A message for new subscribers (tw: talk of boundaries around money, religion, politics and common triggers)
I have noticed that my subscriber count is going up at a faster rate and we're getting more comments, so I'd like to firstly say welcome and thank you for taking the time to listen to our testimonies. I don't know how all of you found our channel, but I am glad you are here.
I really want to focus on positives here, but I have noticed a few issues are coming up in the comments and to avoid further confusion, I feel compelled to say a few things about boundaries. The main ones are around finances, politics and religion.
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For people who want to give us money, housing, etc:
We have spoken extensively on this channel about being in poverty, but we also have stated many times that we do not accept donations of any kind. This has always been true and is still true now. If you want to help us personally, we welcome positive comments and healing energy (we ourselves are an energy worker and consider that to be one of the main forms of help we are willing and able to receive), but all we really ask of you guys is that you do what you can to listen to what we say and make the most of whatever resonates with you.
That could mean taking direct action to save trafficking victims - or it could simply mean forgiving yourself as a survivor and moving on. It could mean becoming a counsellor for victims of narcissistic abuse. Or maybe it could mean starting a mindfulness practice, or rededicating yourself to your faith, or finding the inspiration to draw or sing.
Our point is, we want you guys' help, desperately, but for the benefit of yourselves and the rest of the world, not just us. It seems like sometimes people get hung up on the fact that we can't accept money or housing from them and subsequently feel like they're not being helpful enough to our cause. And while we try to maintain an attitude of "being the cause," that doesn't mean that helping us directly is the only way to help us or to contribute to what we're doing. If all you do is get inspired to take care of yourself better or be kinder to others, then you've given us a much greater gift than you probably realize.
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For Christians:
We've noticed an increase in comments relating to Christianity, so we'd like to say a couple of things about that. To start, we want to specifically thank those of you who are Christian for being here. We welcome your support and want to hear from you. We ask, however, that you refrain from evangelizing us in certain ways.
We are a multi-faith dissociative system and feel deep spiritual kinship with the teachings of Jesus, however we are not Christian-identified and external pressure to accept religious beliefs that are not ours can cause us a great deal of anxiety. It can also cause a lot of anxiety for other survivors of ritual abuse who read the comments. And because there are so few safe spaces for us to talk, I take the safety of the comments sections on my channel pretty seriously.
So what I ask is that if you feel the need to share about your faith, you do the following things:
1. Put a trigger warning followed by a few spaces so survivors have more of a choice whether to read your comment. It can be simple like "tw: christianity" or "tw: the bible" or "tw: god."
2. Speak in I-statements and avoid commands. We ask that everyone do this unless setting a personal boundary like I am doing here, but it's of particular importance when it comes to this subject.
Saying "I have been a Christian for ten years and Jesus has brought great healing to my life" is very different than saying "Ask Jesus for forgiveness for having been abused as a child" (yes I really get comments like that sometimes) or "Your path is wrong and you need to follow mine now." We welcome the first type of comment wholeheartedly, even though it is still triggering for us, but we may block you from commenting if you leave the second kind.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For Qanons:
We've also noticed an increase in comments from supporters of the Qanon movement. This is difficult for us to address, but we will do our best to concisely express what we feel the need to express. If you are a supporter of Qanon, then we also welcome you here, but need you to maintain some specific boundaries when you comment.
The main one is regarding your personal beliefs about Donald Trump and his character. If you think that he is a good person who is trying to save trafficked children, then we want you to feel safe to share your thoughts honestly, but we need you to respect that we do not feel the same way. Growing up in the underground of ritual abuse and mind control, we saw things that have led us to believe that he is not an ally here and that if we want to stop child trafficking, we must seek different kinds of solutions.
In the past couple of years, we have received many comments imploring us to contact and/or generally embrace Donald Trump as an ally to our community, which is not something we can do. So if you want to share your beliefs about Trump, we ask that you follow the guidelines written above for Christians, but about Qanon instead.
One concern we've had is that survivors may be being programmed to react to Qanon phrases as triggers. When we see the phrases "ww**w**" or "the gr**t aw*k*n*ng," we notice that some parts of our system automatically dissociate. For us, it doesn't feel intense enough to make us panic like it once would have, but we worry that for certain survivors who have done less deprogramming work, it might present more serious issues.
