Thank you for visiting my campaign.

I haven't had a good night's sleep and felt safe in more than five years. My PTSD is so severe that when the furnace turns on I have terrifying flashbacks. The sound of trucks driving on the road is enough to set off a panic attack. My symptoms have become debilitating.

This campaign is to raise money to pay for specialized therapy over the next six months. I need to raise about $6000 to cover monthly sessions and integration.  Please read the rest of my story to get a feel for what has happened and what I am doing to heal this.

What seems like an eternity ago I was a vibrant, healthy, active member of our local community. I was pursuing a career as a Yoga Teacher, assisting with web pages for local artisans, volunteering at the Nelson Women's Center, advocating for animal rights and protection of vital ecosystems, developing food security, and studying towards becoming a Holistic Health Practitioner to help others heal.

After experiencing and witnessing a series of traumatic events resulting in long-term injuries, a very intense viral illness, and a prolonged abusive situation, my health began to deteriorate resulting in a cascade of health issues such as Stage II HPA axis dysfunction and Limbic system disorder. These conditions have drastically impacted every aspect of my life making it very difficult to function and lead a normal life. Perhaps the biggest challenge is how invisible these conditions may appear.

I spent years on the front lines as a land defender in remote areas of the Kootenays during a time before Fairy Creek and when public awareness and support was limited. I never imagined the level of violence and threats to my life that would follow including over 67 threats of harm on social media, being swurved at and tailgated on the highway by local logging trucks, being followed and surrounded by industry workers who would throw beer cans at me, find our where I lived and drive by my home while messaging me that they knew I was home, telling me that if they ever found me on the back roads that things would not end well and finally having my drink spiked while attending a live music event, waking up having been sexually assaulted with a note stating “That’s what you get tree hugging hippy”.

I spiraled down into fear and shame, increasingly afraid to go anywhere in public or even hiking and camping which once was my passion. Panic attacks and nightmares made it impossible for me to sleep and hold full time employment any longer so I rented a spare room out in my home to make ends meet. This arrangement quickly became a woman’s worse nightmare as this male tenant began to behave very strange, pacing outside my bedroom all hours of the night and expressing fits of anger when I did not respond to his compliments. One day he blocked the doorway and would not allow me to leave my home until I took my shirt off. I cooperated as I had learned to do in women’s defense courses. At the soonest opportunity, I escaped and stayed in my vehicle at a campsite for a number of weeks until finally RCMP could remove him from my home. This man ended up in the Trail Daily Psychiatric ward, from which he later escaped and was found once again behind my home.

I did not realize how this had impacted my life until a later date when I too ended up in the Trail Daily Psychiatric Ward and diagnosed with PTSD and severe Anxiety Disorder. I was sent home and put on an array of antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications, all of which increased my thoughts of suicide and did not help at all with my symptoms.

During this vulnerable time a local man reached out to me claiming to be a Healer and said he could help me with my trauma. We met and from that point I became swept up in the “charm” of this caring man who claimed he had fallen in love with me. I felt safe for the first time in a long time and before I knew it, he became my world and kept me very engaged with his world. I forgot my grief and trauma and also somehow lost touch with all my friends and family. Drifting with this “Healer” man who appeared to have all the answers and protected me. I did not see how isolated he had me until he began to control every aspect of my life, including my employment and social interactions. My friends said I had become unrecognizable.

He introduced me to a circle of people and one day one of those people contacted me to tell me this man had quite a reputation of targeting women who where on healing journeys and that, during the times he told me he was away for work, he was actually with other women. More stories came out which revealed that 2 of the five women he was involved in had taken their own lives to suicide. I knew I had to get out of this situation and got up the courage to break it off with this person, who by this point was also my employer. He became enraged and I lost my entire income overnight.

