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INSIDE THIS HEART OF MINE

Sick Healer // Wounded Healer // Crazy Healer: Can I Really Still Be a Healer?

7/15/2015

 
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the morning of my 32nd birthday. felt the need to document that i'm actually here, because every year beyond 18 is a femmeiracle.

***CW: I’m talking about mental health stuff & mention being institutionalized & substance use.  If these are things that can overwhelm or trigger, please be gentle with yourself.  I trust you, & you doing everything right.  Heart.


I’ve been thinking about writing this for a long time, but really want to do it today.  Maybe it’s the new moon in Cancer.  Maybe it’s because I just had my 32nd birthday.  Maybe it's because Pluto just paid us a visit & that energy is all about deep shifts & cleaning up old shit.  Maybe because it’s time.  There are just so many layers to what I want to share.  

  1. I’ve been a sad lil femme for as long as I can remember.
  2. I was finally diagnosed as “chronically // severely depressed at 16 because I got alcohol poisoning at a party & the cops were called, subsequently my parents too, & when I got to the hospital they refused to treat me until I met with a Social Worker who set up an appointment with another LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker) for therapy because obvi something was up.
  3. I went to my mom a year or so before & said, “I’m depressed.  I think I need help.”  She responded with, “What do you have to be depressed about?  I have things to be depressed about!”  & that was the end of that.  
  4. I was institutionalized in a psych hospital at ages 16, 17, 18.  I don’t know what it means that I felt safer there than I did at my own house.  But it’s true.
  5. In all my therapy & diagnosis, nobody ever said, “Hey, let’s also talk about your anxiety.”  It wasn’t until 3 years ago that I learned about it.  Like, I’ve always had the “symptoms,” but maybe they were too busy trying to help me not kill myself to…Nope.  They all fucked up.
  6. I’ve done a lot of work around how I’ve been trained to believe that “professionals” know what’s best for me, are the ones who can help me & “diagnose” me, & all that shit that that means.  
  7. Part of this work has been me naming what I know is true, & questioning the ways that my behavior is medicalized.  Like, why is my survival crazy?  Why are the things that kept me alive bad?  How have queer, brown, crazy, sick, disabled bodies always been medicalized & pathologized as wrong, bad, something that needs to be fixed?
  8. When I call myself crazy or sick, I mean it with love & affection & conviction.  I’ve been learning about disability justice for a little while now, gulping & understanding bits at a time, always checking in with little me.  This is how I am remembering who I am, who I have always been.  I am perfect.
  9. I’ve never stopped being sad or anxious, & my ptsd is constantly triggered by new traumas (unfortunately).  I’ve come to accept I’m not gonna get “better.”  This is me.  I am crazy & sad & always negotiating my ptsd, & my survival strategies are fucking genius (proof being that I am still fucking alive), & I get to be respected & valued because I am here.
  10. Plus, who can survive all this shit & not be affected?  Nobody.
  11. I feel very isolated sometimes because of ablesim & the ways people I love are still not able to hold or witness me, & thus reach out to femmeily, chosen family, & beloved community that often reside else where.  I write what’s going on, name the ways that being alive feels hard, & ask for words of support & acknowledgement.  & it helps.  This is part of what keeps me alive, for reals.  It lessens my pain, is soothes some of the ache, when someone tells me, “That is fucked up!”  “I can understand why you feel this way.”  “You are doing everything right.”  “What you’re naming is real.  This is a real thing.”
  12. Right now I feel stuck.  Like I’ve dug up so much, I can’t remember where I wanted this to go.  This is grief.  My grief makes me crazy.  
  13. The fact I can’t grieve the way I want to makes me crazy, & also exists in a historical context & has a name, “Historical Unresolved Grief,” which can lead to shit getting passed down through the generations, which also has a name, “Intergenerational Trauma.”  I learned these fancy-not-so-fancy names while I was in college, but I knew them in my bones my whole life.
  14. I am afraid to reach out for help, all the time, because I have internalized ableist bullshit like:  “I shouldn’t feel this way.”  “I’m too senstitive.”  “If I worked harder I would have more & wouldn’t need to ask for help.”  “You’re crazy, not psychic.”  “You have fucked up dreams because you are fucked up.”  “Nobody else has a problem with [fill in the blank].”