So putting a "tw: trump" or "tw: qanon" before talking about the subject, particularly if you use any phrases like the ones I mentioned above, could really go a long ways to make our comments sections accessible. Even though we share different views about the subject, I think that most of you genuinely want to help trafficking victims, as do I, and I want to see us succeed in doing that together.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A few other notes:
We don't expect people to be rigorously attentive about tw's in the comments. We have, for the most part, not asked anyone to use tw's there at all. However, we have been making more of an effort to get alters in our own system to use them when we feel it's necessary, and they seem to be useful for people with many different kinds of trauma histories, so we want to emphasize their usefulness in regards to comments in general, not just ones about the subjects mentioned above.
For survivors who want to talk about trauma in the comments, we don't hold you to the same standards as others in this way, but we do think that if you can put warnings before going into detail, it could make it easier for others to receive it safely. Even if you just say "tw" without explaining, it could help a lot. But if you need to just share without worrying about it, we do not want this to be a barrier.
We don't want to ask too much of anyone when it comes to avoiding common Mk triggers, but a couple things that would make a difference would be refraining from putting words in all caps and using certain emojis like the Ok symbol and butterflies. I understand why some survivors may find using butterfly emojis healing, but for now we think it's best if everyone avoids using them here, especially orange ones.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A note about blocking:
We try not to block anyone unless it's really obvious to us that we need to, but we do block people sometimes if they feel too much like an abuser/handler to us, even if they wouldn't have appeared to have done anything wrong from an outsider's perspective. We really try our best to be as discerning as possible, but we are sure that sometimes we make mistakes and block people who are sincere.
So if that ever happens to you, we want you to know we are sorry and we hope that you'll continue to connect with our work in some way in spite of it. If we block you and you don't understand why, we encourage you to reflect on it and/or watch more of our videos if you can, in case you did violate one of our boundaries unknowingly. But if it was our mistake, then we hope you'll find peace around it in whatever way you can.
I know that to some of you, it may sound silly, the idea of suffering so much from being blocked on a youtube channel, but we know that for some people, it really can be traumatizing, especially if they didn't do anything wrong, and we want to validate that.
Dylan Groves
A message for new subscribers (tw: talk of boundaries around money, religion, politics and common triggers)
I have noticed that my subscriber count is going up at a faster rate and we're getting more comments, so I'd like to firstly say welcome and thank you for taking the time to listen to our testimonies. I don't know how all of you found our channel, but I am glad you are here.
I really want to focus on positives here, but I have noticed a few issues are coming up in the comments and to avoid further confusion, I feel compelled to say a few things about boundaries. The main ones are around finances, politics and religion.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For people who want to give us money, housing, etc:
We have spoken extensively on this channel about being in poverty, but we also have stated many times that we do not accept donations of any kind. This has always been true and is still true now. If you want to help us personally, we welcome positive comments and healing energy (we ourselves are an energy worker and consider that to be one of the main forms of help we are willing and able to receive), but all we really ask of you guys is that you do what you can to listen to what we say and make the most of whatever resonates with you.
That could mean taking direct action to save trafficking victims - or it could simply mean forgiving yourself as a survivor and moving on. It could mean becoming a counsellor for victims of narcissistic abuse. Or maybe it could mean starting a mindfulness practice, or rededicating yourself to your faith, or finding the inspiration to draw or sing.
Our point is, we want you guys' help, desperately, but for the benefit of yourselves and the rest of the world, not just us. It seems like sometimes people get hung up on the fact that we can't accept money or housing from them and subsequently feel like they're not being helpful enough to our cause. And while we try to maintain an attitude of "being the cause," that doesn't mean that helping us directly is the only way to help us or to contribute to what we're doing. If all you do is get inspired to take care of yourself better or be kinder to others, then you've given us a much greater gift than you probably realize.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For Christians:
We've noticed an increase in comments relating to Christianity, so we'd like to say a couple of things about that. To start, we want to specifically thank those of you who are Christian for being here. We welcome your support and want to hear from you. We ask, however, that you refrain from evangelizing us in certain ways.
We are a multi-faith dissociative system and feel deep spiritual kinship with the teachings of Jesus, however we are not Christian-identified and external pressure to accept religious beliefs that are not ours can cause us a great deal of anxiety. It can also cause a lot of anxiety for other survivors of ritual abuse who read the comments. And because there are so few safe spaces for us to talk, I take the safety of the comments sections on my channel pretty seriously.
