Similar Posts
Sharing – I wrote a memoir about abuse. That doesn’t mean you’re entitled to every detail
Every survivor has the freedom to choose how, when, and in what detail, they want to share their story. You can ask for more, but you also have to respect the survivor’s choice to not answer. They don’t owe you that. The only time it’s really even appropriate to press for details if you’re a criminal prosecutor trying to help the survivor bring the abuser to justice.
Outside of that very specific situation? No, we don’t owe you anything. You can support a survivor without knowing all the details. In fact, respecting their boundaries around what they decide to share, is one great way to support them in their healing. They’ve already had too many people not respect their boundaries.
Sharing – Resiliency: Strong & Broken At The Same Time
I see so many survivors stuck in a black/white perception. You’re either healed, or broken. You are strong and resilient, or you’re weak. You have a mental health problem, or you don’t.
When the truth is so much more complicated than all of that.
Sharing – Toxic Positivity: Harmful or Helpful
It’s the insistence that everyone around you also is positive all the time, demanding “Good Vibes Only” as the article points out, that worries me. Because people in real pain, social issues that cause real harm, etc. are not good vibes. When a team was winning gold medals, no one wanted to do more than focus on that success, and repeated stories of abuse went ignored. Is our constant need for positivity forcing us to ignore racism, homelessness, abuse, and many other social issues that we need to do more than give passing support to on social media?
Maybe most importantly, are there people in our lives right now hurting, who desperately need our support, who we are ignoring because they bring us down?
