Hello dear ones!
I hope that your weekends have been filled with much softness and ease. I’m super excited to announce a little contest with some prizes at the end of this newsletter, so keep reading! But first, some reminders:
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THOUGHTS & FEELINGS
I’m at a loss for how to start this story. I keep writing and then erasing. For some reason, what I want to share with you feels vulnerable to me. And as a human who shares very vulnerable things on the internet and in my writing, that’s a strange feeling. So perhaps I will try to say it plainly: from October until the end of December, I was having a mental health crisis. Panic attacks were happening daily. I couldn’t sleep. Could barely eat. Intrusive thoughts had totally taken over. I vacillated between hypervigilance and total shut down and dissociation.
During this time, I received life-sustaining support from my best friend, who thankfully lived just a few hours away from me, and other friends from back in Toronto who’d answer my calls when I was moving through yet another panic attack. For those three months, my capacity to show up for other people was almost non-existent. And I felt so much guilt and shame that I couldn’t be there for them as they went through their own struggles. It wasn’t until one of my besties said “babe, you’re having a mental health crisis. It’s okay if you can’t be there for us right now,” that I was finally able to accept where I was at.
Yesterday, I connected with a friend who I hadn’t seen since my move at the end of December. When they asked me how I was doing, I realized that I’ve moved through the crisis time. I’m no longer just surviving. I’m thriving once again. After we had this check in, I led them through a ritual that we co-created in anticipation of their top surgery this coming week. My cup was full again. My capacity to offer care to others had returned.
Here’s the altar I made for our ritual (links to all the things in the image caption). I’ll tell you all about the ritual under PRACTICES.
Afterwords, I thought about Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s words in her essay “A Modest Proposal for a Fair Trade Emotional Labor Economy”:
“Everything doesn’t have to be fifty-fifty all the time. I think that’s especially important for folks who need a lot of care to survive, who may not be able to offer a ton back all the time […] In disabled communities, we talk about the idea that we can still offer reciprocity to each other, even if we can’t offer the exact same time of type of care back. For example: if my disabled body can’t lift yours onto the toilet, it doesn’t mean I can’t be reciprocal—it means I contribute equally from what my particular body can do. Maybe instead of doing physical care, I can research a medical provider, buy groceries fro you when I’m out shopping, or listen to you vent when one of your dates was ableist.”
Building off of Piepzna-Samarasinha’s words, I’d also add to that reciprocal offers of care won’t always happen in a linear timeframe. If I’m in crisis, I’m doing all that I can to survive. Having spent most of my life in crisis — and always prioritizing the care of others while ignoring myself to the point that chronic pain took over my life and I had no choice but to place myself first —it feels pretty radical for me to stop myself from extending care outwards when I have nothing left in my bucket to give.
I want care that happens on crip time. In her book Feminist Queer Crip, Alison Kafer explains how crip time “involves an awareness that disabled people might need more time to accomplish something or to arrive somewhere.” Crip time is a “reorientation to time” in which we reimagine our beliefs around what can and should happen within a set timeframe or schedule. Drawing on Spoon Theory, Kafer notes that for those of us living with chronic illnesses, we’re always having to measure out the present by how it will impact us in the future (if I shower this morning then I’ll have one less spoon to run this errand later).
Within a crip mad time, we understand that moments of crisis disrupt ableist linear time, and with it the temporality of the reciprocity of care. In this carescape, I become the receiver of care and hit pause on my duties as a caregiver until I’m no longer in crisis. You, the person offering me care, accept that my care energy must be oriented towards myself at this moment in time. And we both trust that there will be a time where I’m no longer in crisis and can show up for you in your times of need.
I want to name that this wasn’t always possible for me. As a primary caregiver to my father, it felt almost impossible to cancel our plans when I became chronically ill. Impossible because he couldn’t hold space for my pain. Impossible because there would be no one else to help him. In this way, I want to acknowledge that since his death, I have been able to focus on myself in ways that weren’t possible before. And, because I have built a rich community around me, when I’m not available for support, another human usually is. I have worked hard to build this community, and I recognize that it is not a privilege that everyone has access to.
There’s a different economics at play here too that feels worth naming. We’ve been taught that the care of others should be treated as a gift. But in so doing, we become indebted to the other (your gift now, for my gift later). What might happen if we saw both sides of this equation as the gifts that they are? What if the opportunity to give care to another is a gift in and of itself? When those I love let me care for them, I feel so deeply honoured. In receiving my care, they say to me “I trust you enough that you may see me at my most vulnerable.” Our vulnerability is a gift. I feel so nourished and full in my heart when I can offer care to others — and not deplete all of my reserves in the process.
