This is going to be a messy thread, but a long overdue one.

I want to share how my relationship to social justice/online communities has shifted in the last few years.

It will probably be incomplete bc I could write a book on this, but... here are some thoughts.

Something you should know about me, as context... I started out as a blogger, but a lot of my readership was built out from previously working as a staff member at Everyday Feminism.

My experiences with EF years ago really informed a lot of my politics, for better and for worse.

At the time that I worked with EF, there was a lot of groundwork being laid out in the digital space. We were looking to help people understand institutions of power, but in a very accessible, digestible way. A lot of what we managed to create, I'm still so proud of.

I can only speak for myself, but after a few years of being enmeshed in that work, I noticed that I was just primed to look for what was problematic. I was primed to look for it because that was my job — this was how we made sure our content was strong and inclusive.

And yes, there is a whole lot out there that is "problematic." It's important to identify it, unpack it, and do better. But it started to impact how I interacted with people online and in the real world, and it started to impact how I felt about, well, being alive, generally.

I started to feel like I just lived in this desolate space of expecting the worst from everything and everyone. And I internalized that, too, and had this constant nagging feeling that I was never doing enough, or I was always just one step away from totally fucking up.

And I became really unforgiving toward other people, too. I wasn't very good at holding space for other people to mess up. I was projecting shit onto other people's tweets and articles that, when I look back, was really just twisting words to confirm how I felt about the world.

I think, from a trauma place, I became hypervigilant. The same way I was hypervigilant in an abusive household, trying to make sure I did everything right, and mentally logging the inconsistencies of people around me, because I would need it to defend myself later. You know?

I don't know how else to explain it, except to say that my depression collided with my values, and suddenly I was spiraling this drain of moralistic perfectionism. Which is easy to do when you're moderating Everyday Feminism's comments, which was an endless sea of semantics.

And ultimately, it wasn't really about social justice anymore. It wasn't about a better world. It wasn't about showing up as the best version of myself, either. It was all of this anxiety and trauma and ego that gave me this false sense that I was doing things "right."

I was back-doored out of Everyday Feminism. Its leadership... was not ethical, to say the least. On my way to the psych hospital, I was called and told that if I stepped down from my role, they would find another role for me that was a "better fit" for where I was emotionally.

I had been having this nervous breakdown and my boss calls me to pressure me into giving up my role. "But you have to decide right now," she told me, "so I can put up the posting for your role while you're away."

I trusted her, which was a mistake. There was no job for me after.

I almost lost everything after that. I couldn't collect unemployment because I'd "stepped down" of my own accord. I almost lost my housing. And I struggled to make sense of how we could talk about social justice, and yet... something this underhanded and callous could happen.

I was lucky to take a job at Upworthy after that. And I had so many reservations about it, because the optimistic tone was so at odds with where I was post-breakdown. But it turned out to be a saving grace, even with all of its own problems.

Every day, I had to write stories about what people were doing right in this world. Every day, I had to humanize people I wouldn't have normally given the time of day to. Every single day, I had to reconsider how I looked at other people and the world around me.

Around the same time, I also started going to an LGBTQ+ only meeting of Alcoholics' Anonymous. And it completely transformed how I thought about social justice, accountability, and community.

It was in that space that I realized we could be fully human, and messy, and messed up — and we could hold that for each other. Instead of "only impact matters," we said "progress over perfection." Instead of "cancelling" each other, we talked about HOW to make amends.

We created a sense of unconditional belonging and learned how to humanize one another, even in someone's most vulnerable, dark, and frightening moment.

I had never been in a space where I felt so safe, unconditionally cared for, and supported. And it felt like such a stark contract to the environment I had been in, where pain and politics became their own kind of capital, just... in a microcosmic way.

There are shitty people who will look at what I'm saying and remark, "See, this is why 'social justice' is a bunch of shit." And that's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is that the people in these communities are just as human and fallible as the rest of us.

I had to do a lot of soul-searching. Because as much time and energy as I invested in educating myself, where were the results? I became really good at talking a good talk. But how was I treating other people? How was I showing up?

Social justice resources gave me the knowledge to recognize power structures and learn to start divesting from them.

But social justice didn't teach me how to treat people in my own community with dignity and care and kindness. All the theory in the world won't teach you that.

Because dignity and care and kindness have to come from a genuinely loving place. And if you become too absorbed in righteousness & despair, and you don't balance it with the healing work that allows you to love on your people and see THAT as truly radical... you lose yourself.

I think after a certain point, I became completely burnt out. I forgot how to be in community with other people in a loving way. I forgot how to be gracious. I forgot how to parse out all the nuances that allow us to see someone fuck up and still see them as human.

And I made a conscious decision that I never wanted to be the kind of person who couldn't still humanize others. Who was too exhausted to be kind anymore. Who was too self-righteous to consider grace. Who thought joy was just naive or frivolous. That's not who I am.

I will mess up. That's the truth of it. But at least now, when I do mess up, I know that I'll have the humility to learn from it, the integrity to own up to it for the right reasons, and the willingness to make amends instead of performative apologies.

And when I find myself spiraling and not able to really see the person in front of me... I'm learning when to step back and work on my own shit. When I'm quick to react, I know how to unravel what I'VE brought to the table.

I share all this because I've had enough conversations offline to know that I'm not the only person who's wrestled with this.

And I want you to know that if the values you expect yourself to have are compromising the values you want to embody, you can press pause.

Because movement burnout, even online (!!), is a thing. Compassion fatigue is a thing. Self-righteousness and ego, even when we feel like we have the best of intentions, are also a thing. Reenacting trauma is a thing.

These. Are. All. Valid. Things. That. Require. INTROSPECTION.

At the end of the day, theory can only take us so far. There's an entire emotional dimension that we still have to connect with and move from. And if you're going through cycles of hypervigilance and dissociation, because the stakes always feel incredibly high, it can fuck w you.

I want you think on this the next time you are going in for the "ratio." The next time you're ready to tear into a trans woman on Twitter. And... the next time you're questioning if it's okay to feel joy, to pause, to breathe, to take care of yourself, to unplug.

If you can't give yourself permission to be human, and you can't extend that to other people, it's a good time to check in with yourself.

There's a time and a place for righteousness and taking folks to task. But righteousness is a season. Rest is one, too.