Mad Crip doula: offering holistic and emotional spiritual bodymind care, mixed with practical and crisis support (and plant medicine). moving from a liberation-centered and anti-oppressive lens. a transition doula with skills in: abortion, death, grief, Madness, and Disability.

 As a Mad Crip doula, I am a community care worker who provides continuous physical, emotional, spiritual, and informational support to a person before, during and after experiences of grief, psychiatric or medical crises, emotional/spiritual distress, altered states, suicidality, Disability, pregnancy, parenting (and more) to help my clients and community members meet their needs in a healing, just, and transformative way.  We move together. 

abolitionist peer support & intuitive healing sessions

Moving from an anti-carceral, abolitionist lens. Offerings include:

  • Access to text, voice note, and email based ongoing support 

  • Listening and witnessing sessions: More traditional peer counseling spaces to share about anything you are looking to connect about

  • Task-oriented support sessions: Examples include — prioritizing what needs to happen in your life, clarity and organization; navigating insurance and logistical barriers to care; finding other healers and providers; organizing bill paying schedules, etc.

  • Customized resources and tools

  • Development/revising of a crisis and safety plan and Psychiatric Advance Directive

  • Consistent check in’s via text, email, or voice note 

  • Opportunity to explore herbal medicine remedies

  • Practicing: somatic exercises; boundary setting exercises; roleplaying difficult conversations and scenarios

  • Rapid crisis response support

Some topics we can explore: 

  • Medical gaslighting and advocacy relating to doctors and medical spaces; processing medical or psychiatric trauma

  • Coming into Disability, madness, mental illness, or neurodivergence for the first time, late in life, etc. 

  • Navigated how internalized oppression shows up in our bodyminds and lives

  • Discussing and moving through layers of intergenerational trauma, grief, and ancestral healing

  • Finding new frameworks and ways of understanding our labels, identities, and experiences 

  • Non-clinical frameworks for navigating mental distress 

  • Spiritual crises and emergencies 

  • Altered states and psychosis 

  • Self-injury

  • Surviving suicide attempts, chronic suicide ideation 

  • Healing plans, goals, and visions 

  • Coming into or moving away from a diagnosis 

  • Birth and Disability, parenting and Disability 

  • Harm and trauma experienced within the mental health system 

  • Preparing for doctor's appointments 

  • Support for navigating interpersonal challenges related to Disability 

  • Building access intimacy in relationships

other work:

  • Grief Support Sessions

  • Care Team, Parent, or Caregiver Support Sessions: Peer counseling and consult sessions for folks who are supporting a person in psychiatric, spiritual, or emotional distress. This could be a friend, community members, housemates, etc. Examples include: building complex crisis + safety plans; building + strengthening your pod; learning critical de-escalation + emotional support skills; boundary setting exercises; role-play scenarios. I also offer mediation and family or community co-processing circles.

  • Preparatory crisis work (with client): Building complex Crisis + Safety Plans (incl. Psychiatric Advance Directives); Building + Strengthening your Pod; Boundary Setting Exercises; Herbal medicine making

  • In-Crisis Support: Referring to you complex crisis plans, ensuring needs are being met, and communicating those needs with folks around who are supporting/have consent; Meal preparation and delivery; Cleaning your spaces; Shift watch (long hours, days); Engaging in supportive ritual, communal breathwork, somatic body work; Engaging in creative outlets with you (painting, singing, writing); Herbal medicine making. For family members, care team, or partner(s) during crisis: I offer meal preparation and delivery, shift watch (so you can get rest, call folks, etc.); Childcare; Pet sitting; 1-1 group or peer counseling sessions; Mediation; and co-processing circles; Provide reflective journals and exercises. More information about urgent crisis support below.

  • Support for individuals incarcerated in psychiatric facilities: Daily visits, phone calls, letter writing; Care packages delivered; Advocacy + Resources Coordination; Medical Proxy. More information about urgent crisis support below.

