The Healer Needs Healing

I have set this up on behalf of my friend Alexander Yoo.

For most of his adult life, Alexander has worked tirelessly for the LGBT community, and now it is time for us to help him. He has recently escaped an emotionally abusive relationship which left both unemployed and in no shape to find a new job.

Alexander is a deeply spiritual person. What he needs right now is a place where he can meditate and begin to heal. He has made arrangements for a month-long spiritual retreat, but is lacking the funds to realize this goal without our help. In addition, he will need money for food and necessities while looking for work once he returns from the retreat.

The goal I have set is the bare minimum. It seems like a large amount of money, but if everyone gives a little, it's an easy goal to reach, and I hope we can raise even more. No donation is too small and every dollar is appreciated.

Here are Alexander's own words about the situation:

"I am taking an extended leave and need time and space for reflection, healing, self-care, recovery, and quiet solemnity. I need space in the physical and spiritual sense set aside, a departure from the world to reconnect with myself.

"For the better part of the past year, I was the sole caretaker of a very ill person, in mind and body who would often in his illness behave erratically and unkindly. To extend myself all day, sometimes working 20 hours straight in the service of others, and then to have no respite from the work in my place of residence, further necessitates this sabbatical. I have been diagnosed with PTSD as a result of this abusive relationship and am unable to work indefinitely.

"I've dedicated my life to helping others, never taking sabbatical. For over the past 15 years I have dedicated most of myself to queer/trans community activism and advocacy. I founded GenderQueer Revolution and served on the board of the Lesbian and Gay Psychotherapy Association for over 7 years, including three as president. I am also hospice chaplain, and I find the deep satisfaction thoroughly outweighs the very real challenges of burnout, compassion fatigue and secondary trauma. I also work in mental health with the most vulnerable, neglected, and yes, challenging groups of people among us, including, for example, severely traumatized children and adolescents.

"I need the kind of rest that mere sleep cannot bring. I need sanctuary, away from all that was, that is familiar. I need a chance to find the shards of who I was and begin to remake or recreate myself. I have long been suffering from secondary trauma, for years, without tending to my own needs. The abuse from this relationship finally, finally broke me."

Thank you for your support.