On Healing
The #WickedWednesday newsletter is inspired by my desire to share stories focused on promoting community and creating positive change, something we all need more of nowadays.
After last week's edition on self-love, I found myself gravitating to articles on healing. We are all on a healing journey of some kind - whether it's because someone hurt us, we had a traumatic experience or a combination of both.
We all need an outlet of some kind to express ourselves otherwise our emotions are bottled up and often explode. Clearly, writing is my outlet. I'm an extrovert and yet, writing enables me to turn inward toward my thoughts.
How do you process feelings, #WickedWriters?
Moreover, what happens when the odds are further stacked against you a la sexism, racism, ableism etc. This week, let's explore the ways in which folks are providing voice to the need for healing.
Trauma is universal
From the MA-based Collective Change Lab via Stanford Social Innovation Review: "Trauma is a near-universal part of the human experience and an invisible force contributing to the “stuckness” of virtually all social systems—including child welfare, criminal justice, education, health care, and housing—even as humanity barrels headlong into the most destructive systemic breakdown of all: the climate crisis that threatens life on Earth. Yet the impact of trauma remains all but absent from mainstream discourse about systems change. Part of the reason is that we have a common tendency to believe trauma is “out there”—that other people are traumatized and need help, but we’re fine—when in fact we all carry trauma. The trauma we carry affects the way we look at the world and ourselves, and therefore plays a role in determining the future course of social systems. Unless we acknowledge trauma, engage with it, and find ways to support individual and collective healing, our systems will stay stuck."
This work is part of a coalition with The Wellbeing Project & Georgetown University to address intergenerational trauma. Learn more at https://www.intergenerational-trauma.com/.
What is intergenerational trauma?
So, what happens when we inherit or experience trauma due to events beyond our control?
"Intergenerational trauma is expressed when the descendant of someone who experienced a traumatic event presents challenging emotional and behavioral reactions that are similar to their ancestor or relative," according to the American Psychological Association (APA).
Furthermore, "“Collective” intergenerational trauma and “racial trauma” refer to the psychological distress passed through generations as a result of historic events, including colonization, slavery and other forms of oppression." (Source: Washington Post)
The challenge is that intergenerational and racial trauma are self-perpetuating by nature. The question then becomes, how do we break that cycle?
In my opinion, the first step is to name your trauma. Just giving voice to something that many people feel ashamed about is a huge step toward healing, personally and collectively.
Because if we don't express the pain from trauma, it will keep festering and being passed on, instead of being transformed into something different entirely. And because #WickedWednesdays is all about creativity, I had to dive into some cool ways folks are using art to heal.
Art shouldn't be just about pain, it should also be about joy - particularly when it comes to the artistic expressions of Black women. Watch this Tedx Talk on "How we use art as a vessel to heal from trauma" from award-winning Queer, Black & Chinese conceptual portrait photographer, public speaker, and social activist, Eva Woolridge.
It's the system, duh
It's no secret our health care system has some major issues, many of which are steeped in a culture of silence and racism. Here's what I'm reading:
I just started Uché Blackstock, MD's Legacy on bias and racism in the health care system.
The Atlantic: GoFundMe Is a Health-Care Utility Now The subhead says it all: Resorting to crowdfunding to pay medical bills has become so routine, in some cases health professionals recommend it.
"...GoFundMe has become a go-to for patients trying to escape medical-billing nightmares. One study found that, in 2020, the number of U.S. campaigns related to medical causes—about 200,000—was 25 times higher than the number of such campaigns on the site in 2011. More than 500 campaigns are currently dedicated to asking for financial help for treating people, mostly kids, with spinal muscular atrophy, a neurodegenerative genetic condition. The recently approved gene therapy for young children with the condition, by the drugmaker Novartis, costs about $2.1 million for the single-dose treatment. Perhaps the most damning aspect of all this is that paying for expensive care with crowdfunding is no longer seen as unusual; instead, it is being normalized as part of the health system, like getting blood work done or waiting on hold for an appointment."
Proud of Massachusetts
People not from Massachusetts often think of those who live in the state as Massholes (lovingly, right?). I'm proud to now call Massachusetts home - where we have expanded abortion protections in place. Now, we need to enshrine coverage for the full spectrum of pregnancy care, from prenatal to delivery to postpartum. As someone who is in the early stages of family planning, it was a shock when I found out about the high cost of child birth!
Want to get involved? Join the fight with Reproductive Equity Now.
Boston Globe Media : State legislators are again debating whether insurers should fully cover childbirth. Here’s why it’s different this time.
"Within days of the Supreme Court decision striking down the constitutional right to abortion, Massachusetts legislators expanded abortion protections in the state, including a requirement that health insurers cover the procedure without deductibles, copayments, or other out-of-pocket costs. But childbirth itself is still subject to these costs, which can be prohibitively expensive for the growing number of people with high-deductible health insurance plans....Nationally, women ages 19-44 spend 58 percent more on health care per capita compared to men in that age range, largely due to maternity care costs, according to 2020 data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. There are also “persistent disparities” in health care costs across income and ethnic groups, according to the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission, with nearly one in five lower-income residents paying higher out-of-pocket costs than other residents."
It is also equally as important to make abortion and contraceptive care accessible for all.
This article from Upstream USA is about Making Contraceptive Care Accessible For Houseless Populations. "Upstream’s partnerships with the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless and Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (BHCHP) are focused on integrating contraceptive care into these organizations’ primary care operations. The key is developing unique solutions suited to an organization’s care model and strengths, as well as the needs of their specific patient population."
The range of topics was vast this week, but the common thread is action, through art of otherwise, is an important part of the healing process. This is a topic that is deeply personal to me and I would be remise if I didn't share this mental health resource for ways to support yourself and those around you.
Next week, the long awaited list of International Women's Day events in Massachusetts will be released!
Got feel good stories to share for future #WickedWednesdays? Visit wickwriters.com, post a comment below or drop me a line at rachaeldubinsky@gmail.com.
Until next week, stay #wicked.