Leah Lakshmi Piepazna-Samarasinha, ‘The Future Is Disabled’ Imagines a World Oriented Around Care and Safety

crip doula: a term created by disability justice organizer Stacey Park Milbern to describe the ways disabled people support/mentor newly disabled people in learning disabled skills (how to live on very low spoons, drive a wheelchair, have sex/redefine sexuality, etc.) A doula supports someone doing the work of childbirth; a crip doula is a dis- abled person supporting another disabled person as they do the work of becoming disabled, or differently disabled, of dreaming a new dis- abled life/world into being.

q+a

  • APS is an approach to peer support that I developed through Project LETS. I see peer support as an abolitionist offering that is rooted in histories of psychiatric oppression and resistance, and seeks to offer genuine healing options without cages, confinement, control, and coercion.

    I believe that much of what we call mental health crises stem from a lack of meaningful ways to be in relationships, achieve balance, get our needs met and feel safe in a society dominated by chronic and ongoing oppression, trauma, harm, and violence. I prioritize material and practical support, and have a willingness to show up in multiple different and creative ways that are self-directed by people themselves.

    I de-center an inherently biological view of Madness and Disability, and I do not see the mental health or medical system, or even peer support, as the only opportunities for healing.

    I move (far) away from a clinical risk assessment model that focuses on liability and teaches us that we can detect, predict, and prevent all "bad" outcomes. I do not work with the police, and I do not rely on any forms of state intervention as options.

  • I have a wide range of lived experience, training, and embodied knowledge that I weave together in my doula, peer support, and healing work. I am a multiply Disabled, Mad, and neurodivergent care worker, organizer, and advocate who has spent most of their life navigating medical and psychiatric systems (and supporting others through it, as well). I am deeply informed by the ethics, values, and practices of Disability Justice, Mad Liberation, and the psychiatric survivor movement.

    My identity and healing work: As a white, queer and non-binary person raised in a multi-ethnic Ashkenazi Jewish and Puerto Rican household (impacted by cultural assimilation and cultural loss), it has taken years of learning and unlearning to begin to access the wisdom of my ancestors– who knew how to heal, care, and practice interdependence radically, without borders – in ways that were in relationship with the land, with community. Knowledge that has been intentionally buried (through genocide, shame, and trying to ride the coat tails of whiteness) in recent generations. I have a set of deep spiritual and Contemplative practices I have been engaging with for nearly a decade– including somatic bodywork, embodiment movement, breathwork, and singing.

    Professional training: I have trained as a death doula with I-NELDA and A Sacred Passing. I have trained as a full-spectrum birth doula with Birthing Advocacy Doula Trainings (BADT). I am also trained in Intentional Peer Support, and many different models and approaches to peer support work. To further support my learning, I have taken courses such as Jewish Protection Magic, Ruach Fundamentals, Caribbean Herbalism, Puerto Rican plant medicine, and more.

    Mentorship-based training: I have lived and trained with elder inyangas of the Nguni lineage(s) in Swaziland and South Africa for a collective time of over 2 years. I was initiated as a fully graduated inyanga into the lineage of Kuza Linegza Emzini Wamadoda – under the guidance of Babe Dabulamandzi and Gogo Ndlondlo in Emjindini, South Africa. I am grateful to have first arrived as a patient, and to have had the honor and privilege of accessing lifesaving medicine, wisdom, and healing when doctors in the United States called me crazy and left me for dead.

  • I believe in the rights, dignity, and humanity of every person experiencing emotional, psychiatric, or spiritual distress. I also know that under the constraints of our current systems, it is often very difficult to practice our values and keep people in community.

    I have extensive experience with supporting family members & peers when a loved one is involuntarily hospitalized, committed or incarcerated in a psychiatric facility and supporting individuals directly. Some examples include:

    • Explaining hospital processes and protocol

    • Facilitating mediation sessions

    • Informing peers & family/friends of your rights

    • Helping you get connected to community advocates, Disability Protection Agencies, and legal resources as needed

  • All of my work moves on a sliding scale depending on your access to financial resources. There are different types and levels of support available. Please contact me directly for more information on cost.

work with me