The intention of this community is to support members of the EDS and co-occuring disorders community with facilitated support groups, forums, and skill share events/support groups. I know personally how hard it is to stay in community with this illness and the co+. How hard it is to find the right doctors, resources, and guidance for handling the medical system. That is why I am curating a supportive space that leads to high value community connections, friendships that are based in care, kindness, and compassion, and also reduces social media distractions/ads/harm/doomscrolling. A space where people can spend real time together and be less isolated in their illness, or gather support in forums. I am honored to bring you access to resources, caring support and guidance, ways to connect more deeply with others in community with better safety nets than found in typical social media support groups. As a leader, it is my job to commit to specific core values and continually demonstrate them to the group and in our programming. I have highlighted those values here and will continue to echo them in every zoom call, every forum, etc. Because I am sick, the idea of founding a non-profit felt overwhelming at this time (plus, I need a second person local to me to help me run that). This platform, however, felt very accessible to me. It cuts out the harm of social media like IG and Facebook, and I believe the value and community will far outweigh small membership fees that help me maintain this platform for you. (Keeping in mind that I invest time, resources, and also pay to keep this platform running monthly for you). This community recognizes that strength comes from diversity, we celebrate visible and invisible qualities that make each person unique, including race, gender, age, sexuality, ability, religion, national origin, gender identity, and other identities. Everyone belongs, always. A little bit about M.C. Franzese: Catherine "M.C." Franzese is a young woman living in the southern United States. She loves animals and animal assisted therapies, something she focused heavily on during college studies in Psychology. In addition to dealing with hEDS, POTS, Dystonia, and Myoclonic jerking with seizures, she had a long path to diagnosis (partially due to losing family medical history to adoption). I also lead a support group for a non-profit for people who have DNA-discoveries. In 2017, I used Ancestry DNA and found some of my biological family and began writing about my adoption, health, and subsequent biological reunion and it's impact. I have had personal service dogs in addition to raising them for other disabled and chronically ill people. I have been working at building a therapy dog program for firefighters for some time and am waiting on finishing certifications currently. I have a black cat named Salem, who I am sure you will see in a zoom call sometime! M.C. loves art, music, and has recently starting making things with oven-bake clay.