The hidden social and nervous-system costs of speaking up.

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You don’t usually expect Mother’s Day as a toddler Mom to be punktuated by a DM calling you a “stupid c*nt.”

Mine was this year.

But that is what accountability actually looks like, my dear one.

Now, don’t go thinking I had a horrible Mother’s Day. In fact, it was super sweet and fully orchestrated by my husband and “goodest one of ones” (as I like to refer to him). 

It began with a small bouquet of 3 pink, fire orange and yellow roses hand-picked from our garden in a 32-ounce lavender bow-tied mason jar propping up 2 cards – one from my husband, the other from my wee fellow, Elwyn. 

It continued with a homemade breakfast featuring a strong cuppa my favorite Tea Pigs English Breakfast, local honey, cream, cheek-to-cheek with a marionberry (the wild meets cultivated Oregon blackberry) scone topped with a glorious gob of clotted cream. (G-L-OOO-R-I-OUS!) 

Then topped off again with a bike ride + picnic at our wee fellow’s favorite, Lithia Park.

And as is fitting contrast for, well, being alive in our culture, I also watched in stomach-wringing disappointment as some members of my local community in a touted “safe space,” and even my own husband for a moment, turned their own discomfort onto mothers raising awareness about a pedophile incident involving their children at the same park we picnicked in that day.

That’s what I need to talk to you about today.

Because this matters. 

And this isn’t unique to my little mountain valley town. 

So, it started with a mother’s post in a community group to create awareness and hold a man accountable because our legal system often isn’t able to.

(Ahem, often cannot intervene until after irreversible harm is done.)

“I did the right thing. Why do I feel like everyone is making me wrong?”

In a curated group I was invited to by the facilitator years ago as an alternative to the unconscious, trolled, and often plain venomous and unfacilitated community group, what followed was shocking. 

It started with a couple of concerned comments and clarifications from other Moms. 

But then, the comments took a turn…

A first Anonymous poster and self-identified mother of 2 blamed and shamed the parents.

An additional Anonymous poster then piped in immediately name-calling the impacted mothers (myself included) and defending the perpetrator.

So, what happens in the body when telling the truth threatens belonging?

In my body: first, shock. 

Which feels like being frozen by the White Witch of Narnia for a spell.

Followed by a sinking-sick stomach, like I’d been punched there or fallen backwards off a high, cut bank of cliffs overlooking the Meramec River where I grew up in the Ozark highlands. 

Unsafe. 

That tricky feeling that makes your heart audibly BA-DOOM in and out of your chest when you are led to believe you’re in a safe space that turns out to be a lie.

Then, protective. 

Of the mother who’d shared the post in an effort to inform other families and their children. And of the 2 fathers, who had also protected 4 other children by quickly and calmly handling the situation with the perpetrator and then communicating to all the parents impacted on next steps, including me.

Shamed. Blamed. Misunderstood. 

Defensive. Then full-on rage.

Which brings me here today. 

(I really needed to share this with you while giving myself the proper time to move through my own process around it.)

I needed to unbury an ancient question at the core of who we are and our human experience here, which I’ll ask you today:

What happens in your body when telling the truth threatens your belonging?

※ Koa