Sunday mornings are my “church” as I drive across town to a favorite local coffee shop to write. Last Sunday was a little more urgent as I had thoughts about the TikTok ban that happened the night before.

I spent two hours writing about “How to Survive a TikTok Ban (from a creator who was banned 8 times)” only to find it moot before I could get home to make final edits and post it. The app came back online around lunchtime.

So I’m pivoting again. When I started up the app and saw the message thanking “President Tr***” who is not yet president, I knew the app I loved was gone and something else was in its place. The atmosphere was different. The energy was not how we left it the day before.

This is not our app. There’s no sweeping it under a rug to keep a positive spin on things. I was encouraged to see so many of my friends and following echoing my intuition, but equally disheartened to see a surprising number of my spiritual collective cheering and back to flipping tarot cards like nothing just happened.

What struck me about the night TikTok went dark, though, was that I was not very emotional over it myself. In the moment, I figured it was because I had been banned so many times I was used to it. I was mostly sad for everyone else going through this for the first time.

There was collective heartbreak over the loss of what was for many our last place of freedom on the internet. But it hasn't always been great. Although we've been free of censorship from the US government up to now, we have seen a fair bit of suppression.

Over the course of 4 years, TikTok has banned my accounts a total of 7 times. It was usually men reporting my content for "hate speech against a protected class" for talking about sexual coercion. I've also seen my videos suppressed when I have a lot of negative activity in the comments on a more viral video. And women have seen a pattern in what we're allowed to say versus what men can say to us. A man can threaten to rape me, but I can't tell him to f**k off when he does it. We've all come to learn how to code our speech to avoid getting flagged. For several years I referred to these men as "dingbat" until a few months ago that word finally got a violation.

My existence on this app has been tenuous for a long time already, so by the time the app got banned, I had already detached. And practicing detachment in relationships, it wasn't all that difficult a task to let go. TikTok is a video app. There are other video apps. I've had to move apps before. I moved from Twitter, to Threads, and now to BlueSky. There's a learning curve and a mourning of features lost, but it's not the end of the world.

TikTok is technically still banned. Apple’s app store no longer has it available. And though we can all still post, we are definitely seeing changes. There’s a lot more AI and right wing content, and the real raw videos from users “on the ground” have been pushed down in favor of media outlets. I’m seeing news far more often than I used to, and I’m not near as many humans sharing their personal vantage point.

My news is currently coming from Substack and BlueSky, so that’s where I’m spending my online consumption. But I am still posting to TikTok for the crowd there who doesn’t want to leave. I’m sharing love and inspiration as much as I can before it’s gone and encouraging my other creator friends to do the same, with discretion. We’re all aware of invisible constraints and how to get around them. And we all feel a call to reach people before it’s too late. On any app that will allow us to.

In the meantime, I’ve felt a renewed call to speak to MAGA voters, particularly Christians and women. I made the attached video after the app was back online, knowing it’s technically still banned and we may only have a short window to reach people. It was a call to my fellow creators in the abuse community to go back to 2020 TikTok and talk about abuse again, to show the world what it looks like.

A lot of Trump supporters don’t know they’re under the spell of a controlling narcissist. They’re trauma bonded to a man who has made them promises he never intended to keep. They’ve been gaslit and brainwashed to stand by him and defend him the same way I defended and stood by my ex-husband. They need to see what abuse looks like so they can get themselves out of it.

And this is key. They have to get themselves out. We can’t do much to help them. All we can do is share what we know. But as I said in the video, we’re stronger now than we were in 2020. We’ve healed and we’re in a better position to lead people to the truth of what’s happening to them.

I’m excited to use what time we have left to share more. In fact, I’m doubly excited because I’ve decided to repost my old videos from the beginning. It just so happens I got my old account back a couple of months ago, my original mending.me account. It will take awhile to get through them, so hopefully the app will not be banned and I can get the main story back up. This will also pair with my book, which I’ve just posted more to today, go check it out (with paid subscription).

Some posts that may help you

* Detached - Right now is the time to learn the art of detachment. The world is changing fast and we all need to be on our toes, ready to move with it.

* Fear & Love - Recognizing the differences in how fear and love appear in us can help stave off panic.

* Transmuting Pain - How I’ve learned to move through pain and turn it into something else.

* Changing the World from the Inside - How the healing we do within us can change everything around us for the better.

* Authentistic - Autism and living authentically can help us confidently stand up against things that may try to hold us down.

More from TikTok this week

About Forgiveness for the Abuser

Healing in Relationship

How to Listen to Yourself

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