#BurningMan: Waking dreams (and letting go of a nightmare)

A hoi hoi,

By the time this goes live, I will be on the Playa celebrating my anniversary, myself, and a very new perspective.

I’ve made a lot of changes in the last few months.

I’ve literally developed a formula around the “changes” that I’m pretty proud of.

Discovering I’m autistic and have a condition called synesthesia were the missing links I needed to “level up.

I’ve technically speaking already “leveled up,” I just needed to learn how to claim my own space within it. I feel great, and alchemizing the Burn is the last step in that change.

I’ll speak more on it later, but in 2019, I discovered our dearest friends were/ are in an abusive relationship. It was extremely traumatic, and caused the loss of friendship.

He’s lucky I didn’t have enough evidence to put him in jail. I know I didn’t have evidence, because I researched and called different domestic violence centers to figure out what to do.

I then had to realize there isn’t anything I could do … EXCEPT write a letter to the camp leader.

We were all frozen when this happened. The Burn is about “radical self reliance” but I discovered in the process, going to camp leaders should have been the FIRST thing we did.

It my have been two years later, but I needed to speak my truth.

Here’s what I wrote:

Here’s what it says:

“First off hi!! Hope you guys are doing well! I’m sorry we missed your event the last time you guys were in town but instead of just not acknowledging what happened, I wanted to tell you why. (Full disclosure, I am writing this on my own behalf and won’t speak for Jeff or anyone else. This is really hard to write, so bear with me.) 

At the Burn in 2019, on our one year dating anniversary, a fellow camper came into our tent completely horrified. She was crying and shaking with fear. I sat her down and asked what was going on. She admitted that the night before, XXX stumbled back from somewhere (he stormed off on us) and found XXX in their tent and proceeded to throw water on her to elicit some sort of reaction. XXX was so fearful for her safety she ran into the other camper’s tent and was shaking saying (paraphrasing since this is years ago) “please don’t let him hit me.”  She then revealed he has been physically abusive throughout their relationship. For safety reasons, they slept together (and I believe even another XXX member got involved as he is male and they were scared).

I can get all the exact details – I just wanted to let you know the jist first. 

Jeff and I were then approached and immediately we separated XXX and XXX. One of the guys took him somewhere as Jeff and I took XXX out for breakfast. I asked her specifically before we left “has XXX ever hit you.” Her response (this is specific) was “I hit him back.” 

The rest of the burn was (as you can imagine) horrible. We now have our very dear friend admitting she is in an abusive relationship at the same time we were in very close quarters to said abuser. It was awkward, uncomfortable, and I could tell XXX wanted to “sweep it under the bus.” Only, I can’t do that with an abusive situation. I wasn’t going to let it go. I wanted XXX to be safe and to get away from anyone that was hurting her. 

As you can imagine, my hands were tied as she went back to him. We then gave her a key to our place just in case if she needed a break no questions asked. 

A few months later, she did just that and came over telling us that she broke up with him. She then went into heartbreaking and truly horrifying details about him throwing her through glass doors, and almost killing her on a vacation they had together. These were her stories that she was ashamed were coming to light. She said anytime she tried breaking up with him before he’d threaten to kill himself and she didn’t want that to happen.

That was the last time I saw XXX (since the recent posts in social media as I am not even friends with them anymore). XXX is a goddess in my eyes, but she is in a really dangerous cycle and pattern of abuse. 

Jeff has tried talking to XXX. Even before one of the meet ups a few months ago, he messaged Jeff proudly saying he had gotten news on a business venture they were involved in. He stated it was “strictly business.”

What actually happened was he manipulated Jeff into seeing if we were going to the event. It wasn’t a work related thing – it was a continued pattern of abuse, manipulation, and lies centered around a man who is mentally ill and very very much in need of help. 
Please know even in writing this I’m not against XXX. I am against this version of him who is being enabled by those around him (including members making excuses for his actions, myself included). It is against the pillars of the Burn, and I can’t be quiet about it anymore. He’s abusive to women and is dangerous. 

We love you guys so much. I just can’t pretend that we don’t know what we know, and I have no idea how to proceed in this situation but avoiding it and not saying anything didn’t seem like a healthy option either. 

With a heavy heart and much love. Thanks for listening.”

So there you have it. I have a lot to alchemize and a lot to Burn.

This situation doesn’t belong to me, but it didn’t make the “going through it” any easier.

See you on the other side, nerderinos!!