Yesterday I wrote a little update on Instagram about the ongoing struggles in my life, with complex trauma at the root of it all.
Despite a lifetime of asking for help in every way imaginable, I’ve never found the right support. The “help” I’m supposed to accept just makes it worse. Trauma on top of trauma. And I know I’m not the only one who now feels like I need help to ask for help.
It was amazing to reconnect with everyone through the safe space of my @EyesOnTrauma Instagram page, and feel so heard. It also reaffirms another feeling I’m struggling with at the moment. I wrote about how the first stage of trauma is to feel alone, but now I am beyond that, realising I am far from the only one in this shituation (new favourite word).
It becomes clearer and clearer that so many of us are struggling with the same things.
And we’ve all had enough. “Mental health awareness” & “it’s OK to not be OK” is absolute bullshit. It is NOT OK to be not OK for so long. It is NOT OK that the “help” causes us so much harm.
And there is an answer:
We need non-clinical trauma-informed crisis spaces & healing communities. This is so clear to me, and to so many of you.
I’m making this my mission. The goal is a healing community, beginning with a crisis space. A fire burning 24/7, holding hope even when you can’t see the light. Because suicidal crises don’t stick to 9-5.
I want to build this for myself, because it’s what I need and deserve. I want to build it for you, because you need and deserve it too.
I want to build it for our ancestors who went before us, who never had the chance to break these cycles.
Perhaps most importantly, I want to build it for every child who will be born tomorrow & should never have to know this struggle.
So I started yesterday, with a fire. Under the moonlight. Exactly how nature intended us to heal, far from how society thinks we should. We’re going to show them there is another way, a better way.
I’d like to start with a crisis space in Brighton, UK. i’d love to connect with anybody also keen to make this happen. your words are valuable. Any other support you can offer, also.
Let me know if you’re in. Together we can make the change we all desperately need & deserve. see you at the fireside ???✨