Our Values & Guidance for Communication

(for your consideration when engaging with our pages)

We believe victims of abuse and trauma.

Victim-blaming in all its forms, is not welcome here.

We do not question another person’s identity.

We commit to continuously working through our internalized oppressive language and behaviors (and the comments sections of our posts here are not here for you to work through that, there are other spaces where you can go do that, and we do not always have the capacity to walk you through it here. We work hard to find spaces to do that, such as in therapy or supervision, or in other spaces that are dedicated to this work, and we trust you can find your own spaces for this too).

We believe in science. And we believe for too long science and academia in trauma spaces has been dominated by white-cis-het-able-bodied-men. And we want this to change.

We believe in centering lived experience.

We believe oppression is trauma, or more specifically that oppression can lead to trauma and trauma responses and intersects with other types of trauma.

In this space we believe black lives matter and brown lives matter.

Racism is not welcome or tolerated here.

We work at challenging and deconstructing white supremacy in ourselves and in what we share.

Trans rights are human rights.

Transphobia is not welcome here.

Queer and LGBTQIAP+ rights are human rights.

Homophobia is not welcome here.

Sex workers rights are human rights.

Non-binary thinking and living, in all aspects of our humanity, is celebrated here.

We believe and work towards in body liberation for all bodies.

Fat-shaming is not welcome here.

Neurodiversity is normalized and welcome here.

We believe and work towards disability justice.

We welcome those with diverse and complex abilities and needs.

Ableism is not welcome here.

We challenge the pathology of trauma, working to humanize trauma, while acknowledging the complexity of this and individual access to support. We do not aim to diagnose, pathologize or label people here, and we trust you to know what you need in this regard for yourself. We support individuals living with trauma to know what is right for them in the naming (and sometimes labelling) of their experiences.

Women, trans, gender non-binary and queer humans are centred here (because there is so much space in the world where we are not, particularly in the mainstream trauma, health and wellbeing cultures. We do and will share work from cis-het-men, and it is not the only or most sought after work shared here).

Misogyny and sexism is not welcome here.

We work at challenging patriarchy and internalized misogyny in ourselves and in what we share.

We encourage and try to default to using they/them pronouns unless we know otherwise (and in quotes we share we will not change the pronouns used, as we will not change the writer’s words).

We are a sex-positive space, and believe in consent culture.

We challenge rape culture in all its guises.

Marginalized humans and their needs are centred here.

Discrimination of marginalized humans is not welcome here.

We try to give credit to those from whom we learn, while acknowledging that learning is not always linear and can be cumulative of a variety of sources and lived experiences.

We welcome co-creating and collaboration, and do not believe we are the one and only voice in anything we share.

When we share other people’s words, we do not add our logo unless the words have been shared within our project or we have been given permission to, because those words do not belong to us. We do not claim ownership of these words and we do not edit them for our own purposes.

We do not always agree or identity with every word by others’ that we share, instead allowing for poetic interpretation and nuance in our interpretations.

We ask you to credit us if you share an image we have created or are quoting us, and please credit the original writer/creator if you find someone else’s work through us.

We are dedicated to learning and to showing up in our complexity, practicing accountability, apology, change and doing better when we get things wrong (because we will get things wrong).

Perfection is not strived for here. Humanity is. We challenge perfectionist thinking, and believe it is part of oppressive cultures.

We encourage lenses of nuance, discernment, complexity and remembering we are not all having the same experience.

We respect other people's personal belief systems, and challenge behaviours based on these belief systems if they become harmful or oppressive.

We challenge language around trauma that is victim-blaming, gaslighting or spiritual bypassing.

We challenge capitalism and its harmful practices, and as part of this acknowledge and work towards keeping a roof over our own heads while we live in this culture and are impacted by it ourselves in various complex ways.

We aim to make our services as accessible as possible, while also looking after our own needs for security and sustainability (now and in the future as we grow).

We celebrate difference and complexity.

We believe you know yourself and your body best and you are the expert on you.

We honour and trust your knowing of yourself and invite you to do the same for others.

We believe we are not all having the same experience.

We do not compare experiences (i.e. as worse or better).

We do not give advice unless it is specifically asked for (and never on our public social media pages or in DMs).

Trigger warnings are not offered, because we cannot know what is triggering for another person, and we support you and your own right to be here as you feel you can be, or not, and to keep yourself safe. If you need to leave this space for that reason, that, too, is okay.

We encourage self-care and self-compassion.

We advocate for boundaries and consent.

We are a project built on the values of connection, community, compassion, complexities, collective liberation, consent, collaboration, co-creating, conversations, companionship.

You do not have to be here. Our spaces will not be for everyone. Our work will not be a fit for everyone.

and that is okay.

And if this space is for you, then you are welcome here.

You are so very welcome here.