I offer these reflections because it’s taken me most of my life to get to this place where I can receive care without having to immediately give something back. It has taken so much therapy and so much love from my best friends to internalize the belief that asking for care, that saying yes to care, is a gift to those who love us deeply. I hope that in sharing my experience, and my crip mad reimagining of the reciprocity of care, it feels a little bit more possible to open yourself up to the care that you need.
PRACTICES
Yesterday I did a ritual with a dear friend of mine who will be having top surgery in a few days. I wanted to do a protection spell, so that they felt cared for by the universe in the days leading up to their surgery, and the many days after. This spell was specific to their gender journey, but I’ll share a version here that you can use for any aspect of yourself that is coming into its fullest most expansive form, so that you too may have some protection.
Select any special objects for your altar that represent whatever aspect of your identity that you’d like to see protected. I selected objects that represented my femme identity, which continues to grow and expand in new and exciting ways. You don’t have to choose an identity category; you could choose an aspect of yourself that you’re reclaiming, like your too-much-ness or your boundaries.
Place those objects in the center of your altar space. You may also want to add any pieces that you have for protection. Black obsidian and smokey quartz are great stones for that purpose. But really any objects that make you feel safe and secure are perfect. You may also want to have some candle lit.
If you have a tarot deck, pull out the Queens of every suit. I picked the Queens (or the Creators or Manifestors as other decks have renamed them) because they are the nurturers and caregivers. If you feel protected by Kings or Pages or Knights, then you can pull out those cards instead. If there are other guides you want to call on, your ancestors, or animals, plants, planets, or deities, you can choose to work with those instead. I wanted to have each of the elements (earth, air, fire, and water) represented, but that’s also not necessary. If you don’t own a tarot deck, that’s okay too. You can take some slips of paper and write the names of the cards or you can use objects to signify the four Queens. Place one at each corner around your altar objects.
Next, grab some paper and a pen and write down your hopes and wishes so that you may clearly articulate them to the Queens / your guides. What do you want their support with? Once you’ve written your list, you read your wishes aloud, and then place the paper at the center of your altar.
When you’re ready, you can listen to the guided visualization that I’ve recorded here. As a heads up, it’s about 12 minutes long. This is the first time I’ve recorded and shared a recording like this and wow do I ever feel nervous!!! Listen to it here.
ACTIONS
Content warning: harassment, discrimination, homophobia, racism
A dear friend of mine has been supporting a graduate student at the University of Calgary who has been a victim of targeted harassment and discrimination clearly rooted in racism and homophobia. Since December 2020, this student has been subjected to over 13 instances of cyberbullying, stalking, and death threats. Read the full story here.
A GoFundMe has been started to support this student: We are asking for donations to help cover a number of expenses this student has incurred over the last year, and those anticipated in the next 3-6 months. Graduate students work and study full-time and live off a minimal stipend, and it is unjust for a student to face such an enormous financial burden from the ongoing violence occurring at the University they work and study at, and as a result of an inadequate response from the institution they pay tuition to.
100% of donations will go towards the costs incurred by this student already and many anticipated expenses, including their initial consultation with a lawyer (1) (over $3000 to date), anticipated legal fees to ensure adequate support and protection, medical expenses, therapy and counselling.
CONTEST TIME!!
After my recent move I did some unpacking and rediscovered these amazing tote bags (illustration by Sabrina Scott) and postcards/prints (by Brianne Burnell) from a conference I organized in 2017 called Sick Theories. So I thought it’d be fun to do a little giveaway of three bundles of tote bag + postcard!
How to enter:
Take a screenshot of your favourite section from this newsletter (this issue or another) and share it on your IG stories, along with a Link Sticker so that folks can read the newsletter (I’ve been told that everyone can now do this, but in the event that I’m somehow wrong, you can also tell them that the link to read/sign up is in my bio). Don’t forget to tag me as that’s the only way that I’ll see that you entered. Example here:
You can enter up to 5 times by sharing different screenshots from the same or different newsletter issues.
You have until next Sunday, February 13th at 11:59pm MST to enter.
Open to folks in Canada and the US because I can’t afford international shipping rates at this time.
Wanna support me in making this newsletter possible every week? You can become a paid subscriber for $5 / month (or save more with a full year’s subscription). You can also buy a subscription as a gift to a friend!
Thank you for your vulnerability and connecting your experience to crip time! So important to share these connections 💜💜💜