A Note from We Are HER's Founder on Boundaries

I have a hard boundary I need to set.

Today, as I wept on my therapist’s couch, she told me, “Compassion fatigue isn’t an official diagnosis, but I want you to know that this is what you’re experiencing. It used to be called secondary trauma.”

When I started We Are HER nearly six years ago, all I wanted to do was help other survivors in a way that had been helpful to me. And for the last six years, I’ve ran We Are HER not like a business — but like a relationship. Each unique survivor I met had their own unique relationship with me. Many survivors I met through We Are HER became my friends (enough so that there’s a table at my wedding this year dedicated solely to my HER friends). A larger group of survivors tend to come and go into my life as they need, which is great, and I appreciate getting to connect with them whenever they reach out. But a smaller group of survivors has made running We Are HER much harder for me. I have never said I was a therapist or promised to a be counselor. I’ve promised nothing more than to be a listening ear or someone who could offer a kind word. But a small group of survivors have caused me a lot of pain. A small group has ignored my boundaries, not listened when I’ve asked them to respect my personal time, and have bullied me for enforcing my boundaries.

I learned a huge lesson this last year as I started to treat We Are HER more as a nonprofit organization business and less as a connection facilitator for myself. I’ve learned the value of my peace of mind and of my mental health. I’ve learned that during my free time, I so desperately desire to be nurturing my healthy relationships with my fiancé and my friends.

As my therapist told me today, “even crisis line workers get to clock out.”

The way I have been living my life has not allowed me to clock out of We Are HER for six years.

I am sharing this not because I need your sympathy or because I want to point fingers. I’m sharing this because I need to establish and enforce boundaries, and because I love the We Are HER community, I feel the need to be honest about this boundary. I have to lead by example and practice what I preach. But first, I want to remind everyone in this community what We Are HER is and what we are not.

We Are HER is a nonprofit that helps survivors of abuse or assault become healed, empowered, and restored. We do that through three ways: community building, story sharing, and trauma recovery education. We are a 100% volunteer-run organization that is run by survivors from across the globe.

But we are not therapists. We are not counselors. And we do not help survivors who are in immediate danger or crisis. Since our founding, we’ve passed survivors in need of immediate crisis care to local or national organizations like Haven, RAINN, or the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. And we will continue to connect survivors who need this support to organizations who are able to give them the help they need.

My new boundary is derived from helping too many survivors on my late nights or weekends. I want to help these survivors, but I know the best way to get them help is to continue referring them to organizations that deal with crisis management. I will no longer be receiving We Are HER questions, messages, or calls on my personal cell phone, my personal Facebook, my personal Instagram, or my personal emails.

As always, as a survivor, supporter, or volunteer with We Are HER, you are more than welcome to contact me on We Are HER’s business Facebook or Instagram pages or at stevie@weareher.net

Thank you for understanding. And thank you for allowing me to use my free time to continue to heal myself and allow myself a desperately needed break. We all heal in our different ways, and this is mine.  

 All my HER love,
Stevie Croisant
Founder and President of the Board
We Are HER