Dear Jessamyn

The queer, authentic, decolonizing, mental/ emotional-health content I’ve always wanted. Jessamyn has been a fitness/ spiritual guide for me for much of my twents, through many body changes and queer relationships/ situationships, and now that I'm in my thirts, I am so thankful that Jessamyn and ashe are sharing so much of their perspectives and journeys with the internet. This show really helped me realize that I want to be more intentional about building my own queer community, and it is incredibly affirming and validating to hear that the things I’ve struggled with and thought about are normal and okay. I am astounded by the vulnerability, appreciate the openness, and respect all that they have shared and are willing to share.

As a queer nurse practitioner who happens to work at Planned Parenthood in NC(I also used to work at the Durham County Health Department in the family planning clinic and primary care at the Durham County Jail. All that to sat, I loved this week’s episode of your podcast. You gave very similar advice I give to my patients, especially how you framed consent. I think communication during sex is super sexy, especially when a partner is asking for consent. I find that folx just need to practice doing that. Also, it is helpful to normalize knowing STI status so folx will get at least annual testing if they are not in a monogamous relationship. You made me sooo happy listening to all this week’s advice! I’m a long time listener and long time fan of y’all’s body positivity and your advocacy with weed. I’m super passionate about changing stigmas and laws so we can take the shame away from those who find they have addiction problems. I personally am an alcoholic as well as self- identified lesbian (gold 🌟 star) so I know understand the internalized shame and also know the reality of the medical community’s ignorance to addiction. Again, all that to say, I appreciate y’all! You don’t need my permission but keep doing you boo! 😉🤣🌈🙌🏼💕🌟 I feel like we’re all fighting the great resistance against racism and patriarchy right now! So carry on my friends… Jen Brevity and typos courtesy of my iPhone

Overall a fun podcast. Such nice chemistry between Jessamyn & ashe! The Q&A format is great too. I have a comment about the narcissism episode - I came out of a 2.5 year emotionally & psychologically abusive relationship with a covert narcissist several years ago. It was a horrific break up and catapulted me into learning A LOT about pathological narcissism. It’s true that everyone has a certain amount of undigested narcissism from developmental periods that may have gone sideways (the Diamond Approach teachings have a lot to say on this that I’ve found super useful). This run of the mill, everyday narcissism is NOT the same as people who suffer from pathological narcissism or NPD. As someone who’s recovered from this kind of abuse, I think telling someone to just move on and stop assessing future partners for narcissistic traits is bad advice at best and potentially dangerous at worst. From my own experience & everything that I’ve learned, folks who end up in toxic relationships with narcissists tend to be predisposed to relationships (romantic and platonic) where their inner light/naïveté/willingness to see the best in others is exploited on behalf of the narcissists extremely selfish interests. I think that a super, super important part of recovery from narcissistic abuse is identifying the traits that are endemic to narcissistic behavior and learning to identify those traits in future potential partners and/or friends. If you don’t take the time to think through your experience and start applying it to other people, you are more likely to end up in a similar situation. The relationship I had with my covert narcissist has turned out to be one of the most important relationships of my life, because it forced me to see how I’d been allowing others to violate my boundaries for my entire life. Not only was I allowing boundary violations, I was inviting them by refusing to prioritize my own basic needs (care, respect, safe connection). My experience with this narcissist led me to reevaluate EVERY relationship in my entire life and to permanently change my criteria moving forward. I really think that learning to apply this information to future relationships is so important for growth and healing. Encouraging victims of narcissistic abuse to move on prematurely runs the risk of disconnecting them from the new knowing that processing that abuse could make possible. It was YEARS after the relationship ended before even some of my closest friends and family fully believed me and my story about what had happened, because my partner was so good at keeping big parts of the abuse private. The last thing I would ever want a narcissistic abuse survivor to hear is that they should refrain from applying their experience to future situations. For me, my ability to suss out and evade narcissists/energy vampires is a true gift that I wouldn’t trade, even though it was gained through the worst pain and psychological torture of my life. Thank you for listening <3

Love Ashe and Jessamyn and the way they let us see both the good and the bad of their life. I often feel so seen and understood when listening to them.