Asheville was a hub for healing. Now it’s ‘apocalyptic’

Taylor Houchens moved to Asheville about four years ago for healing.
The mountains, the forests, the lakes − they all called to the licensed professional counselor, as they have to countless others who’ve journeyed to the North Carolina city looking to relax, reset and rejuvenate. As a result, Asheville has drawn a thriving local wellness community, one that includes all manner of mental health practitioners, holistic coaches and healers.
Now, in the wake of Hurricane Helene, that community has been devastated − and Houchens says he isn’t sure where to go from here.
“It’s devastation. It’s apocalyptic. It’s tragic,” Houchens, who specializes in trauma therapy, says on a phone call while driving to stay with his family in Savannah, Georgia, after floodwaters threatened his apartment. “Honestly, I’m still in shock. There’s different stages of trauma, and shock is the first one. Even my neighbors, we were kind of talking about it, and she was like, ‘I still need a good cry, but I’m just not there yet.'”
Tucked away in the mountains of North Carolina, Asheville’s wellness roots run deep.
Throughout the early 20th century, the city grew as a hub for people looking to heal from tuberculosis. In addition to its hospitals, Asheville drew TB patients because of its mountainous climate − something locals thought aided in healing.
That same atmosphere continues to attract health and wellness enthusiasts today.
“There’s something in this land,” Houchens says, adding he was also drawn to Asheville for its wide range of healing modalities, including craniosacral, massage and somatic therapies. “There’s something in these mountains. There’s a beauty. There’s a power. There’s an essence that is its own kind of essence. And that can’t be taken away by the hurricane or by the disaster.”
Holistic health coach Brynn Barale moved to the Asheville area in 2006 from Florida. She actually relocated to escape the hurricanes.
But the healing community is what drew her in.
“The wellness community here in Asheville is part of the reason why I’ve lived here so long, to be honest,” she says. “We trust one another, and it’s a very robust wellness community here for the size of the town.”
Settled in Arden, a small town about 10 minutes from the city, Barale says she and her family, which consists of her husband and their two young kids, haven’t been as severely impacted as others. Sure, they lost water and power, but they still have a roof over their heads.
Many of her colleagues can’t say the same.
“Everybody’s closed indefinitely. Some people are like, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to rebuild from this,’ because the floodwater in some of the communities was just so much,” she says on a phone call. “Even if you are able to have a remote business right now, there’s nothing you can do. I mean, this phone call is a miracle to be happening, to be truthful.”
Houchens says he went into flight-or-flight mode as floodwaters rose around his apartment building. His mind immediately went to the worst-case scenario, wondering if he’d be able to swim to safety if it came down to it.
“I panicked,” he says. “Just seeing devastation everywhere and hearing about people who have died and watching, looking at homes that have been flipped over, it’s just too much. We’re not designed to be able to take that kind of disaster in.”
Rachael Chatham, a licensed clinical mental health counselor in Asheville, says the wellness community, like the rest of the city, is still in disarray. Like many others, she’s waiting in dread to see what the aftermath will be once the hurricane damage is fully visible.
“It’s a very disorienting time in Asheville right now,” she says. “There’s so much uncertainty, and there’s no communication. I think they’re really trying to restore that, but without the communication, it’s just so hard to know what’s going on and where can we get help and who needs help and who needs what.”
When natural disasters strike, people’s priorities get streamlined quickly according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, says Stephanie Sarkis, a psychotherapist in Florida, whose neighborhood also flooded because of the hurricane.
First come the essentials: food, water and shelter. Once those get sorted, other needs start to come to the fore, particularly ones stemming from trauma and grief. Sarkis says it can take months − even years − before people who’ve been through a tragedy like a major hurricane can process what they’ve been through.
Is it trauma or something else?How to recognize trauma in others.
Chatham says it’s strange being a therapist living through a traumatic situation. She plans to open office hours for clients who need extra mental health support following the hurricane, but she understands she needs help and support too.
“You have this kind of surreal feeling moving through the world,” she says. “On the plus side, I’ve seen really beautiful extensions of community and people reaching out and trying to help one another, even in their own state of really struggling.”
In the coming weeks and months, mental health treatment and wellness may prove more crucial than ever for the people of Asheville. Houchen says you don’t need to be a licensed professional to help someone struggling either.
“There’s something really simple but powerful around just holding space for someone,” he says. “We don’t have to always provide something or have an intervention or have a therapeutic technique. It’s just as simple as someone being seen and being heard and being listened to. That is sometimes all we need.”
As Asheville recuperates, Barale believes its wellness community will thrive once again. It may take time to rebuild, but they will.
“I see it just getting even stronger,” she says. “I feel like times like these make the community stronger. … I just see it being even more robust.”