On Finding Survivor Community

Dear Younger Self,

You carry a secret that sometimes feels made up because no one in your reality knows or understands what you’ve been through. You may start to have fragmented memories arise, and begin to disclose here and there in a somewhat random fashion. I wish you could have been part of a group immediately-before it happened. During it. After it. Oh my, I am full of emotion just imagining the empowerment and safety and freedom of suffering such groups may have offered you. I would love to focus on all the types of groups that may have helped PREVENT this from ever happening, but i’ll stay with the prompt and assure you that once you learn about a survivor writing group you will find the funds for it, and you won’t miss a single meeting despite the 1.5 drive to gather with a group of notably older women than you to experience the medicine of being in a group with others who have had similar experiences. “You can’t be what you don’t see.” I met creative, talented, whole, and healthy mentors who were on their own healing journey’s. Through your 20s you attended some drop-in groups and found comfort and company and made some meaningful connections. At times, you felt depressed and saddened by the large numbers of us piling into the Cambridge Women Center (now Birch House). Still, the desire to connect and heal and not be alone with this stays with me most of all. I feel so grateful for the opportunity to write with survivors-to be known by them, and to know them fully in a way that we so rarely get in life. There are signficant differences in therapy groups, support groups, discussion groups, peer-led groups- but as long as there are guidelines to keep us safe, to me, it’s all about CONNECTION. Feeling understood. It’s an odd thing to really never know the details of folks’ traumas but to develop a deep respect and trust in their experience. I feel sadness as I end this because I had the great privilege of taking of a mixed gender trauma process group for several years-it was challenging, but the most rewarding work. Deep down I wanted to be a member of the group but it’s taken me so many years to feel deserving of my own healing.