  15. The new ones I am dealing with, that are related to this post, are: “Nobody will trust you as a healer if you are too sad, too sick, too broken.”  “All your talk of ptsd is gonna scare people away from you!  Stop it!”  “People are gonna think you can’t handle giving anymore readings if you talk about your mental health stuff.”  “You are too messy, too vulnerable, too sick to be a healer.”  “You are so unprofessional.  You’re gonna fail.  Again.”
  16. I don’t want to believe that.
  17. There are other healers that I admire, & when I witness them asking for help or talking about difficult feels, I respect them more.  It also creates more space for me to be in the world as I am, a sad, sick, brilliant healer with all the feels.
  18. When I do healing sessions with other people, & stuff about mental health, chronic illnesses, & how we survive, come up, I always feel so much compassion for them.  I always wanna send them so much love.  My ancestors tell me this is how I can create beauty with how I’ve survived all the things.  
  19. I am not the only one.
  20. Recently, in my personal & professional life, I’ve been coming across more & more healers who are not sure if they are healers.  
  21. I’ve been there, waiting at some crossroads, waiting for some sign, wanting concrete confirmation that I was/am a healer, (even now, I still question & doubt) but I just want you to know: We can never have too many healers!  Never have too many people who give a fuck!  Never have too many people healing themselves, & as they do so, heal their communities & lineages!  Never.  
  22. My dissociation is magic.  Thanks to other survivor geniuses who share their naming & experiences, I am also recognizing how leaving my body is a magical power.  It allows me to survive things that should't be happening.  It is also something that helps me travel back in time to soothe baby Lettie, or just take her away from whatever fucked up shit is happening.  One of my favorite things I ever did was create a vortex in one of my childhood bedroom walls, pop in, & whisk baby Lettie away!  Like, I know the trauma version of my life, so now I just wanna create space for other shit, good shit, shit I wanna live for.  
  23. When I reach out even though I'm scared, that's me healing my internalized shit about what a healer is supposed to be.
  24. When I express my feels, the messy & hard ones, that's me making space in the world for other healers to know that they belong here, too.
  25. When I trust my process, that can also inspire others to trust theirs.
  26. This feels scary to write.  I prayed & drew cards, & keep checking in with my ancestors, asking, "Am I done yet?  How do I bring this to a close?  Do I really gotta write to 32?"  The answer is: YES.  KEEP GOING.
  27. Grieving is important.  Getting this shit out is important.  Naming the hard feels & multi-layered feels is important.  This is how we make room for life, for living, for breathing, for dreaming.  That is why I must keep going.
  28. Death.  Go!  Commune with Grief.  Ancestors are here.  Pouring Magic into our everything.  Make something you will be proud of with your survival.  Community Celebration.  That is what the cards told me.
  29. So, the answer is, "Yes, I can still really be a healer!"  I am not too crazy, too sad, or too unprofessional to be a healer.  I get to have my feelings, be messy, ask for help so I can keep staying alive, heal my own traumas, & be a healer!
  30. I sincerely believe that we never survive alone.  I am here because of my ancestor's prayers, because of the love & prayers & woo of people I've met & hugged & people I know through the internet & even people I've never interacted with but have read my words.  & for this I am so very grateful.
  31. I made my first real commitment to stay alive, no matter what, this past April.  This is a big deal for me.
  32. I am a queer brown femme crazy healer, & that is what I was always meant to be.

If you're interested in what kind of healing work I do, you can visit High Moon Femme Tarot  at www.highmoonfemmetarot.com for more info.  Heart.
If you’d like to make an important donation to support this valuable work, there’s a Paypal link on the sidebar of my website.  I’d really love to receive $50-$100 for my creative efforts & healing channeling today in the form of this post.  Your energy exchange of $1-$50 makes all the difference! Thank you so much!  
Nadia link
7/15/2015 05:58:10 am

Yay! I love this. This is what I was talking about yesterday when I said "credibility and vulnerability." What's more credible than being vulnerable and holding another's hand as they walk down a familiar path? "How can I take you somewhere I've never been?" a quote from a quickie mentor I met who taught me so much in just a couple days, it always stays with me because I survived and I was born to share it.

