I Want To Run Away From The Community Org I Created

Hey everyone. I’m honestly kind of at my limit and just need a gut check. For a few years now, I’ve been running a queer/trans mutual aid project on top of my day job. I love the community and the actual help we provide is so important for our community’s health. But lately, I just feel.. done. Like, ‘dreaming about packing a bag, grabbing my wife and kid, and ghosting my entire life’ level of done.

The feedback loop is constant and it’s killing me. Some of it is important, valuable feedback (eg, we need ASL interpreters at spoken word events), but a lot of it is just impossible—being railed at for working with someone on an event who allegedly had a harmful interpersonal relationship with their ex, or getting heat for the allergy-unfriendly options on a vendor’s menu. Last month, an event fell apart for reasons out of my control and the blowback was so mean-spirited it actually ended up breaking me.

I feel like a monster for saying this, but I miss my life before I started helping. I was a better parent and a better partner and a better friend when I didn’t have a million strangers mad at me in my DMs. My community needs help and I know it’s my duty as a human to do everything I can to provide that help. I keep thinking about how people who do nothing, who don’t help at all, aren’t pursued with venom for doing nothing, but those of us who try to do something, if we do that something imperfectly, are targeted for so much venom. I feel like I’m losing my sense of self and what matters.

Am I a terrible person if I walk away?

Summer: We should always look out for ourselves and those we consider family first. I tend to stretch myself a bit for friends and those in need, but even I knew that you’d benefit from turning this work down when you said it would make you a better parent and partner. If you can place your caring with your family and that becomes stable, it’ll be far more valuable to society than setting yourself on fire for people who don’t adequately appreciate or reciprocate.

You’re not a terrible person for wanting to walk away. You’re especially not a terrible person for wanting to walk away from persistent mistreatment. You’re a good person for being this committed to ‘helping’ for so long. The worst thing that can happen if you depart this work is you become… morally fine. And I still think it’s the right call to make.

Valerie: Maybe you don’t have to walk away. It does seem like you cannot continue on the path you’re currently on, helping the way you currently are; community care sometimes requires sacrifice, but it shouldn’t be stripping you of everything else you care about. So at the very least, it seems you need a hiatus from helping to heal and get back some of the energy you poured into your community. But it doesn’t mean you have to give it up entirely, if helping is still important to you. There are ways to help quietly without being in the spotlight, there are ways to support the people doing the heavy lifting without having to do that lifting yourself. It might help you to use this time away to reflect on the ways your work helped people, instead of the ways it was criticized. Like you said, it’s impossible to be perfect, you can’t please anyone; but you tried, which is more than most people did, and I guarantee your work positively impacted some people. Try to use that knowledge to fill your cup up again. Remember, you’re part of your community too, so you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others. Putting your oxygen mask on first and all that.

Nico: Something you said really stood out to me: “I keep thinking about how people who do nothing, who don’t help at all, aren’t pursued with venom for doing nothing, but those of us who try to do something, if we do that something imperfectly, are targeted for so much venom.” I feel like maybe there is an invisible audience inside your head of people admonishing and shaming you for walking away when you haven’t even done so, yet. And should anyone shame you for doing that in actuality, they suck because you did the thing.

Even if you are no longer actively organizing for a period of your life, that does not undo the good you did do. That difference you made is still there. You still helped. You’re burnt out and it happens all the time. Are there other people you co-organize with who could take over, who would be happy to have the project passed on to them? Or, alternatively, you can dissolve the project. Sometimes things run their course. I feel like this often happens with mutual aid projects, actually. They shutter when the people running them no longer have the capacity if there are no people to continue that particular project, but then new projects emerge. All that is to say, no, you should not feel guilty. If you’re this burnt out, you aren’t able to give your best or even a medium-level self to this project and it will very likely slowly break down anyway. Train people up now if they’re there, make preparations to depart, and leave the project on good terms that won’t spoil the good memories and good work you’ve done. And who knows – walking away now to recharge doesn’t mean you won’t be doing something else in the future, but it does mean that you’re opening yourself up to new possibilities that you can be excited about. Thank you for your work and good luck in your new chapter!

my girlfriend and i have a 6 inch height difference and we can’t figure out a good way for them to fuck me (taller) from behind with the strap on! Help!!!!!!

Summer: You know what, great question title. Love how forthright it is.

I think y’all should get some infrastructure involved. Does it work if you’re on the bed (all-fours/face-down butt-up/)? What if you propped thick pillows and blankets under your knees to raise your rear up further? What if you bought some strong, non-slip furniture risers to raise the height of the bed to an… accessible elevation for her? I recommend risers/blocks for people’s beds all the time just because it frees up storage space underneath but it can also make some sex positions easier. Just saying.