#9 - Nuclear implosions and little rays of hope.
A tough week and a little kindess.
Hey there 👋🏼.
In case you’re new here, Untethered is a project exploring the cultural narratives and economic forces behind our increasing sense of disconnection and how we might foster our connection to the living human web without losing ourselves in the process.
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Nuclear implosions.
Last week was brutal.
For the second time in a year, someone else’s “admin error” meant that our family lost access to all of its support — immediately and without warning.1
This included our case manager, our therapeutic team, and most vitally, the support workers that allow us to have our two boys at home together safely for periods of time. Not for the first time, it felt like we were going to implode, explode, melt down and spontaneously combust all at the same time.
This meant that in between managing a chaotic homefront, we had a week of daily phonecalls to the NDIS hotline (the Australian government department responsible for such things) pleading to speak to literally anyone who could give us an update on when we’d be contacted, or at the very least given some funding to get us through while we waited.
Instead, we received countless promises of “escalating our file”, claims that this was “highly unusual”, and compassionate reassurances that this was indeed dangerous and unacceptable. There were sincere apologies, but we were told that there was no one else we could be passed on to. And they had no idea when we’d be contacted.
There was “absolutely nothing they could do” besides telling us to hang in there until someone got to our case.
Oh, except to repeatedly remind us to ring emergency services if we ever felt unsafe.2 Obviously, calling 000 and asking for the cops to speed over because your 8 and 5-year-old children were assaulting you and each other is just the kind of practical solution every parent is desperate to hear.
“Get the tasers charged, Officers; the small one’s a biter!”
But after a week in the wilderness, help came. After 3 years, we’ve finally been placed with a team that is actually equipped and funded for situations like ours, and instead of spending the majority of their time writing reports and documenting evidence to argue for more help, our team will actually be able to spend their energy working with our kid and helping our family situation.
Unusual kindness.
I was in the middle of the supermarket when I received the initial phone call. Our new case manager introduced herself by telling me,
“I’m not scheduled to call with you until later in the afternoon, but I’ve just seen your file, and I didn’t want you to have to wait another minute before knowing it’s my job to ensure your family gets everything they need. You’re going to be ok.”
I burst into tears and tried to get words of gratitude out while simultaneously regretting attempting to carry so many mandarins in my spare hand without the aid of a shopping basket.
After years of receiving such gems as “it’s not our job to parent your children, you know”, “I’m not sure you really need our services, your house is very well kept”, and “you failed to provide evidence for this request” (which actually means “I couldn’t be bothered looking for the 3 months of documentation that came with this application so I’ll just send you a letter in the post that will take two weeks to arrive while you flounder without help and endure another couple of weeks making daily phonecalls until a completely new person restarts the process”), this phone call was such sweet relief.
Sometimes, a little kindness can give you enough courage to hope.
Limitations.
This project is about limitations:
Coming to terms with the limitations of autonomous individualism.
Exploring the limitations of freedom —without denying its importance.
Acknowledging the limitations of the natural world — including our bodies.
It lives within the limitations of my family, wider community, and personal capacity. This means that sometimes I’ll have energy and inspiration to burn and other times, it needs to take a backseat. This was one of those months.
It has reminded me again of the limits of the nuclear family and the mythology of it functioning as a self-sustaining bubble. As if all we need to aim for is a partner and some kids, and then we’ll have everything we require. (Rather than a web of mutual care that relies on trust, interdependence and proximity.)
Unsurprisingly, it hasn’t been the ideal few weeks for the kind of clarity that pulling together these ideas requires. I’ve got about 15 drafts banked up that will take us through the next few phases of this project, but I just haven’t had the energy to make the next one coherent.
So, in the meantime, I thought I’d share other people’s work that has given me hope recently. Since joining Substack, I’ve been heartened to find kindred spirits writing about their experiences of forming community, showing up for one another, and challenging the hidden scripts of our culture.
Their work helps me believe we can untether from the narratives driving our disconnection and find new ways of living that are not only possible but good for us all and worthy of our trust.
Feel free to scroll through this selection and read any that jump out to you. I’ll put a very short intro to each one.
Garret Bucks is a community organiser who is convinced that those concerned with justice really need to be the people who throw the best parties:
I’m a big fan of new friend Lisa Sibbet. In this piece, she explores where we might find hope in the space between two crises: caregiver burnout and the loneliness epidemic:
One of the reasons I write about care, is because I think it’s vital that men engage in this conversation. The wonderful Elissa Strauss (who infuriatingly wrote the book I wish I had the talent to write 😤) interviews the guys behind #VoteLikeADad, who campaign for men to vote for a more caring society.
Ok, I could have posted any number of ’s things, but maybe you need a laugh too and want to enter the fantasy of a therapist who finally lets your partner know that they’re wrong:
explores the concept of social atrophy and gives one of my favourite pieces of community-building advice — “be the person who asks twice”:
It’s all in the title, but this piece from is just such a helpful launching place into the nitty gritty of people with and without kids learning to show up for each other:
doesn’t pretend that dipping our toes in collectives is all sunshine and lollipops. Here she acknowledges some of the feelings we might need to face and move through as we work our way into lives of connection:
Economic anthropologist is one of my favourite myth-busters of capitalism. He takes complex ideas and breaks them down into super accessible (and essential!) concepts:
Take care,
Shane
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We have a son with a nervous system disability that makes regulating his emotions extremely difficult, resulting in frequent fight/flight responses that, to the unfamiliar, look a lot like explosive meltdowns. It’s a lot.
Like, almost all the time?
How tremendous to find your way to a person who gets it enough to call right away like that. May your days of administrative malfunction fade away. (An audacious hope, but it does also sound promising.)
thanks for sharing, Shane. And sending virtual care your way.