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

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.

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