Dear reader,
You know how sometimes you see people share their ‘word for the year’? Well, I’m going to share mine. I have never picked a word for any year before, but I love the idea behind it! It’s filled with intentionality, mission, and self reflection. All my type of thing right? Okay on with it, Annabelle. My word for 2024 is expand. Let me explain why, and what that has to do with my Substack content.
If you have visited my Substack (or maybe you know me from my Tik Tok content), then you’ll know that I talk a lot about betrayal in romantic relationships. A lot. I mean…it’s pretty much all I talk about, isn’t it? I speak from firsthand experiential knowledge having gone through it, what helped my partner and I move through, and how I emerged as a new and changed person from that. I think it’s absolutely necessary for people to hear a firsthand account of someone having not only survived that, but how relationships can also survive if both people want them to. I pride myself on creating a safe and inclusive space for people going through what is often some of the hardest times in their lives. But let’s be honest for a minute…have I made it my entire (online) personality? I have been reflecting, and I would like to share some my thoughts, as well as my renewed intentions for this space.
Often times when I open up my laptop to begin a new Substack post, I feel stuck on what to write, and how to write it. I’ve noticed that my ability to relate, remember, and explain my experience of betrayal goes so much more organically on Tik Tok, because I need people to hear me a certain way. I need my voice to be soft. I need you to see my eyes and how I communicate non-verbally. It feels so natural for me to speak to a camera about what it was like to go through that, and I feel like I’m able to connect with people easily—which is exactly the ‘why’ behind its genesis which began in the Spring of 2022. I felt ready to tell my story, because I knew if I had been through this, then other people must have as well. I wanted to meet those people and share hope, realistic expectations, and education that I’d received and also taught myself. And since then, I’ve been able to meet hundreds of people offline through 1:1 support sessions, which has been (and continues to be) absolutely amazing. I have found making videos about betrayal to be especially therapeutic and healing for myself. To be able to use my suffering as medicine for those who are finding themselves where I once was, is an honor, but I have to be honest, it is not entirely altruistic. It helps me to be able to process my experiences more and to share them with a community. As humans, we are designed to need to connect with others. We need to be seen and heard. So as much as my Tik Tok content creates a sense of safety and validation for my community members, it does the exact same for me. But for some reason, I struggle so much when it comes to writing about betrayal. The words don’t flow the same, I find my voice to be stilted and not as comfortable as I’d like to be, and I find it especially triggering and painful to write about those experiences, rather than to talk about them. In short, I feel as though I’ve maybe boxed myself in too much, instead of using Substack as an expansive place for me.
I wanted my Substack to be an extension of my Tik Tok content, and to some extent I think it still will be. But for 2024, I am reimagining what I want this page to be for. I have always loved to write, but I think writing solely about betrayal is not what I want to do. And in service of expanding myself, my creativity, my love of this life, I want to free myself from any box that I’ve placed myself in. I want to be able to open up my laptop and share about anything that my life is saying to me, in this present day. I want to explore my own voice about anything and everything, and often times I think it will tie in with the betrayal that I have gone through, because that has shaped me in so many ways. But as I continue on in my healing journey, I must point out other things that have shaped me as well, because of course I am not only forged by pain. I am also being forged by love. Nature. Friendships. Changes. Books. Family. And everything else that this life offers to us in the smallest and largest ways. So in short, please stick with me as I rediscover my voice. As I use writing to feel inspired and alive. As I give myself permission to reimagine my passions. And as I continue to create.
Always,
Annabelle