So what I ask is that if you feel the need to share about your faith, you do the following things:
1. Put a trigger warning followed by a few spaces so survivors have more of a choice whether to read your comment. It can be simple like "tw: christianity" or "tw: the bible" or "tw: god."
2. Speak in I-statements and avoid commands. We ask that everyone do this unless setting a personal boundary like I am doing here, but it's of particular importance when it comes to this subject.
Saying "I have been a Christian for ten years and Jesus has brought great healing to my life" is very different than saying "Ask Jesus for forgiveness for having been abused as a child" (yes I really get comments like that sometimes) or "Your path is wrong and you need to follow mine now." We welcome the first type of comment wholeheartedly, even though it is still triggering for us, but we may block you from commenting if you leave the second kind.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For Qanons:
We've also noticed an increase in comments from supporters of the Qanon movement. This is difficult for us to address, but we will do our best to concisely express what we feel the need to express. If you are a supporter of Qanon, then we also welcome you here, but need you to maintain some specific boundaries when you comment.
The main one is regarding your personal beliefs about Donald Trump and his character. If you think that he is a good person who is trying to save trafficked children, then we want you to feel safe to share your thoughts honestly, but we need you to respect that we do not feel the same way. Growing up in the underground of ritual abuse and mind control, we saw things that have led us to believe that he is not an ally here and that if we want to stop child trafficking, we must seek different kinds of solutions.
In the past couple of years, we have received many comments imploring us to contact and/or generally embrace Donald Trump as an ally to our community, which is not something we can do. So if you want to share your beliefs about Trump, we ask that you follow the guidelines written above for Christians, but about Qanon instead.
One concern we've had is that survivors may be being programmed to react to Qanon phrases as triggers. When we see the phrases "ww**w**" or "the gr**t aw*k*n*ng," we notice that some parts of our system automatically dissociate. For us, it doesn't feel intense enough to make us panic like it once would have, but we worry that for certain survivors who have done less deprogramming work, it might present more serious issues.
So putting a "tw: trump" or "tw: qanon" before talking about the subject, particularly if you use any phrases like the ones I mentioned above, could really go a long ways to make our comments sections accessible. Even though we share different views about the subject, I think that most of you genuinely want to help trafficking victims, as do I, and I want to see us succeed in doing that together.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A few other notes:
We don't expect people to be rigorously attentive about tw's in the comments. We have, for the most part, not asked anyone to use tw's there at all. However, we have been making more of an effort to get alters in our own system to use them when we feel it's necessary, and they seem to be useful for people with many different kinds of trauma histories, so we want to emphasize their usefulness in regards to comments in general, not just ones about the subjects mentioned above.
For survivors who want to talk about trauma in the comments, we don't hold you to the same standards as others in this way, but we do think that if you can put warnings before going into detail, it could make it easier for others to receive it safely. Even if you just say "tw" without explaining, it could help a lot. But if you need to just share without worrying about it, we do not want this to be a barrier.
We don't want to ask too much of anyone when it comes to avoiding common Mk triggers, but a couple things that would make a difference would be refraining from putting words in all caps and using certain emojis like the Ok symbol and butterflies. I understand why some survivors may find using butterfly emojis healing, but for now we think it's best if everyone avoids using them here, especially orange ones.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A note about blocking:
We try not to block anyone unless it's really obvious to us that we need to, but we do block people sometimes if they feel too much like an abuser/handler to us, even if they wouldn't have appeared to have done anything wrong from an outsider's perspective. We really try our best to be as discerning as possible, but we are sure that sometimes we make mistakes and block people who are sincere.
So if that ever happens to you, we want you to know we are sorry and we hope that you'll continue to connect with our work in some way in spite of it. If we block you and you don't understand why, we encourage you to reflect on it and/or watch more of our videos if you can, in case you did violate one of our boundaries unknowingly. But if it was our mistake, then we hope you'll find peace around it in whatever way you can.
I know that to some of you, it may sound silly, the idea of suffering so much from being blocked on a youtube channel, but we know that for some people, it really can be traumatizing, especially if they didn't do anything wrong, and we want to validate that.
(Edit: forgot a word)
5 years ago (edited) | [YT] | 145