About Invisible Threads
Invisible Threads is media, education and action for systems that serve. It weaves the connection between trauma, mental health and democracy — the forces that shape our personal and political wellbeing — so that we can find new pathways to repair.
Debunking the myth that our problems are caused and solved in isolation, news and analysis from Invisible Threads empowers subscribers to take informed action to build a future rooted in collective wellbeing. This is not a wellness newsletter. Yes, there will be practical applications for daily life, but there are few quick fixes to complex problems. Understanding social ills, and what can heal them, will take radical conversations with experts in psychology, politics, social justice, the arts, economics and beyond. You’ll find that here.
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Who writes Invisible Threads?
I do, Kate Woodsome.
I’m a journalist, filmmaker and media reformer. While at The Washington Post, I was part of team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for our coverage of the January 6 insurrection in 2021. My work has also been recognized with an Edward R. Murrow Award, the Ben Bradlee Award for Courage in Journalism and accolades from the White House News Press Photographers Association. I left The Post in Dec. 2023. Why I left is part of what makes Invisible Threads relevant.
I’ve spent my career navigating the complex information environments of post-war, authoritarian countries and societies where democracy is in decline. I began by doing independent research in Cuba in 2001, and took my first job as a reporter in post-genocide Cambodia in 2002, working for the Voice of America and The Cambodia Daily, a local newspaper ultimately shuttered by the government. I went on to become a radio producer for VOA in Hong Kong before Beijing’s complete takeover of the semi-autonomous region. Returning to the United States in 2008, I ran radio programs for VOA and went on to manage a live television program for Al Jazeera English, producing conversations about under-reported communities typically ignored by mainstream media. With The Washington Post from 2017 to Dec. 2023, I founded a film production unit, pioneered a column on mental health and society, and reported on the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. I’m now a fellow with Georgetown University’s research and curricular design unit, the Red House, and am collaborating with experts in intergenerational trauma to identify what factors perpetuate cycles of harm and what interventions can reorient them into cycles of wellbeing.
Learn more about me, my work and opportunities to work together on my website.
At The Post, I found myself having to dilute complex issues into “three ways to feel better” while colleagues and I lived and worked in a chronic state of burnout, moral injury and varying degrees of trauma. After delving into my own healing following the trauma of the insurrection, and the newsroom’s response to it, I reassessed how I measured success. When we were offered buyouts in Dec. 2023, I raised my hand to go.
I’m determined to do this work differently.
I created Invisible Threads as a platform to educate the public about the systemic drivers of pain, power and joy. Nuanced conversations about the connection between mental health and democracy are generally missing from mainstream media. This is not a hobby. It’s a movement. I believe an educated, empathetic electorate can and will create the conditions for healing and health.
Also, this is personal for me, as it may be for many of you.
Mental illness, trauma and substance abuse shaped generations of my family, and after leaving home as a teen to protect my wellbeing, I wondered about the causes and effects of such tumult for others. The problems may be private, but they rarely remain that way. Since two in three American adults have suffered violence, abuse, racism or another “adverse childhood experience” growing up, and one in six have survived four or more, these personal matters often become public health issues.
Unaddressed childhood trauma increases a person’s risk of becoming withdrawn, aggressive, anxious, depressed or physically sick. It can dent one’s self-esteem, ability to trust or to resolve conflicts.
The personal becomes political.
If the abuse or neglect comes from society or the political system, healing can be even more complicated. I’ve witnessed this in post-revolutionary Nicaragua and Cuba, as well as in Cambodia, where I started my career covering how survivors of genocide and authoritarianism experienced trauma and distrust.
Compassion and curiosity fuel my coverage, from political assassinations in Phnom Penh to pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack in Washington, D.C. I’ve done this work as a journalist for The Cambodia Daily newspaper, a radio reporter and editor for Voice of America, an executive producer at Al Jazeera English television and, most recently, as a columnist and senior producer at The Washington Post.
At Post Opinions, I pioneered a mental health column and led some of the section’s most ambitious visual journalism and storytelling, notably the short documentary “Bring Them Home,” which helped set the news agenda around state hostage-taking. I also produced The Post’s first bilingual short documentary, “Outside the Revolution,” about Abraham Jimenez Enoa, the exiled Cuban journalist.
My columns gave readers new understanding of ADHD, post-partum depression, post-traumatic growth, and the idea that “American teens are unwell because American society is unwell.” Each one shed insight into the deep-rooted causes of mental health problems, and ways to address them.
Now, as the health and safety of journalists are under attack in a shrinking news industry and embattled democracy, I’m taking my own advice — and a new tact — to continue serving the public without sacrificing my own wellbeing or integrity.
Why now
A troubling aspect of covering mental health and democracy is witnessing how they’ve suffered within the current media model. News outlets have killed thousands of jobs in the past few years when we need watchdogs more than ever. Our journalists are burned out, and mismanagement by corporate leadership is only making it worse. The call is coming from inside the house.
I love newsrooms. They deserve our support. Normally, I would buckle down and fight the good fight in the news trenches. But while advocating for healthier, more compassionate policies, communities and cultures, through writing, editing and film, I've recognized I can only be helpful to the public if I'm nourished and hopeful myself.
Now independent, my work has three components. I write Built to Heal, the rare weekly newsletter uncovering the ties between personal and political health. I’m a fellow with Georgetown University’s research and design unit, The Red House, working to transform cycles of intergenerational trauma into cycles of intergenerational wellbeing. And, finally, I’m developing trauma-informed workshops to equip storytellers — and the people they feature — with resilience-building tools to feel safer and more empowered than exploited and depleted.
This deepens work I’ve has pursued for more than two decades — from reporting on an authoritarian regime in post-genocide Cambodia, to the decline of democracy in Hong Kong, to the 2021 U.S. insurrection.
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