It’s time for you to meet my baby! Well, sort of. Getting Good at Running Away is a space of my own, where I get to get loud, and it has been one of the projects most critical to my healing. I started another project though a little over six months ago, and I would like to share it with you here. I founded Whole Damn Survivor Fam, and I want to tell you all about it.
At the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, I began to receive a lot of messages from fellow survivors of sexual violence sharing their struggles in isolation. Isolation is a massive hinderance to the healing journey of every survivor of sexual violence I know, whether that be during crisis, well after crisis, or during a pandemic. I realized that not only could I not be a support system of one to so many, but that I have really never, in my over twelve years as a survivor, encountered a community space for survivors that was not therapy-based. I decided that I wanted to side-step the narrative that we survivors need a licensed clinician present in order to share space. I also wanted to side-step the narrative that all shared space between survivors needs to be therapy-based. I firmly believe that some of my strongest bonds and supports have been born out of sharing and understanding alongside other survivors, how we move through the world. Really what I realized is that community has saved my life time and time again, and survivors deserve community. We deserve to take up space, especially in a safe environment with fellow survivors, and we deserve to be able to show up and actively hold space for other survivors too. We deserve to acknowledge how we move through the world due to trauma and lived experience well after crisis. We deserve support from people who get it, who model well how to show up because they also know what it is like when folks don’t show up for survivors. We deserve Survivor Fam.
Survivor Fam was born on April 20, 2020 as a group of survivors came together to share space and be in community with one another virtually via zoom. From that point on, Survivor Fam has met twice weekly, via zoom, and maintains a support chat available to each member 24/7. Our community has steadily grown in the six months since its founding. We have clear community guidelines, and a clear community intention. We have grown to have community moderators. The forefront pillar of my mission to support all survivors has been adopted and made stronger by every survivor who joins and remains active in showing up for the survivors inside and outside of our community, including themselves. Survivor Fam is a support system by survivors, for survivors, where all survivors are welcome. Not only am I incredibly proud to have founded this space, to fill this need, but I am also overwhelmed with gratitude for the space as a member, and for the human beings I get to learn from and support each day.
The founding of Survivor Fam’s sister community Support Systems Need Support Systems naturally followed its predecessor in May of 2020. It’s clear the amount of work that our hands on support system members put in to supporting us effectively, and in the creation of this space, my intention was a strengthening of support for those people, so they may better support themselves and the survivors in their lives. From its founding on, Support Systems Need Support Systems has met once weekly via zoom and maintains a support chat available to each member 24/7. Support Systems Need Support Systems is intended as a support system to support system members of survivors of sexual violence. Active support system members, including partners, parents, and involved friends, have come together in this space to be in community with one another. This community is shared by support system members and survivors who double as support system members, which again has only strengthened our collective mission of supporting all survivors, by supporting support systems. We have a clear community intention, clear community guidelines, and dedicated community moderators. The goal in this space is for each member to not only hold space for one another, but also for themselves in this and every other facet of their identities. For this community, the name says it all. The people in our lives who actively and consistently show up and do the work for us as survivors need and deserve support systems of their own. I exist in this community not just as a survivor, but as a hands-on support system member to multiple survivors in my life. I cannot begin to express how badly I needed this space, to be able to take up space in this way, and how thankful I am for the people I get to be in community with thanks to its existence.
So, there’s my baby, Whole Damn Survivor Fam. Both Survivor Fam and Support Systems Need Support Systems make it up. Each space with its separate intentions, guidelines, moderators, communities, all working to show up and support all survivors. These communities and spaces have changed my life since I founded them. Watching them grow and blossom and help so many on their healing journeys has already become one of the greatest joys of my life. It’s good work. It’s good people. It’s good conversation and support and friendship. It’s healing. It’s space we deserve to take up. Its community we deserve to be in. If you’d like to follow along and learn more, our public Instagram page can be found @WholeDamnSurvivorFam. Inquiries are always welcome.
Artwork by Megan Charles (IG @meganelizabethdesign)
Getting Good at Running Away 