Returning a kindness
A Substack to check out
The first time I hung out on a Substack shout-out thread, a writer named Avigayil noticed my post and was very encouraging. She followed me, and I followed her in return, and I hope to read her memoir in publication soon. It’s a story of childhood religious trauma, not for the faint of heart, but keenly observed. She was kind enough to recommend me a couple of weeks back, which felt good.
Then the other day, this post appeared in my inbox:
“Ask—don’t tell,” reads the headline. I couldn’t help but think of my own post from mid-May, which I agonized over writing for several weeks before that:
I so appreciated this short post from Avigayil, which felt in some ways like an addendum or corollary to my previous formulation. If mine says, essentially, “trauma survivors often lash out in the same ways that they were hurt, but can learn how to speak the truth aloud instead of repeating it,” hers reminds us, “but also, please don’t tell a trauma survivor how they feel, or point out how their current actions relate to their pasts. Because dude, they know.”
I’m a bit short on time this week, which was also why I missed posting last week. Next week, I hope to be back to talking deeply about all this stuff. For now, though, please go check out Avigayil’s memoir!