Cloud Galanes-Rosenbaum recently finished from ACHS with a Bachelor of Science in Integrative Health And Wellness Sciences after a lengthy journey to locate their path and interest. In 2010, Cloud faced a turning factor. Battling with their wellness and uncertain concerning life after high school, they started checking out holistic techniques to health. With nutritional modifications and supplements, Cloud experienced their very first glimpses of healing. However more than simply feeling far better, they were driven by a much deeper curiosity: Why was this working?
“I saw what alternative health care had done for me my whole life,” Cloud shares. “I wanted the understanding and capacity to give that same treatment and education and learning to others like me.”
Finding Support, Function, and an Area to Belong
This wish led Cloud to ACHS, where they found more than just an education; they also located a purpose. Maturing undiagnosed on the autism range and living with epilepsy, anxiety, and stress and anxiety, Cloud had actually long felt misconstrued and disregarded. “I was talked around and labeled ‘learning impaired.’ Eventually, I began to think maybe I was simply damaged,” they said.
That transformed at ACHS. Advisors and professor like Senior Student Expert, Joel Strimling , and Dean of General Education And Learning, Dr. Lori Holdren , recognized their experiences and made sure ADA accommodations were respected and executed. For the first time, Cloud felt seen and supported in their knowing environment. “Getting on the range, I saw what I really did not have maturing, and realized other people required it, also,” they claimed.
Mixing Science, Nature, and Solution
Courses in company and chemistry were transformative. These courses assisted Cloud link the dots in between science, nature, and service. Herbalism courses were especially meaningful, hands-on, and applicable. They brought back warm memories of a childhood years fascination with nature. “I was a geek from birth,” Cloud laughs, remembering primary school lessons on trees and the poetic language of pet collections like the “unkindness of ravens” and “parliament of owls.”
Cloud’s life experiences, consisting of a late medical diagnosis of autism and the return of epilepsy in their adult years, have deeply shaped their understanding of disability. These experiences fuel their compassion and campaigning for. “You can not absolutely understand it unless you’ve lived it,” Cloud states. Their recovery trip also led them to discover ASL and Deaf culture, opening their eyes to various other underrepresented communities. “No person was standing up for me. I had my mom, yet not everybody has that.”
Connection and Advocacy
Cloud is passionate about developing a future where they can supply obtainable info and personalized wellness support for others. “I hope to one day have the ability to offer information and links to product or services that can considerably enhance life for disabled individuals,” they said. “I might even have the ability to aid future customers develop an individualized way of living enhancement plan with one-on-one appointments.”
For Cloud, self-care and community care go hand-in-hand. “In some cases self-care ways asking others for assistance. Sometimes it implies helping another person. It’s all about connections.” Cloud highlights that requesting for aid is a form of stamina, claiming, “If you require help, don’t allow your anxiousness keep you from asking for it. Discovering to self-advocate and ask for lodgings saved my life.”
Living Authentically
Cloud now stays in San Francisco with their family members and retired solution pet dog, Billie, and service dog-in-training, Frankie. They help them handle epilepsy, Asperger’s (ASD- 1, Generalized Stress And Anxiety Disorder (GAD), and persistent clinical depression.
Through their writing and future podcasting and alternative health work, Cloud is developing space for conversations around queerness, disability, and neurodiversity. They find inspiration in numbers like Elliott Web page and Alexandra Payments– individuals who live authentically and support boldly. “I wish to do something where queerness and disability overlap. Where people like me can see hope and make their own impacts.”
Their message to others thinking about this field is easy: “Whether you’re handicapped or otherwise, gain from individuals that’ve lived it. Be compassionate. And truly try to share that you’re attempting to discover.”
Intrigued in finding out more about Integrative Health programs at ACHS? Request information today