Hi everyone.
Just wanted to thank you all for your thoughtful engagement of my last post, and I’m glad we’ve started this conversation.
I know there’s a lot of misunderstanding regarding the context of what I posted, and I’m preparing a follow-up to expound on some things a bit to clarify what I did and did not mean. I don’t want to rush it and do it badly, so please be patient with me and look for it later this week.
In the meantime, I would just like to make it clear that what I wrote was not in a response to either the situation with Stuff Christian Culture Likes and Stephanie Drury this week, nor was it in response to any other recent situation about labeling people as safe or unsafe.
Yesterday’s post had been in my drafts for three weeks before I finally finished it on Tuesday, which was my first day off in a while, and that was why I finished it when I did–because I finally had the time. The initial situation that got me thinking about this subject actually happened among personal friends over a year ago, and that’s not my story to tell. It is, however, indicative of a larger internal conflict within both the Christian feminist/progressive communities and the spiritual abuse survivor communities, and I’m talking about the broader picture and not naming names specifically because this is not about one situation or another, but about this larger trend. And I’m just as much a participant in this as the next blogger, which is also why it was nonspecific.
Furthermore, I am not and never have advocated anyone being obligated to “show grace” to their abusers or feel obligated to educate those who are in privilege or complicit in oppression. My post was not directed at discussing power differentials (I’ll explain this further in my follow-up); I was talking about relationships between “survivors” (which is a poor term, but the most useful here) in which we all have different learning curves, triggers, and relational/personality needs, but the same larger end goal in mind.
Thank you, in advance, for your patience.
Please know that I’m deeply sorry for wording things in a way that wasn’t clear enough on these points to make my readers feel safe.
This blog is to be a safe space first, which is why I care so much about compassion within these communities. I will strive to make my position more clear in future posts in order to cultivate a safe space.
Hännah
Thank you, Hannah. I’m looking forward to the follow-up post.
I am looking forward to seeing what you write next. I love your words.
I look forward to reading it too. It would be better for people to ask you to clarify before blogging about it or making accusations anyway. It’s interesting what you said about abuse survivors losing patience with other abuse survivors. One flaw that I have seen is the assumption that knowledge itself is stable or that there is such a thing as progress. This flaw makes people assume that everyone should be on their page or that others are more prgressive than others. To be sure there is bad ideology, but if we can’t be okay with difference, even in beliefs, then I’m bailing out. I feel like the tenants of a progressive belief system is too great, and that many abuse survivors could never measure up, perhaps myself included.
I think you are incredibly brave.