My name is Juda. I am a 22 years old trans guy. I grew up in a loving, yet dysregulated family, full of undiagnosed neurodivergence. Add to that, growing up in conservative Christian rural Tennessee, where I was the subject of abuse and bullying in my church community, especially from other kids. I didn’t know I was Queer, yet somehow everyone else did. I tried to mask in order to survive.

To my parents, I became a “problem child.” My father and I fought constantly. I became belligerent and combative. The only kids at school who would hang out with me were the suicidal ones, and sometimes I felt like I wanted to kill myself too.

I formed a trauma-bond with a person named K, who would love-bomb me until we were deeply codependently enmeshed, and then ignore me for months at a time. I became addicted to that cycle, as well as other unhealthy coping strategies. A regular at the donut shop where I worked had started grooming me for sex trafficking before I turned 18, and I don’t think I even understood what was happening when they took me out for our first date on my 18th birthday. 

It was already bad enough that I liked girls. When my family found out that I was Trans, my dad had a complete emotional breakdown. “Who’s ever gonna love you?” he asked me, devastated and angry. My mom sent me to my grandmother, who gave me a book called “A New Believer’s Bible” in which she underlined everything that had to do with sexual deviance, disobeying parents and queerness. She told me I was going to hell, and it was one of the hardest days of my life. 

And yet, I love my parents and my grandmother, more than anything, to this day. My family is my home, it’s where I come from. We were all just doing the best with the tools we had, I think.

After my dad kicked me out of the house, I went to live with a friend and then K moved in. I was addicted to K and they were addicted to drugs. My medications started going missing, then my money, my clothes and other possessions started disappearing as well. Everything fell apart. 

I moved, and started my transition with testosterone and then surgery. Slowly, my dad and I started to figure out how to talk to each other. While some things were getting better, my body started giving out. Migraines, kneecap issues and pinched nerves rendered me disabled and walking with a cane by the time I moved to Asheville, which I had heard was very open and accepting and that I could find a gender-affirming community there.

A friend introduced me to SeekHealing. It took about six months of going weekly to trust that no one was going to try to fix or change me, because all my past support structures were all aimed at changing me at a fundamental level. SeekHealing has created a structure for relating that I really needed. It allows me to be in community without any associated trauma. To me, it seems to replicate the best aspects of living in a tribe.

When one person is suffering, we all get to carry a little bit more weight together so that person -- that elder, that young Trans person, that mom who just had a baby, that person who just lost their lover and is grieving – isn’t alone, doesn’t die.

Attending SeekHealing programs has relieved my anxiety, enabling me to enter a room, sit down with people, and be present. Because the program agreements create so much trust with each other, when boundaries are broken or feelings get hurt, we can talk about it without fear of being cast out. That is the biggest thing for me. I had never experienced that in my life before.

Before coming to SeekHealing, I had never experienced my words being reflected back to me. I had never heard the concept of asking curious questions that are not designed to lead to an outcome that someone else wants. And at SeekHealing, as a highly sensitive and empathic person, it is actually safe for me to try to hold other people’s pain because I’m not doing it alone. 

All the tools I have learned at SeekHealing have changed the way I relate, especially to my family. SeekHealing’s SHFT program transformed the way I think about boundaries. I am now able to hold space for another person and hold boundaries at the same time. It has deepened my understanding of mental health, space-holding, and myself. It has taught me how to relate to those closest to me and how to live with purpose.

I have also learned to recognize when I am at capacity and how to ask for what I need or take a pause or reset expectations. This has been huge in terms of my healing from chronic illness. I have learned so much and healed so much, for which I will be forever grateful.