My name is Kelly, but I go by Kels. My pronouns are they/them. I’m a complex PTSD survivor who spent years bonded to IV drugs, and have discovered in recovery that I’m autistic and neurodivergent. I’m still really close to my family who are still using and/or living on the streets, and I’m recently a single mother after my partner died by suicide last year.

The hurricane really rocked me. With my extreme sensory sensitivity, I really feel other people’s pain and overwhelm, and after the storm, the entire city, this whole region, was overwhelmed. It was too much for my body to handle sometimes. I’ve been watching the kids of families I love in the Projects undergo unspeakable suffering, home from school unexpectedly and suddenly exposed to dangerous domestic violence situations. I tried to help when they forcibly moved my friends who are unhoused and navigating precipitated withdrawal because fentanyl supplies dried up so quickly. The grief has just been so much. 

When I go to SeekHealing, I find compassion. I can show up however I am and no one tries to change me, or make me sit still when I can’t, or tell me that everything’s going to be ok when that’s not true. The Connection Practice circles relieve me in a way that I actually feel heard, and feel like I can breathe and calm down. The Space Owls and the facilitators amazing. They made the practice sessions longer after the storm hit, so that you can come and go any time for 6 hours or so and not worry about being on time or not. That makes such a huge difference for those of us who don’t navigate time the same way other people do. I was able to bring my friends, and help people be heard who hadn’t told their story to community yet. One friend lost her whole house and community in Reems Creek when it flooded, and had to camp out on high ground for days before the water receded and they were able to get food and water from town. She was so shook up when she got to Seek it took a whole room of twenty people listening to her to help her find her way back into her body.

The power of the medicine of connection has been everything for me while my community has been suffering. Thank you, SeekHealing.