Intuition, skunks, and leaving Substack (eventually)

Hello from the THICK of August

Welcome to Healing is My Special Interest, the newsletter at the intersection of late-diagnosed neurodivergence and healing from high control environments. Today is a quick little post mostly to remind folks of a fun zoom hangout I am doing on Saturday! You gotta be a paid subscriber to join, but it’s only $5/month and you can cancel at any time.

Hey! What are you doing this Saturday afternoon? Wanna hop on a 1:15 long zoom call where you can settle into your body, chat about intuition, and think about some creativity goals you have for the next moon cycle? Then have I got you covered! We did one of these gatherings in June and it was SO chill and SO lovely and even though I am trudging my way through the molasses that is August (what do you mean I have to cook dinner AGAIN and also make sure my children are somewhat entertained during the day?!?!?!?) I am really excited about this chance to be present with a bunch of other neurodivergent creative types who are still here and still showing up despite everything¹.

If you want to be a part of the zoom you gotta be a paid subscriber². And on that note—I am working on transitioning away from Substack but it is going to take me a minute (and perhaps at least one of my children attending in-person school for a month or two) before I can make it all work. Hopefully I can figure out a way to keep paid subscribers at a new platform without any work or drama on your part, but can I just say that I am sick to death of trying to outrun the fascist tech bros (and enriching them in the meantime)? All I want is to say my little thoughts on the internet and make enough money to pay for therapy and support queer and neurodivergent people in my life and online³. But being a freelance writer means being dependent on social media and platforms like Substack, which it turns out, are just enriching the worst people in the world. I once had 30,000 followers on Twitter (which was a lot for a weirdo like me!) and the second Elon bought it I knew I had to go. Well, same thing is happening at Substack (except it is a more slow and insidious funneling of money to fascists⁴). Plus, I liked this place when it was a bunch of writers doing blogging and investigative work, now it is turning into yet another social media platform where you gotta try and beat the algorithm to be seen.

BIG HEAVY SIGH.

the original substack?!?!?

I’ve had to do my fair share of running from fascists and re-inventing myself as a writer/podcaster. Just yesterday I was cleaning out a closet and I came across this selection of magazines and journals that I had pieces published in, from 2011-2020. That’s a lot of work as someone who was a parent to smol children and who was living a pretty intense life at the same time. All of these publications were Christian, and they all loved me. Up until they didn’t (and now I literally have one Christian writer friend from those heady days who still talks to me). I was trying to get white evangelicals to actually live up to their stated ideals and I am proud of what I did. But it’s hard to look at all of this work and not feel like it was all for naught.

But is that true? I wrote my way out of Christian fascism and here I am still learning how to be me, a complicated human in a complicated world. I pivoted, I tried to be creative, and instead of silencing myself I have decided to share parts of how I have grown and changed with the wider world. I’m pretty proud of that. Knowing how effed up thing are, I can surmise I will continue to have to think on my feet, pivot when necessary, and find the balance between being a Public Person and being the little disabled caregiver hermit that I actually am. But am I going to let the religious authoritarians win and just skulk off into the sunset? NOPE. I am not going to do that. I’m going to keep resisting, and I’m actually going to get sillier and weirder (and more creative) as I do.

Now, let’s recollect ourselves and remember that the world is big and unwieldy and unruly and in the meantime we are going to connect to our true selves and not let those bastards colonize our every waking thoughts.

For this Saturday and the full moon I have been thinking a lot about intuition and creativity. I keep pulling the high priestess card, which is all about intuition. So if you have a tarot deck, try and find your high priestess card and spend some time with it, and thinking about the ways you do and do not have a connection to this deep part of yourself. This can be tough stuff when you were born and raised in a high control environment that taught you not to trust yourself but that only God/Jesus/The Bible/Your Parents/The Church had access to truth. But that’s why it’s such necessary and important work these days!

I love my cat tarot deck and this high priestess card is just so lovely. We all have an inner cat!!!!

Getting in touch with our intuition can also help us as we set boundaries with toxic beliefs, people, institutions, and even social media platforms! At my house we continue to be visited by a skunk this summer and I am loving how it constantly makes me think about the importance of setting firm boundaries. And once you are in a place where you have good boundaries up and your space is nice and protected, it becomes a part of your work to create safety for others as well! And that is definitely my goal — I am not healing or processing the pain of being alive in order to be less of a nuisance to the people in charge. No, I am healing because I deserve safety and pleasure and because I want to fight for that for others too. And my brother the skunk really really helps remind me of this:

(this is from the Woodland Wardens Oracle deck by Jessica Roux. I love it!)

Speaking of protection, I released a really important interview I did with child liberation theological and child protection expert

R.L. Stollar

over at STRONGWILLED. We chatted about what the average child sexual predator looks like (your average Christian family man) and how to actually keep kids safe in organizations and institutions (instead of just paying lip service to that idea).⁵ Child liberation is SO incredibly important to me, and I feel like it is the foundation apon which resistance to authoritarianism is actually built. Which is why the fascists are targeting children in so many ways right now, and why protecting this vulnerable population should be at the top of our list.

That’s all from me today, but I just wanted to remind you that you are not alone in this moment and you got some weirdos like me in your corner. Fighting to be human, to hold on to moments of joy in the midst of grief, and who will continue to change and grow along with the world.

I hope to see you Saturday, but if not — have some fun connecting with the moon this weekend and remember that she loves you very much :)

1. How was THAT for a run-on sentence? The apostle Paul would be so proud of me, if only he wasn’t a raging homophobe/transphobe.

2. I will be sending out the zoom link and a few little instructions to paid subscribers tomorrow evening (Friday the 8th). If for any reason you are not able to become a paid subscriber (or if you want to pay $5 another way — venmo/paypal) please email me at strongwilledproject at gmail and I will get you added.

3. Don’t worry I will be writing about leaving Substack and the state of Publishing more in-depth soon! But please comment your thoughts if you have them about this topic.

4. If you want to know more about the extremist stuff happening on Substack, here is a good primer. I personally don’t judge folks who stay on Substack because I know how incredibly difficult it is to make any money whatsoever as a writer and I honestly believe some folks should stay and battle it out. But I am myself am making plans to leave sometime in the late fall (there are plenty of newsletters out there who will let you just transfer your readers). All of us are sadly enriching fascists with our tax dollars rn so it truly is something we all are a part of and we all can find our own ways to fight back.

5. Interview with R.L. Stollar