Big News and Not What You'd Expect

A new chapter officially begins next week

Beautiful humans!

How I have missed you 💜

I spent the last month completely flattened by the flu and a respiratory illness. I can’t exactly say that it was a fun way to pass my vacation, but being sick was clearly a reminder that I needed to remember:

I must listen to my body.

I must respect the limits of my mammalian existence.

And as much as my passion for storytelling and normalizing serious mental illness drives me to engage in projects of all kinds, I am unable to outrun my health. Writing those words leaves a pit deep in my stomach. It’s a pit I have known since I was a very little girl – the truth that this beautiful body, mind, and spirit of mine are tethered to limitations and leashes I cannot see but most definitely have yet to overcome.

Re-learning this truth over and over again is humbling. However, at the same time, as I lay in bed, lost to fever dreams and flashbacks of my past, I connected with a profound gratitude. I know this seems weird to say, and I acknowledge how it likely sounds like toxic positivity or what I have started to call gratitude gaslighting – the practice of trying to out-gratitude very real pain. But this time, it was neither. It was very real and true.

You see – as I tossed and turned, I received text messages from people who cared about me. I got phone calls from my husband each day, who was away in Florida with his family. And I had two girls – one sassy sweet and the other purely adoring – beside me, glued to my side, barking in support and offering endless deep pressure therapy over the course of the illness. And above all, I wasn’t in a psych ward. I wasn’t locked away.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There is no shame in being so ill that you need to be in a psychiatric unit. Ever. To find oneself there means to live a fight of bravery and resilience that few will ever know. And – I am no longer so ill that I need to reside there in times of darkness. So, even if my body has its limitations – this neural pathway that is hellbent on departing this earth for a fugue state in times of distress – I am still free.

So this year, in 2025, I will make no resolutions. I only vow to honor the animal that I am – the beautiful being that is limited, even amidst all the progress she has made. And I vow to do that with gratitude because even if what I live is still full of suffering and fear and does not yet resemble the life I want it to one day become, it is mine, and it is on free ground.

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My Next Chapter

To honor this mammalian body and mind of mine and its very clear current limits, I am officially re-launching this newsletter next week in a new form. No matter how much I want to excavate my past — to share a chapter a week and make peace with my past once and for all right now — I simply cannot do that in front of you and also recover from dissociative fugue.

For those unfamiliar, dissociative fugue is a severe form of PTSD — the form I live with. It is a rare mental disorder that involves the severing of the mind/body connection in times of trauma, running away(fugue means to flee in Latin), and having no recollection of the time lost during the episode(dissociative amnesia). While dissociative fugue is a trauma response that occurs to protect the individual from experiencing the full extent of the trauma they are enduring, in some cases, the response can become a primary response to stress — a behavior that occurs each time an individual experiences severe stress.

Unfortunately, I am one such individual. My body and mind currently cannot differentiate between the stress of my past — trauma that required such a response to survive it — and the current PTSD flashbacks I have. While I cannot completely eradicate flashbacks from my life, I can decrease any additional exposure to flashback-triggering stressors. Writing my book is one such stressor.

What this means is that in order to recover from dissociative fugue, I need to pause writing my book and instead work on healing. I need to teach my mind and body that it is wholly safe in this present moment. The current evidence indicates that I need to rest, do intensive PTSD therapy to recover my personal identity, and reprocess my past trauma in the safety of therapy before returning to the intensity of my previous life. So, from here on out, that is exactly what I am going to do.

In the near term, I will mitigate as much stress in my life as I can while building up a repertoire of stress management skills and activities. I am incredibly privileged to have a part-time job that I can maintain while doing this, as well as a husband whose job endows us with health insurance. This is a privilege I do not take lightly whatsoever. It is also a privilege I must use to recover so I can one day do the many projects and advocacy campaigns I dream of to help people like me.

The current hope is that with intensive therapy, deep rest, and more activities that can physically teach my body and mind that it is safe in the present moment, the less likely fugue states will become and that, over time, I will be able to return to the stress of working full-time and pursuing my book and other passions without having fugue states.

Reckoning with this reality has been a deeply painful experience. It has felt like failure and relapse and brought me to my knees more times than I can recall in the past few months. By November of last year, I had fugue states so regularly and at such an increased cadence that I ceased to trust myself almost entirely. At many points during that, I even considered admitting myself just to prevent ending up in the woods again after losing time.

