Feral Medicine

our collective healing is right there in plain sight - but will you look?

I’ve been thinking about and wanting to write about something for a very long time now.

It’s a combination of my own health journey, what my friends and family have experienced and what I have seen in my work with clients.

In my 20 plus years as a sex therapist, and in my 50+ years as a woman in this country and on this planetI’ve noticed a strange phenomenon, particularly in women.

I’ve noticed a lot of women develop auto immune diseases, chronic illness, chronic pain symptoms when they get into long term relationships.

I don’t think this is a coincidence.

And as a woman myself I know all too well the diffferences in how we are socialized.

Girls are raised to be nice, sugar and spice and all that hoopla that is talked about these days everywhere . over time we have been told to put others before us, take care of others, make ourselves small, both literally and figuratively, etc.

And this concession of who we are, this acquiescing of our voices and identiities over time becomes a way of being which gets ampliified in long term (predominantly heterosexual) relationships.

Women these days of younger generations write songs about it and there’s a lot of discourse around this information but what is not often talked about is how this suppression of self, over time expresses itself through the body.

Auto Immune issues.

Chronic Pain.

Chronic Illness.

And all the things doctors “don’t know” how to treat.

All those mystery ailments.

We hear so much about how womens issues are commonly left out of medical studies.

My friends and clients often remind me of this.

Feeling at a loss with their medical issues.

And, yes, this is also true.

Women are significantly under represented in the medical research.

Yes, but so are queer people and so are people of color and Black people.

So I think when we look at this holistically, we can understand one thing.

Our oppression is directly linked our illness.

Because we see more auto immune diseases and mystery illnesses not just in women

but everywhere.

In every gender, and race.

And our ignorance, and our passivity is our downfall. Because it makes us complicit.

I also believe these chronic issues are best resolved with large doses of feral medicine*:

*I’m gonna get into this now very quickly as a summary, but in future posts, I will be digging deep into these topics.

1. tough-as-nails, steel-ass boundaries. this can look like: cutting out toxic friendships, relationships, people who are sucking our energy, speaking up for oneself, saying “no” more often, not feeling bad for saying “no”, getting rid of the guilt for showing up for yourself, being crystal clear in you words about what you want, demanding better treatment in all of your relationships, etc.

1. a dash of perimenopause and menopause - as women get older they become more feral (yes!) and less likely to stay quiet about the oppression, less likely to put up with the drama, the mansplaining and the man-children (not all men, but let’s be real, many men) and demand better circumstances and relationships.

2. cutting out the other “tools of the oppressor” - things like alcohol and sugar, we already know these are bad for our bodies and our “oppressors” will continue to encourage us to partake in these because they prevent us from seeing the truth, prevent us from moving forward with clarity and keep us stuck in toxic loops. The powers that be know this and whether they just don’t care about us or they do it purposely is still up for debate. But it doesn’t really matter. Knowing that these prevent you from progress and health is all that matters.

And, this includes all the other “tools of the oppressor” too like seed oils (canola oil and soybean oil anyone?), processed foods and yes even fruits and vegetables which are more and more genetically modified which encourage us to buy more, spend more money on “organic“ vegetables, and fruit but are also keeping us ill. And (I might get a lot of flack for this), also the medical community. The medical community is not our friend. The medical community has been telling us lies (and telling its people lies too because many doctors and nurses have also drank the kool-aid). In our society, we defer to the expertise of doctors way too often and more often than not it is keeping us more sick than it is helping us. Again, not all doctors and I will get into this more later here, and in future posts.

1. eating a shit ton of protein from ruminant animals (beef, bison, lamb). They’ve told us a lot of lies about food, beef in particular, shit about saturated fats, heart disease, cholesterol and so on. Guiding us to eat more things like chicken, which is a disgusting animal in my opinion, (more on this later) and fish. But as someone who finally healed my own auto-immune I can tell you much of that is based on bad research. In future post, I’ll be talking more about animals, their digestive systems and how certain meat is actually healing. And in fact, veganism may also be another tool of the oppressor. Diabolical indeed. We know what is bad for us. Listen to your body. It is speaking to you. Question what they told us.

2. finding doctors and practitioners who know what they are doing. Look into Naturopath Doctors, doctors who know about Iodine, doctors who do real lab work. (And yes, you will likely have to pay out of pocket for the better ones because health insurance is a racket and your doctor that takes your health insurance is probably not be doing his or her own research-and could be doing you a HUGE disservice. another topic I will get into more in future posts.)

3. Do YOUR Own Research. At the end of the day it is important that you find out what works for you. Your body. Don’t let the doctors tell you. If you must, get 2nd, 3rd, and 4th opinions. Not all Doctors are created equal. Many doctors have given us shitty, contradictory information. This should be enough to alert you to the possibilities. And I’m here to tell you that finding answers is not that hard.

As a licensed psychotherapist, much of the academic and licensure rhetoric tells me, don’t tell your clients this. It’s not your lane, yadda yadda, but I’m making it my lane.

I’m honestly beyond excited to start offering this more holistic form of sexology coaching (or as I call it feral medicine) to my clients who really want to learn more about the body, to understand how our collective oppression, how we were socialized, how diet culture and food culture and dating culture and couples culture and all the isms can simultaneously have impact on the body and how these oppressive systems are all layered on top of each other, combined, they take us down. And, how things like our anger, our frustrations, our emotions, our stress make it worse, leaving us more disempowered and stuck in toxic cycles. And then even the tools we use to manage those feelings are faulty as well because how many people are just numbing out on crappy food, alcohol or TV at the end of the day?

Exhausted and sick.

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while. To talk about this. It’s actually long over due. As a menopausal woman who has struggled with auto immune issues as well, I feel a responsibility to share what I know And what I have learned in my own journey.

I can’t unsee it. I can’t unlearn it. Now.

So I started this new blog section. It’s called Feral Medicine .

A lot of it is going to sound crazy to a lot of people, because it is contradictory to everything we have learned.

and that is just a chance I have to take, that people are going to think I am Looney Tunes crazy.

But this I know. We need to get a lot more feral if we want to survive this.

We can live better, stronger lives. I want to help you. Let’s do this together.

Age 54. Healing my auto immune naturally after decades of research.

More soon.

Love, Mou ❤️✨💥