There has long been a lack of services for people who experienced childhood sexual abuse and have/are at least a few of the following:

• preverbal trauma

• Autistic

• fetal alcohol conditions

• ADHD

• TBI

• interoception issues

• gut biome issues

• synesthesia

• alexthymia

• high impulsivity

• hyper sexuality

• mild learning disabilities

• eating disorders

• familial separation

• religious trauma

• psychosis

• transgenerational trauma

• somaticization (emotional stressors turning physical)

because these casesa re more complex and reqire a higher level of care. As government funding ceases to exist, the few options that existed to do care like this are drying up. It’s time for the next generation of care to come to fruition. A labor of love.

You may have heard me joke over the years that I want an fMRI machine. That is because when you have all the tools at your disposal, you can really enable the children you are working with to make great strides. With imaging, we can show the children the power their effort has in real time. We know if you provide nature, support, and good examples, that the brain finds a way. From there the important healing work of finding one’s deepest self can begin.

The highest aim of LUSID here is to build large-scale obstacle courses based on ways people commonly get stuck in trauma. Then from there, practitioners will work with the youths and their families to ensure they can try and fail and try again, with control, until they are confident in their ability to ask for help, fail, and find success. It will be a place where one can operate in a safe lucid space where their mistakes don’t mean as much, so they do not have to fear failing.

This practice will empower them in the therapy room as their brain makes vital connections for growth and forms healthy attachments with archtypal figures to support their success. Think like enactment therapy but on a larger scale that is more intiwined in real life because environment can support it so kids can go back to the vital work of being kids.

I am chasing this dream because children should get to be children. And they should get a real chance to grow up into the good people they want to be. Simply because it ought to be, and I cannot sit idly by.

The “when” of all of this is up to the community. Right now, I am in practicum and finishing up my dissertation. I expect it to take time to raise all this money, at least a couple of years. In that time, I will complete my internship and post-doc as well, continuing, then on to licensure. In that time, I will continue to write therapies that will accentuate the power of the natural habitat to help those who need to find themselves do just that.

There are a lot of moving parts, and this will take time. But what is the point of life if not doing things that will matter, simply because they were hard?

The possibilities are endless, but for the stated fundraising goal, we could buy an old ROTC base, church, motel, campground, school, or the like. The main thing is that it will be secluded in nature and will have the space to help us help people heal.

Healing is the responsibility of the community, especially when children have been harmed.

This project starts with and intends to stay, as best it can, a community-funded endeavor that does not turn those in need away based on ability to pay.

I believe this is integral to efficient and lasting healing. I know we can do this if we work together.