Creating a Sense of Belonging

holding so many identities at once, i’ve often struggled to find a sense of belonging. so oftentimes, i’ve had to be the one to create it. 

almost three years ago now, COVID-19 hit. i was a student at NYU and many of us became displaced when the dorms closed. i jumped between four different couches because i didn’t have parents nor a home to go to. the only way i could even afford to go to NYU in the first place was a full ride.

in our forced separation from campus, we realized that while we didn’t know what would come next or when, we knew what happened to us. 

i was a part of an organization for students of color. it was a powerful space to be in when you went to a PWI (predominantly white institution). we searched for belonging together by going on retreats upstate, having rap sessions about the largest issues affecting us, and holding ceremonies each semester to celebrate each other. 

but as happens in many spaces in which more power is given to some, power was abused. and several BIPOC femmes, including myself, had been sexually assaulted by students in leadership. 

we never felt safe to speak up on campus, but in a world where we didn’t know if we would even see each other again, the possibility of telling our story became more of a reality. 

so it started with one. someone speaking for someone else who couldn’t. and similar to when the MeToo Movement–started by Tarana Burke–went viral, the dominos began to fall. 

story after story unfolded. i started a groupchat with two of the people who were assaulted, and each day, it grew and grew until fifteen people were in the chat. we needed something to help us cope. we were being publicly gaslit almost daily by those who abused us and forced to relive our traumas to the point that we sometimes questioned ourselves. did this even happen the way we remembered? the way we experienced? 

so i decided to start a support group of sorts. i had coincidently just started working at a start-up that offered resources to sexual assault survivors. exasperated by the stress of a new position, advocating for those who’ve experienced sexual harm, fighting white supremacy as George Floyd had just been murdered, and trying to make a space for us to cope, i told leadership i needed time away to create this group. 

mental health was an area the company already wanted to break into, so leadership offered me the resources to create it. and i took them. 

i contacted all types of therapists: art, music, dance, yoga, poetry, drama.  types of therapy i didn’t even know exist i tried to work into the group.

western approaches to healing weren’t enough. we needed to move our bodies, we needed healing vibrations. and so the first Healing Circle was born. and sixteen more were held after that. 

some Circles mixed practices. others focused only on one, like art or music. they were a space for us to learn skills and activities from these holistic modalities to aid us on our healing journeys. and most importantly, they were community spaces led by specialists who looked like us. we learned, together. we did this healing work, together. 

in that space, a co-survivor of mine pointed out that my own belief around justice had changed.  “in the first session, you said you wouldn’t be able to heal until you got your justice. you just said now though that you recognize you may never get it, but you still deserve to heal.” 

and she was right. the psychoeducational aspects of the group helped me to understand my feelings, and the community aspect made me feel safe enough to explore and even question them. 

justice became a huge topic for us after that. how do we, as marginalized people, seek justice from other marginalized folks who hurt us without repeating punitive cycles?

and so, i created accountability circles with the support of Neha Bhat, an incredible art and sex therapist who uses a restorative and transformative justice lens in her work. the accountability circles were a space for people who’ve both caused and experienced sexual harm to begin taking accountability and healing from their own trauma. this, i believe, is one of the only ways to truly end the cycle. 

the accountability circles lasted sixteen weeks at a time and no one was ever forced to join. these were consensual spaces for folks who recognized the harm they caused and wanted to work toward understanding why they did it. with that understanding, inner child healing work, and newly developed introspection skills, they were more equipped to prevent themselves from repeating the cycle. seeing people who reminded me of my own perpetrators willingly do the work contributed to so much of my own healing. 

over the years of holding these types of spaces, demand grew and so did a need for new team members. soon, Exene Avril was hired. 

they eventually became the marketing team lead, so we worked together daily. 

we fought to create feelings of belonging in the Healing Circles and at the company. we made the circles free of charge for as long as we were allowed to. we sought therapists who had similar experiences and backgrounds to the folks we were serving. and Exene Avril advocated into their very last days for protecting my team who made these transformative spaces come to life. 

the Healing Circles were incredibly helpful for dozens of folks. so many people from my own communities protesting police in NYC or from NYU would come and tell me of the healing that came from logging into that Zoom room each week.

Exene Avril, on the other hand, went to one Healing Circle session and dropped. it was too much, too fast. they weren’t ready to share so openly yet. and that was entirely okay. 

Exene and i found community in each other, being only two of the three non-binary people at the company. we would talk for hours. validate each other's fears. dream of future spaces we would create with solely ourselves leading. they would pitch ideas for just being in community by crocheting and gaming together. we wanted to feel seen, heard, understood. and we wanted to do it in ways that were joyful. 

Exene didn’t live long enough to create the spaces they needed. 

A painting by Jae Ortiz of Exene Avril

in the beginning of August, less than twelve hours since i last spoke to them, i learned Exene had died of suicide. 

the only thing that held me together in the moments after were the remnants of the community we made. 

i saw John, Avril Heals’ Director of Operations and co-founder, who was the one that hired Exene all that time ago, the same day i found out. they no longer worked at the company, but were in shambles as much as i was.
we got ice cream. walked and talked for a while. cried together. 

i had to fly to New York for a pre-scheduled shoot for the company days later and while i was there, i saw Kat, Avril Heals’ Director of Communications and co-founder, who was a long time close friend of Exene’s and the company’s social media manager at the time. i spent almost every night with her and our coworkers. they took me in. my stomach turned daily, anxiety overcame me, and constant nightmares haunted. 

but we went out to eat when we could muster appetites, Kat played sad songs from our youth on her guitar in ubers home, we played games, did self care. 

i am a writer. but every time i tried to write about what happened, i would become physically ill. doing hobbies with my community was one of the only things that made me feel even remotely close to normal. as we played and found joy without talking about the enormous weight on our shoulders, i thought of Exene. how badly they wanted us to have a femme gamers group, a bookclub, a crochet squad. 

i wish we could have made those spaces together. Exene Avril believed so deeply in the Circles the team and i made, and so when Kat proposed adding Community Building Interest Groups to Avril Heals’ offerings to do all of the activities Exene desired, i could think of no better way to honor them.

people who have survived gender and race based violence are often an afterthought. Avril Heals is a place where we are the focus. the Community Building Interest groups are made FOR us. we are the ones who make them. you can make one too! 

if you need more guided healing with a specialist, Healing Circles are the way to go. and if you want to dip your toes in, you can join us for a Zine workshop or become a member of one of our many channels on Discord. everything is at your own pace and you can drop in and out as you need. 

i am still deeply wounded. so many of us are. Exene’s absence left a gaping wound i am still working on mending. i miss my friend.

but doing this community work at Avril Heals in itself has given me a sense of belonging. for the first time in a long time, we are experiencing joy. we’ve worked on building a culture of transparency and agency so that those who are seeking support feel secure enough to do so. i feel like i have a purpose here. 

there are many parts of my story with Exene that i can’t tell. but the one i will share, is that in one of my last conversations with them, they said that when working in white owned spaces, “we are disposable, always.”

my hope for Avril Heals is to create spaces that foster community for marginalized folks in which every single person feels valued. every single person belongs.