I've kept out of this until now, and usually I don't read journal entries (just a thing of mine)
I've been mildly concerned about this situation, but don't know how to help. This is such an intense situation, a forum for people recovering from developmental trauma. We talk about our most tender feelings, about our pain, humiliation, shame, the experience of powerlessness and abuse, and all the fallout from that. We also talk about sex, love, hate and religion - in fact, we talk about all the things most people avoid discussing other than with their most intimate friends and then just occasionally because they are potentially incendiary. We do it because we have to, because we are determined to heal, because we are gutsy and strong despite everything that has happened to us.
I've often thought moderation is a huge ask, an enormous responsibility. I know I need to get away quite regularly because I come to feel overwhelmed, and I'm very glad it isn't my responsibility to oversee the discussions, especially for such long shifts. I feel for and appreciate the three of you who do. Do we need to lighten the load somehow?
Dutch Uncle, I think I can appreciate that you might feel betrayed and hurt as well as angry. You do a stressful job with long hours. I appreciate you. Equally, I think it is important that we are able to talk to each other with authenticity. Fawning is a problem that I'm trying hard to overcome, but it is a judgement call about how to approach difficult feelings about things others have said and done. Yet if we don't bring all of ourselves here (as respectfully as we are able), just the nice bits, how can we trust each other? I know if there was nothing but warm fuzzies to anything anyone ever said, I wouldn't like it. It would be one big fawn fest and I'd start to have that sickly feeling of being patronised by others, and repressed, myself.
I don't want anyone to leave. I hope Meursualt will return, though I have no idea why he went. I don't know what the answer is, but we are all going to get things wrong now and then, so we have to be patient and forgiving. I can't see any way around that.
