THE GROVE COMMUNITY AGREEMENTS

These are not rules for their own sake. They are the conditions that make it possible for people to be honest here.

  1. What is shared here, stays here. Do not screenshot, quote, repost, or repeat what someone shares in this community. Not to your group chat, not to your timeline, not anonymized. Confidentiality is the whole foundation.

  2. Witness before you fix. The instinct to solve someone's problem is usually a loving one, and it is still often the wrong move. Ask before you advise. "Do you want reflection, or do you just want to be heard?" is one of the most generous questions you can ask another person.

  3. Speak from your own experience. "Here is what was true for me" travels further than "here is what you should do."

  4. Care for the room when you share heavy things. Content notes are appreciated at the top of a post when you are writing about violence, abuse, medical trauma, disordered eating, self harm, or loss. Something as simple as "CN: medical trauma" gives people the choice to opt in.

  5. This is a community, not clinical care. I am a licensed clinician, and I am not your clinician here. Nothing shared in this community is therapy, diagnosis, or treatment, and no member response should be treated that way either. If you are working with a therapist, this space can sit alongside that work beautifully. It does not replace it.

  6. This is not crisis support. Please do not use The Grove to reach for help in an emergency, because none of us can guarantee we will see a post in time. If you are in crisis or worried about your immediate safety, call or text 988 in the US to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room. If you are outside the US, please use your local emergency number. I will always want you to reach for the help that can actually reach back.

  7. Nobody sells to anybody here. No pitching in the threads, no cold messages, no recruiting. If you present to the community, your teaching is not a pitch, though you are welcome to include one line and one link about your own work in your closing slide or bio. If you have something to offer the community, Pass It On is where that goes.

  8. This space has a center. The Grove centers women, femmes, and non-binary folx of color, with the experiences of Black women at the heart of it. You are welcome here if you can honor that centering and hold space with care. Honoring it means not needing it explained, softened, or redirected toward you.

  9. Anti-oppression is not up for debate here. Racism, misogynoir, colorism, antiblackness, transphobia, homophobia, ableism, fatphobia, xenophobia, and antisemitism are not perspectives to be balanced against other perspectives in this space. They are harm, and they will be treated as harm.

  10. Repair is expected, and it is survivable. You are going to get something wrong eventually. All of us do. What matters here is what you do next: listen, acknowledge the impact, adjust, and keep showing up. Being called in is not exile.

  11. Take what serves you, leave what does not. Including from me. You are the authority on your own life.