#breakfast blend

We used to struggle with this part over sharing and dropping the cult bomb during not ideal times like over a drink with new coworkers, but we’ve worked on this a lot and now they reserve their storytelling for times when we are comfortable with a person and when the person had consented to hearing about stuff.

One of those such times was yesterday when a conversation got started with a newer close friend about how our water went out for a couple hours yesterday and how that reminded this part of how we often didn’t have running water growing up. This intrigued and confused our friend and led to more stories about our childhood which led to full on cult story time, including sending her YouTube links to a documentary about our cult and an interview with an ex-member of our former cult.

It was an energizing conversation for that part, but kind of exhausting and difficult to look back on. It’s kind of hard how often people say things like, “your life is like a movie!!!” And other shocked expressions of how abnormal and bizarre and horrifying our experiences were to the average audience. Like. Our story is not for other people’s entertainment and consumption.

This friend did also express a lot of empathy and support throughout the conversation and I do trust her and her intentions in general, but it still just feels hard and kind of icky. I understand that the part who told the story feels validated by shocking people but there’s definitely a draining effect afterwards and feelings if vulnerability. I think I am glad this friend knows though. We’ve been playing somewhat coy about our childhood for a while and it does feel good that it’s out in the open now.