Content note; it gets deep
Welcome to Tending – an attempt, an experiment, a journey. A set of questions about how on earth we care for each other better, how we hold the “hard” parts, how we practically nourish one another amidst it all.
Thanks for joining me on this exploration. I reckon we already know each other in some form, as this website so far has mostly been shared between pals and not very far. But in case we don’t, I’m Kaan, a little dyke and dreamer living in mid-Wales with my cats Mandy and Ro. I like board games and building things with my hands and roller skating and having baths, and honestly a lot more things because I have a new hobby about every two weeks. I’ve been trying, imperfectly and often nervously, to work out how we do care better in communities, guided by beautiful abolitionists, weavers, teachers, those many of us turn to as leaders, and also my pals, elders and youngers, folks I am blessed to do life with (and sometimes folks I am stressed to do life with😆).
What is Tending?
Tending grew, like many new things, from the dirt and from the cracks in my life. On the surface, it has brewed this past year, as I finally left the charity sector after working in it almost consistently since the age of 17. I was burnt out, again. I was recovering from a suicide attempt and no workplace had the resource to deal with that. I was writing anti-carceral safeguarding policies. I was using myself as a case study, like I often do. I was grappling with purpose and meaning and the fact that we are all too scared to move towards the darkest bits of experiencing this world. In these small circles we move in, I’ve noticed there is increasing ease in talking about depression and anxiety, or jokingly listing our neurotypes, or acknowledging that we are generally not okay. But there are still some things it feels too painful, too overwhelming, to sit with – often the things that need sitting with most.
I left the charity sector broken and also hopeful – maybe I could carry on this work of writing / supporting small orgs to write anti-carceral safeguarding policies. Maybe I could support folks with action around this – real, tangible, practical changes they could make in their workplaces to make this work thing, that we unfortunately have to do, more equipped for the roughest stuff that many people face. Logically, I know that many people would have struggled reintegrating back into capitalism and work after a suicide attempt. And there is no clear path for survivors or supportive, caring colleagues. I got curious about helping other orgs with my learnings. But then I backtracked – I really don’t think helping charities do this work is where my heart is at. I think I was being reactive because of how hurt I was. And also, sadly, in a quest to work out how on earth I could pay / resource myself to do this work, it seemed like a good option.
But really, I want to spread this work further in communities, at pot-lucks and activist meetings and in libraries and at community centres. I know there are many of us on the ground, surviving, threading our routes forward, clinging tightly onto each other, every day. We are so full of wisdom. And I want us to connect and share it and grow it together.
Tending grew, like many new things, from the dirt and from the cracks in my life. On the surface, it has brewed this past year, as I finally left the charity sector. But in reality it started before that – first when I was a child, and I began self-harming, and I felt completely isolated. Then as a teenager, when my parents and my grandparents and the teachers and the psychiatrists and the psychologists and the hospitals and the “safeguarders” didn’t know how to face me. As a teenager, when my campaigning family stepped in and held me – adults who took me into their arms, imperfectly and beautifully. As a teenager, meeting other trans kids, and sitting with them through panic attacks, or in the aftermath of harming themselves, or when they didn’t want to be alive anymore. When the first person I knew ended her life, and I felt like I had failed. When I dropped out of college because I couldn’t understand why grades were important amidst all this.
It’s twelve years later, and I’m still a messy, confused teenager in many ways – grieving my friends, not having the answers, knowing there aren’t really any clear, straightforward answers. And yet, I know I’m more knowledgeable, more able, more willing to move towards the hardest things. I’ve been practising for a while now, I’ve been trying and learning.
I do have more tools and resources – I worked many years on a helpline, as a domestic abuse support worker in a hospital, as a facilitator for campaigners and with young people. I’ve taken more mental health support and wellbeing courses than I can remember. Some of the richest being “Transformative mental health” from IDHA, “Centred accountability” from Daria at Accountability Mapping and recent ongoing training with NEUROMANCERS’ Peer Solidarity Certificate Programme (I also wrote/delivered the module on crisis response). Just as importantly and essentially as any training or frontline role, I am doing my best to do this in community. What started as peer support between teens who knew the system was working actively against us has turned into mine and my loved ones’ life work – the “and” in fuck the system. Because it’s not enough to simply fuck the system. Some of the most gorgeous, wonderful abolitionists I know still call mental health crisis support on their pals. Why? Because we don’t know how not to – we don’t know how to hold each other, we panic, we fear, we freeze, we don’t trust ourselves to take care of one another. Sometimes we don’t have the capacity, or we feel too alone, unsupported, like the path is unclear, like we will fuck up.
If you have ever not wanted to call the crisis team, I hope Tending can be for you. If you are working out how to practically, realistically, build your tools and capacity for community care, I hope Tending can be for you. If you are hopeful, I hope Tending can be for you. If you are scared, I hope it can be for you too.
What form Tending takes is still unclear. But I’ve got ideas brewing and I’d like to hear from you too. And I am also going to share some bits with you soon about writing I’m doing around suicidality, and a festival of grief in June.
With great love to those who guide and teach me and nourish and resource me – my cat companions, Mandy and Ro, my pals, my galaxies – Elena, Jilly, Ruth, Kit, Roses, Scuti, Hannah, Deb, Sarah, Ali, Noura, Jenni, Sian, Jess… and many more beloveds – my gorgeous partner Oana, my Auntie Raggi, my NMP3 family, my sister Leyla, my mum for breaking a cycle and showing me transformative justice in action, and to you, dear person reading this, for your curiosity, for wanting to make a bit more sense of these things too, for caring.
Love to you. Please write me, if you like. I’m not a swift responder, but I want to hear from you, I want to do this alongside you, and I will get back to you on the queer timeline (let’s be slow with one another)
Görüşürüz,
Kaan xxx
Leave a Reply