trauma - poisons - healing

i've just been reading this quite beautiful article: Dark Medicines: On Seeing Patients with Bad Habits. 

i've been thinking about being a domestic violence support worker as being a healer. about me having been a healer and having ended up quite broken from the work. about what i need to heal. i've been reading blogs by creative holistic herby healer types, mainly queer, all in the US as is often the way with these things (who are you, european ones?)

kirsten hale

dori midnight 

i've got some work supporting another gendered violence organisation to deal with vicarious trauma / burnout / compassion fatigue among their staff. and just trying to come up with the workshop is bringing up what i know nowadays are my own trauma symptoms.laurie perlman has some things to say about vicarious transformation - how healers can and must transform through trauma. the work will always change us so we must find our own ways to ground ourselves and stay connected in our own transformations. it sounds like a nice way to frame it. she's right. but how to stay on this healthier path?

i wish there was a culture of even thinking about supporting survivors as being healing work. and a culture of supporting us as healers. i wish it wasn't wildly far out for me to be seeking wisdom from holistic practitioners to bring back to this normie voluntary sector work. i wish all my colleagues weren't broken and we could support each other. i wish we could talk about how dwelling in violence and trauma seeps into us and what we need to do about it.