD. It got so unbearable at one point that I considered jumping from the roof of my new apartment building months later. When PTSD has you in its clutches, life feels hopeless. I found hope in writing and in nature, but I still needed professional help.

I was lucky to get years of therapy with Brian, my incredible therapist who remains a blessing in my life today. He led me through the darkness and for the first time in my life, into the light. This experience is why I’m such an enormous advocate for mental health, and why today I don’t take a moment of life for granted. I know how chancey it can be. We have to help each other along the road in any and every way we can.

A much longer version of my Alive Day story with more details about how writing became my lifeline is at https://itstartsatmidnight.com/2017/10/shatteringstigmas-guest-post-writing-frees-us-free-others/.

creativity

My alive day — 13 years ago today

Christa Avampato

13 years ago today my New York City apartment building caught fire and I was almost trapped in the building. I used to think of this day as the worst day of my life. Now after all this time, I’ve made it into something that made me better. I became a writer and found Emerson. I learned the true value of my life. The PTSD I had got me into therapy so I could heal from trauma I’d had since childhood. It got me out of a terrible relationship and out of a job I hated. I adopted Phineas as an emotional support dog a year later.

A lot of people helped me in that immediate aftermath. They gave me a place to stay while I looked for a new apartment, helped me find my new apartment, gave me support at work, gave me the legal language to confront my landlord to get my deposit back and get out of my lease, let me borrow an air mattress, went to look at apartments with me, recommended a therapist, and 9 months before the fire had recommended rental insurance that saved me financially. So many checked on me regularly to see how I was doing. One recently checked on me after a large fire erupted in New York City earlier this year as he knows fires can still be a trigger for me. Healing takes a village, and I’m so grateful for mine.

Fire transforms everything it touches and it certainly transformed me. This healing was hard-won. I went through a lot of dark days to get here, almost ending it all at one low point. Though I’d never wish this experience on anyone, I wouldn’t wish it away for me. I have a few other big anniversaries of healing coming up. I’m not as at peace with those yet as I am with my fire. I hope time and distance will ease them, too.

creativity

Joy today: 10th Anniversary of My Alive Day—How a Nightmare of a Fire Led to a Dream as a Writer

Christa Avampato

Ten years ago today, my apartment building caught fire and nearly killed me when I was almost trapped inside. I lost almost all of my belongings that I owned because my neighbor in the New York City apartment building I had moved into 3 weeks before set her gas stove on fire and then ran out of the building without turning off the gas. I used to think of September 5, 2009 as the worst day of my life. Now I think of it as my best. I wouldn’t wish my path on anyone, and I also wouldn’t change it, not one bit of it, because I love my life now and each of these difficult steps brought me here.

The first few years
Over the several years after the fire, I was dealt a hefty dose of PTSD that still persists in fits and starts today. I had intense anxiety attacks that would take over my mind and body without warning. I often felt like I was watching myself fall into madness. Being conscious of your descent and having no ability to stop it is a terrifying existence. I would be lying to you if I didn’t fully admit that there were nights I would lie awake in bed and wonder if life was really worth it. Many days, my answer to that question was “no, it’s not worth it.”

A nightmare that led to a dream
One night, I had a nightmare that I had climbed out to the balcony of my apartment and jumped to my death. I woke up just before I hit the pavement on Broadway down below. Obviously, I woke with a start. The moon was so big and so bright just outside my window that it was almost blinding. I went out to my balcony, and in my foggy state of mind, I could swear that moon spoke to me. I was in a job I didn’t like, in a romantic relationship with a narcissist, and I spent most of my time profoundly unhappy. Out on that balcony, I realized that I wanted to be a writer, that I had always wanted to be a writer, and if I had died in that fire, I never would be. I’d die with stories still in me. That’s when Emerson Page, the protagonist in my novel that would be published almost exactly 8 years later, began to take shape in my imagination. I would later learn that the name Emerson means “brave”, and that’s what she’s taught me—to be brave. Deep in my gut, I know that the moon and Emerson saved my life that night, and that they have saved me many nights since.

Therapy
Several months after the fire, I wasn’t doing well. One day I found myself sitting on a New York City sidewalk crying. I didn’t remember where I was going or how I got there. It’s as if I had fallen asleep and woken up in a place I didn’t recognize. A man put his hand on my shoulder and asked if I was okay. My honest answer was, “I don’t know.” Shortly after that, a friend convinced me to go to therapy and recommended a therapist to me. Our first meeting was basically me throwing out a lot of words and a lot of emotions, Brian listening, and then him telling me two things that changed my life: “I’m not afraid of you” and “I think I can help you if you want to be helped.” And that was it. I entered weekly therapy for 3 years, and to this day I still go to see him here and there when I am struggling. It is not an exaggeration when I say Brian pulled me out of my deepest darkness many times and that he is one of the tiny handful of reasons that I survived those early years and went on to build a life I love today. Without him, my life now would not be possible. He is a miracle worker. I owe him everything.

Making peace with my past
As it turned out, the fire was one trauma that burned away the wrapper I tightly bound around many other traumas I had endured over the years. Once the fire happened and my PTSD was in full effect, I could no longer hide nor contain those earlier traumas. I had to deal with them. Those traumas were festering and wreaking havoc in my life in all kinds of ways that I hadn’t even known or acknowledged. It was painful to do the work to heal myself, and it was necessary.

A dog
About a year after the fire, I got my first dog on my own as an adult. I had grown up with dogs and loved them so much, but had convinced myself that I needed to be in a relationship before I could get a dog because raising a dog and taking care of one in New York City on my own was something I just couldn’t do.

My fire gave me a lot of occasions to say, “Well, if I’m not going to do this now, then when?” And so, I decided to foster a dog. The fostering lasted about 5 seconds. I saw my dachshund, Phineas, a rescue who desperately needed a loving, supportive home, and I knew he was the dog for me and I was the human for him. We have had our ups and downs – plenty of mental and physical health issues for us both – but he is by far one of the best beings I’ve ever had in my life. We rescued each other. We still do.

Grateful for the lemons
My fire stripped me bare of any and all pretenses, excuses, and denials. Though at first it made me afraid of everything, it eventually made me fearless. It made me strong and confident. I had run from a burning building, lost almost everything, and rebuilt my life—mentally, physically, and emotionally—from scratch. What did I have to be afraid of? What could I not do? That fire taught me that my only constraint was me. I wasn’t making lemonade out of lemons. I was and am grateful for the lemons, just as they are.

Life today
My life is not perfect now, far from it. There is still so much I want to do. There are so many places I want to go and see. There are still so many experiences I have yet to have, that I want to have. For today, I’m putting those aside. Today, I’m just happy to be here at all, still broken in some places and with all the pieces I need to be whole. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being here with me. It means more to me than I have words to say.