Spiritually and financially broke, isolated, and ashamed I slipped into alcohol addiction and self destruction. Afraid to tell friends and family of what had occurred as I knew this person had far-reaching influence in my community and had already built his defense that I was a mentally unstable person not to be taken seriously. I sought professional counseling where I shared that I would hear his voice still telling me to do things, this almost lead to a misdiagnosis of schizophrenia for hearing voices, when I was merely referring to recalling his voice and the manipulative things he would say to me. This led me to withdraw further from seeking out professional help as I began to see how people could become misdiagnosed in therapy that was not trauma informed.

At this point, as my health was further declining and I was down to 95 lbs, I sold off most of my belongings and managed to raise enough money to go to South America to seek out plant medicines to be cured psychologically, spiritually, and physically. After a 20 day intense plant medicine Dieta all my symptoms were gone, I was sleeping again, and I had put all my weight back on. It was nothing short of a miracle. I returned to Canada full of renewed life and resumed my studies in yoga, meditation, holistic health, and permaculture. I even began spending time with a very nice man who became my best friend.

Overtime, my former partner, the self-proclaimed Healer, got wind of my involvement with this wonderful man and began harassing him. My friend assured me he could handle it and said there was nothing to worry about. As more time passed he became more and more concerned about the level of harassment to the point he was not longer sleeping well and felt is wasn’t safe for me to come over. One day he called me and said he was exhausted from not being able to sleep and asked if I could bring him some sleeping medication. It took me some time, but I made my way to his place, I’ll never forget the dark clouds in the sky and this knot in my stomach. When I approached his home I saw a vehicle I did not recognize outside his home and something in me told me not to enter. So I drove up the street and called..and called..no answer which was very unlike him. I felt paralyzed and sat there well into the night unable to do anything as my anxiety took over. One last call and then I drove home and laid awake all night. The next day I got a call from his phone, it wasn’t him, it was his best friend's girlfriend on the other end...she had called the last number on his phone...I instantly knew something was terribly wrong..he had been found dead in his living room. I went completely numb and my world went black..I don’t remember the following days. At his funeral the self-proclaimed Healer approached me and said, “shouldn't have fallen in love with a junkie”. He was not a junkie, he was a brilliant kind man loved by his entire community. There was no investigation of his death and it was written off by authorities as a suicide.

The grief was unbearable and the guilt I carried at the thought that I could have done something, that I should have had the courage to go into his home that night. Tortured by the “what if” questions and recollections of the sound of desperation in his voice in that last call as he asked for help haunted me and sent me once again spiraling into addictions, self-isolation, and reckless anger. I pushed all my friends away from me, I trusted no one, not law enforcement, not mental health workers, and not even healers or doctors.

Feeling I had to get away and head deeper into isolation, I gave up my home in Nelson, BC and headed out to a cabin on a land Cooperative in the remote mountains of Slocan Valley and hid. I did this to keep myself safe and away from addictions that I knew would take my life someday if I continued. For a while the quiet setting helped, yet my health still continued to decline from Stage I HPA Axis Dysfunction to Stage II HPA Axis Dysfunction, exhaustion, anxiety, cognitive issues, and increasing social anxiety. I normalized my life to being reduced to my immediate surroundings and part of an isolated land cooperative. Convincing myself that over time I would get better and be able to function in the greater community once again someday.

I joined this Land Cooperative and considered it one of my best achievements in life for now I finally had a home in a peaceful setting submerged in nature. Once joined I was allowed to attend monthly meetings. I felt a sense of belonging and hope for the future. From the beginning when I attended these meetings I witnessed members being psychologically, emotionally, and verbally abused at every single meeting repeatedly by two members. My already compromised nervous system sat in shock each time, frozen with anxiety, feeling helpless. I stuck it out as I really got along with the others and loved my little home, working in the gardens, and having relations with the wildlife.

I gained enough strength to do activism again and joined a civil action to protect the Old Growth in Argenta, BC in spring of 2022 as it was an area I was very fond of and knew was ecologically valuable. I knew industry would come for that area someday and felt I still had it in me to take a stand. The experience during that action was invaluable and reminded me what it was like to be around people who treated one another with respect and conducted themselves in a non-violent manner, unlike what I had come to normalize in my life. As quick as that action started by community members, it ended in a violent militarized RCMP raid where 17 people, including myself were unlawfully and violently arrested. It was by far the most bizarre act of law enforcement misconduct I have ever witnessed and it was extremely traumatizing to see so many local people I care so deeply, be mishandled and dehumanized. All of our belongings were bulldozed and thrown in the dump.