Sol
7/15/2015 02:50:36 pm

so beautiful. thank you for expressing what i needed to hear at this point in my path

Emi
7/15/2015 04:18:04 pm

Lettie, thank you so much for writing this. You can absolutely be a crazy healer, and you are a healer. There is so much power and magic in surviving trauma, in talking about your life and your story. There are so many crazy / disabled /sick / queer / trans* / POC folks that need you. They don't need the professionals that couldn't help you. You are the healer that will understand where they're coming from. You are so beautiful in your spirit and body. Thank you for being a leader.

Fofie
7/16/2015 03:57:39 am

I'm so grateful for this beautiful post full of powerful truth. I've been talking and working through this lately, and wanting to connect with other healers around this issue. Thank you.

Xavier link
7/16/2015 07:45:48 am

Thank you so much for writing and leaving this here. We all needed this.

jules
7/16/2015 12:49:54 pm

We need more of us supporting each other down roads of recovery & surviving amidst experiences of trauma & abuse; we have true understanding which is more valuable to each other than anything!!!

teresino
7/16/2015 01:55:11 pm

thank you so much.
your honesty feels like a much needed hug and provides a much needed counterpoint to a lot of my uncertainty as a healer.

Sarah K Reece link
7/16/2015 02:05:46 pm

Yes! I am a wounded healer myself - the idea of a professional healer is a dangerous one, I believe. I think being wounded and being able to be of help to other wounded are an essential relationship - they go hand in hand. Authenticity, honesty, bewilderment, pain, grief - these things call out to each other, they are like a song, like a wolf howling in the night and all other wolves hear it and realise they are not alone. Professional healers do not howl, and we feel more alone the more we are in contact with them.

Naomi link
7/16/2015 04:00:32 pm

Yes!!!! Thank you for this beautiful gift, for sharing this journey. As also a Disabled WOC person who does healing work, I've been thinking and struggling with just even using the term "healer" cause in Disability Justice we claim our journey as complex, beautiful and layered and reject the idea we need to be healed in order to be in harmony. I don't know any other Disabled people doing this work and really wondered how others have dealt with this challenge?

Naomi
7/16/2015 04:17:45 pm

I wanted to own and apologize, I accidentally put "as also and then later WOC" I truly apologize. (I was referring to myself but it sounded like I meant you too)

Lynniah
7/17/2015 03:48:03 am

This story really touched my soul. Its amazing the way the universe gives you exactly what you ask for and puts people and words and so many different things right in front of your face to guide you and help us remember who we are. The only way to change is to accept who you truly are and you helped me with that today. Thank you so very much for your inspirational words!

Ben
7/17/2015 01:59:23 pm

THIS IS SUCH AN AMAZING PIECE OF WRITING.
Thanks for putting it out in the world.

Ace
7/17/2015 02:25:01 pm

I'm on my way to becoming a psychotherapist (starting classes and internship in September). Some time ago I told a fellow-crazy-people support group that I was worried that I was too fucked up to be a therapist -- like how am I to help other people (a questionable notion in itelf) get their shit together if I don't have my own together, right? insecure insecure insecure etc.

Someone blurted out, "I would RATHER have a crazy therapist. At least then they'd get it. Sometimes my sane therapists say things that show they don't have the faintest idea what's going on in here."

So I felt better. I'm still terrified, mind you. But I do come back to that, and it does help.

Daria
7/17/2015 02:31:06 pm

You are absolutely a healer. Your words provided healing to me this evening by letting me know I am not alone. And by intoducing me to new perspectives of how I can view what I've done to get here / to be here. Thank you!


Comments are closed.
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    Photo by Wit López, 2016


    ​Lettie Laughter

    is a chronically ill queer brown femme, community healer, poet, playwright, & performer extraordinaire.  They live, femmeifest, love, & write in Philly.

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