But no amount of wanting to be well will afford me well-being if I do not pursue this treatment regimen. And as shown last year, the more I resisted this treatment regimen, the more fugue states I had and the more overwhelmed, terrified, and exhausted I became.

So, once and for all, in 2025, I am listening to what my whole self needs and committing to only doing the work that heals this terrifying condition. As part of that, I am building a newsletter framework that honors and empowers my well-being instead of depletes it.

So, in honor of my deep hope that one day I can again get deeply stressed out (weird hope I know) and not lose myself to a fugue state in those times, I am embarking on the new adventure of The Healing Lab — experiments in nervous system regulation and self reclamation.

This new form will begin next week right here. If you are currently subscribed to Healing Out Loud, you don’t need to do anything to join — you are on the list! The name of the newsletter will just change. However, if you don’t want to be included in the new form of this newsletter, please unsubscribe.

If you are not subscribed and would like to join this project, please:

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Now, before I share The Healing Lab’s full framework with you all and we dive into this new project together, I want to close out the chapter of sharing my serialized memoir in front of you with this message.

I hope it helps you see how truly powerful and healing your kind presence is in this heavy world by simply — beautifully — existing.

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Now, without further ado, meet our next adventure — one I hope you’ll join me on!

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The Healing Lab

Experiments in Nervous System Regulation and Self-Reclamation

Welcome to The Healing Lab, a community space dedicated to exploring the vast and beautiful ways humans heal. At its core, The Healing Lab honors this simple yet profound truth: There is no wrong way to be human — as long as you are honest and kind — just as there is no wrong way to heal.

We are here to explore, experiment, and embrace the many modalities and techniques humans of all kinds use to reconnect with themselves, their bodies, and the world around them. Through this exploration, we aim to create a foundation of nervous system regulation, empowering you to move through life with more resilience, ease, and curiosity.

This is not a space for prescriptive answers or perfection. What-so-ever. It’s a space to play, test, and discover what works for you. Like scientists in a lab, we approach healing with an open mind and kind curiosity. If an experiment resonates, I invite you to integrate it into your own healing practice. If it doesn’t, I encourage you to let it go — with no shame and no judgment. This space is about honoring YOU.

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Our Mission

The Healing Lab exists to honor the diversity of human experience and the myriad ways humans heal. By focusing on nervous system regulation, we aim to replace the question of “What should I do now?” in moments of distress with a toolkit of supportive and actionable practices.

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How It Will Work

Each week, The Healing Lab offers:

• A Weekly Experiment
  A practice designed to support your nervous system and explore healing. Experiments might include somatic experiencing, breathwork, vagus nerve activation, grounding techniques, or fear-facing exercises. These practices honor both individual healing and the importance of community connection — because co-regulation is just as vital as self-regulation.

• Reflection Prompts
  Thoughtful prompts to help you tune into your body, mind, and emotions. These prompts invite self-awareness and introspection, helping you notice how the week’s practice resonates with your unique experience.

• Personal Essay
  A brief vulnerable story from yours truly, reflecting on the messy, beautiful journey of healing and my own experience with this week’s experiment and prompt. These essays remind us that healing isn’t linear — it’s personal, imperfect, and deeply human.

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Why This Matters

Healing isn’t one-size-fits-all, and it isn’t about doing it “right.” It’s about discovering what honors you — your body, your nervous system, your truth.

At The Healing Lab, we celebrate the infinite ways humans find connection and resilience. By focusing on nervous system regulation, we create a foundation for calm, strength, and meaningful connection. From there, we can explore the unique practices that help us move through the world towards self-reclamation, meaning, connection, and hopefully – one day – ease.

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In addition to weekly experiments and prompts, The Healing Lab hosts a monthly community gathering to reflect, share, and co-regulate. Together, we create a supportive space to embrace the messy magic of healing and share our stories and adventures with the recent experiments.

If you’re ready to explore the many ways humans heal, honor the truth of your humanity, and experiment with practices that could bring you back to yourself, we’d love to have you.

Because here at The Healing Lab, we believe:

There is no one way to be human. Just as there is no one way to heal.

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I hope to see you here next week for our first experiment, and no matter what, I am so grateful to be here with you at this very moment.

Wishing you a weekend.

May you tread lightly on yourself during it and know that however it evolves, it is always enough. Just like you.

With love.

Kindly,

Kate (Waffle + Tugboat)