I returned home after this incident barely able to maintain my own life as a homesteader trying to establish food security for myself and others. My health further declined to the point where noises and vibrations became intolerable, horrific flashbacks, inability to focus, and full body tremors. But there was no way I was going to seek out a therapist for fear of being misdiagnosed with a mental illness and put on harmful medication. I was reluctant to talk to family about it as I felt I was to blame for participating in activism knowing I was still dealing with PTSD.

I tried to move forward with life by resuming attending monthly meetings at the land cooperative I was now apart of. Each meeting was filled with demeaning human rights violations of psychological, emotional, and verbal abuse of my neighbors by the same two members. How could it be that even my home life was filled with such abuse? Where else was there to go? I sought out legal advice on behalf of my neighbors and presented notices to the abusive members which were disregarded and I was told I had no right to enforce basic human rights upon them. One of the members then threatened to shoot my dog. So in the dead of winter of 2022 I left my home in the mountains to seek safety with family. My symptoms got much worse to the point I was afraid to go out in public, gripping anxiety, severe insomnia, and complete intolerance to any sounds. I locked myself in a room, boarded up the windows from any light, and became bed ridden unable to function at all.

My thoughts became very dark. I lost my will to live and the thoughts of suicide were relentless. Any future dreams and aspirations became out of reach. The constant state of fear had impacted my entire nervous system and I was shaking all the time. Harmful sleeping medications were the only relief for any amount of sleep. My friends and family felt further hopeless in what to do to help me. I also felt completely hopeless and could see no way out. I desperately wanted to end my own life and not feel anymore.

I remembered how years back my pain specialist had recommended me to Psychedelic Assisted Therapy treatments as it was determined years ago through specialized medical testing that I was resistant to conventional medicines such as antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications. These treatments were always too far out of reach financially for me especially as I was not able to work due to my ever-declining condition.

On March 15, 2023 I received my first treatment of Psychedelic Assisted Therapy in the comfort of my families home where I felt safe and for the first time in over half a decade, I felt profound relief of all my symptoms after only one session. I could not believe it and cried tears of joy for days after. Hope is returning, a will to live is returning, I can finally see a way out of the grief and trauma.

This one session gave me the strength and courage to report my neighbor for the threats and illegal possession of firearms. After which I received further threats that I had “betrayed” them and that this betrayal would spread far and wide throughout my greater community and I would become known as “untrustworthy” for reporting this. Although my nervous system was and is still not able to handle this level of abuse, this one session allowed me to see the bigger picture and that I was not trapped in this trauma response mode, with further treatments and proper therapy I can recover and lead a normal life again.

I see there is still a long road ahead and that it won't be easy. Reaching out for help has not been easy, but I now see that there is a way to recover. Being vulnerable and willing to continue to choose life. I hope through my journey others will also find the courage to ask for help, stand up for what is right, and feel supported in life.

Through this experience I have been blessed to now have a support team to help me on this road to recovery through Psychedelic Assisted Therapy, Somatic Therapy, Trauma-informed therapy, and Dynamic Neural Retraining (DNRS) to retrain the limbic system of my brain and create life long-lasting effects.

Although I am in such a hurry to get my life back, pursue my dreams, and be an active member of my community, I realize this will take time and to be gentle during my recovery process. Also, may my journey through trauma lead me to my purpose in life to help others, which I so deeply desire to do in this lifetime.

Thank you for hearing my story which has been very hard to tell and I am deeply humbled and honored to surrender to the process of reaching out for help and receiving. Every bit of contribution is appreciated as it’s a contribution to my life and for that I am deeply grateful.

Sincerely,

Jessica Ogden