I'm fine. All is well. There's no drama, generally or abuse wise, in my life.
Except, I feel edgy and menstrual, which in itself is probably the cause of the edgy.
I have a performance this Friday. I'm not looking forward to it. I'd like to be better prepared, but feel like I'd be wimping out if I bailed.
I really really want to bail. Firstly, my guitarist who would normally play for me can't make it, so if I want accompaniment, I have to sing with a recording. I've never done that before, and don't have a lot of faith in the sound tech for this event. This in itself gives me a good reason to bail, as I told the organizer my acceptance was contingent on my guitarist being able to make it.
What is actually a bit worse is that I volunteered to help with the opening blessing, and yesterday got an email letting me know who the other priestesses are to be. One of them is a woman who is an ex housemate. We had to kick her out of the shared house we lived in because she was bullying me. What this looked like was a lot of yelling and imposing body language on her part and a lot of cringing and ineffective arguing on mine, much like my experience was with my father/abuser. Generally she did the worst stuff when no-one was around to witness, until one day my wife came home when she was at it and intervened. We lived together during the time shortly after my father/abuser was in a car accident and I thought he would die, so I was quite fragile and definitely in no shape to defend myself the way I would normally do. It is the first time since I left my home with my parents that I have felt that afraid and helpless. At one point I was so afraid of her that I left my wife and dog at the house and went to live with a friend for two weeks, so I could make it through to the time she was due to move out. It was a close thing as to whether she would succeed in bullying me to leave or would leave herself.
This happened over six years ago, and I have run into her at events from time to time since then. Mostly I ignore her and don't initiate contact with her, and that works out tolerably. Since she seems to have gotten into leadership roles in the community, I've mostly bowed out completely so I don't have to be around her. This has cost me opportunities to priestess and be in community, but honestly there are other things about this community that don't fit well either. Priestessing a blessing together would require interaction.
Generally, the more orthodox Pagan protocol for these types of situations, is that if two members of a circle have a conflict they cannot resolve, it is the responsibility of the parties to put it aside during the ceremony completely, or if they cannot, to withdraw. It's kind of like "speak now or forever hold your peace" at weddings. Some circles even ask "is there peace on the circle" before starting to ensure that people have a chance to withdraw if they need to. I'm on the orthodox end of things when it comes to pagan ethics, and this community isn't, so withdrawal wouldn't be required of me by community standards.
I have stopped going to religious events in my former community because this bully is quite active in leadership roles. At the time, she was angry that she was kicked out of our house, not accountable for her behavour (as bullies seldom are) and has no doubt spread her perspective among the other people in our formerly shared community. One or two of her friends, when I have run into them, show signs that they have been told something (I'm not sure what) that makes them cooler toward me. The way Pagan opening ceremonies work is that the people doing the opening have to stay to the end and participate in the closing, so I wouldn't be able to leave if the going got tough.
My third reason for wanting to bail is that, I lead a choir that has offered to perform that night, and we're just not ready to perform publicly.
The fourth reason is that there are lots of other performers, and we probably won't be on till about three hours in, and I'll be fried from the priestessing and the waiting and even less likely to be able to perform competently because of it.
One other glitch is that the organizer has disclosed to me that she has BPD and I know rejection, if she takes it that way, might be particularly painful for her.
I don't want to do a bad job in a hostile environment as my first time performing in awhile in front of people who may have been poisoned against me. I don't think it would be good for my currently fragile performer's soul.
I am an amazon; I can get through anything, but do I want to? I really should let the organizer know now, so she can find someone else for the opening.
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Okay, I've finished drafting my bail email to the organizer. I haven't sent it yet, but I should do soon, as the gig is less than a week away.
Now I'm not certain. Is this a challenge I should accept, making myself visible and possibly a target, or a valid warning that I should avoid?