It really can happen to any one of us. Statistics Canada data says that more than 4 in 10 women (and how many more with men?) have experienced some form of intimate partner violence (IPV) in their lifetimes - and it happened to me. The violence I experienced spilled over into my place of work, making complicated and tangled the process of extricating myself and claiming my sovereignty and economic independence. I have been terrified, isolated, hopeless and utterly collapsed, but I am a tenacious survivor who needs your help to heal and thrive.

I am living precariously and I need your help to keep a roof over my head and pay for my medical expenses as I heal.

A little background about me. I’m a people-focused healer, musician, poet, artist, and aspiring writer. I am a creative and resourceful somatic practitioner with a long history of service to others. I was in a 20-year relationship that combined shared life and work with a  long-standing pattern of narcissistic abuse that robbed me of my identity, career and financial independence -  until I left. Which heightened the threatening behaviour while strengthening my backbone.

I am recovering  - slowly - from c-PTSD, Fibromyalgia, and the fractured relationship to self that often comes with deep and prolonged gaslighting - it’s slow work that takes time. I am unable to work and racking up debt on lines of credit to keep myself housed, fed, and pursuing treatment. I live in Atlantic Canada, where it's difficult and sometimes impossible to access basic medical care, never mind complex trauma-informed diagnosis.  

Asking for help has brought me back to kindness and connection and has given me the gall to imagine more connection and kindness in my life. I’ve grown to see that this is how my soul heals, in connection and imagination of possibility. This is where you come in. I need your help, you who can.  

This current personal crisis has opened my eyes to the lived experience of many trying to access support in times of mental illness or abuse. It has filled me with an activist fire that will see the rest of my life carrying forth a dedication to others who haven’t been as lucky as me in finding support navigating a truly crazy-making mental health care system; a system that, despite the best efforts and intentions of its front line workers, too often fails its care customers. Sometimes so significantly, interacting with it results in giving up hope and falling, falling, dragged down to darkness, to the streets, to madness… by the weight of hardening isolation.

It really can happen to any one of us.

Keep coming back to experience our unfolding art project, “Obscured, by Anonymous,” as I/we reclaim space, identity and life from the darkness of obscurity. We plan on offering art in various forms on an ongoing basis that conveys some of the lived experiences of people who have travelled this journey of surviving c-PTSD and narcissistic abuse to thriving and engaged in a meaningful life that flows sovereignly. We will offer various items for purchase if you like the art and want to wear it, hang it, hug it, or mug it. Proceeds will help us build beyond me. 

And first, your support will help me. I humbly thank you for any amount of support: donations, sharing this posting with others, purchasing made-to-order art… every little bit helps. And I want to dream bigger. We, this campaign, are here not just to help me but to build something supportive beyond me. 

Thank you to each of you for visiting my page and for your meaningful willingness to help. 

Anonymous