Aw, man! That is a sucky way to lose a community you enjoyed being part of.

OK, so you’ve tried to figure out just why this event had such a profound effect on you, and you’re not sure. Some time has passed, it seems, and you’re not over it. That takes the obvious advice out of the equation.

Maybe it would help to do some separation rather than dealing with the entire tangle at once. So, there was the feedback which was soul-destroying. And you dealt with that, I don’t want to say badly, but in a way that fell short of full resolution. That’s one thing.

Then there’s the next thing, which was the prospect of facing these people again. Your feelings were so strong that you decided to avoid that, and you left the community. This, too, is an unresolved situation because now you’re worried about going to this event even though they’re not likely to be at it. But I want to stress that your decision not to go, your decision not to face them was completely legitimate. We all do what we have to do to stay safe, emotionally. And sometimes we do things that, from the outside, might look silly, but at the time they were necessary or we wouldn’t have done things that way.

I think there might be a third layer in that if you now go back, you may feel pressure to explain your absence or just feel awkward because you left in such a sudden and strange way (and not because this congregation wasn’t right for you).

I think the key is going to be acceptance, and that may have to be a slow, creeping progress. That’s why I tried to tease the different strands apart, because what you’re writing feels a bit like this kind of shame-ball that sounds a bit like butwhatiftheyrethereIcantfacethemwhydidIevenIdontunderstandwhythiseffectsmesomuchImsodumbIshouldbeabletohandleitimagineseeinghimandhesallpoliteandshitbutwhatwouldhethinkbutwhydoIevencarewhathethinksaaaaaaaaah!

See if it becomes easier to digest once you tease some of the fibres apart.