Indigenous releasing ceremony treats trauma and mental health issues – CBC
January 06, 2018
“When you survive abuse and you turn to alcohol and drugs and self-harm and sex and all of the vices that we use, you start to carry a shame and you wonder if you even deserve to be healed. Are you worthy? Are you worthy of good things? Are you a good person?”
Mandi Howard says that kind of shame and self-doubt have tormented her throughout her life.
Starting as a child, she survived experiences that deeply marked her psychology.
“The loss of parental figures through death or just leaving. I survived sexual abuse from the time I was very young until my teens. I survived killing myself, multiple, multiple, multiple times of suicide attempts and the self medicating, the self harm… I survived myself.”
