“It was too uncomfortable to not have the feeling of belonging to her family.”
Alice told me this during one of my Loving Conflict workshops. She was explaining why she had stopped asking questions, and why a friendship that had carried her through the hardest year of her life had come to an end.
Let me back up.
During Covid, Alice and her next-door neighbor Sarah both lived alone, far from family. And they became each other’s lifeline in the way that only isolation can create. Shopping for each other, checking in every day, holding each other together when the world felt like it was falling apart.
As the months went on, Alice’s family and friends became more and more vocal about vaccines, lockdowns, what they believed was really happening behind the official story. Alternative media links arrived in her inbox daily. Her community was certain about what they believed, and they believed it together.
So Alice went to Sarah, because Sarah was a researcher by training, and Alice wanted a thinking partner. They sat at the kitchen table and went through the articles and videos her family was sending. They dug into the sources, they separated propaganda from reasonable questions, they tried to parse out conspiracy from real concern. It was careful, honest work. And they did it together for weeks.
The problem was that their research kept showing holes in what Alice’s community was telling her. The facts she was finding with Sarah did not match the story her family was living inside. And Alice was caught between two realities that could not both be true.
One evening Alice told Sarah she needed to stop. She could not keep doing this research, because the gap between what they were finding and what her people believed was becoming too painful. She said she would rather stop questioning altogether than lose her sense of belonging.
So they stopped the research. And then they stopped talking too. Alice told me she still misses her.
When Alice told me her story in the workshop, the room went completely still. And I think everyone recognized something in it. Belonging is not a small thing. It is one of the deepest needs we carry. And Alice was being asked to choose between truth as she was discovering it and the people she loved most.
This is really hard work, holding two realities at once without forcing one of them to win. And Alice could not hold it. The weight of it was just too much when one side meant losing her people.
I have thought about her story many times since that workshop. What would I have done in her position? I would like to believe I would keep questioning. Yet I also know what it feels like to need the people you love more than you need to know what is true. And the truth is, I am not sure.
That is the part of this work I find hardest. Knowing that sometimes the person in front of us needs to feel safe more than they need the truth. And knowing that sometimes, even between people who really care about each other, the distance grows anyway.
This story is from my book Loving Conflict, Amazon Best Seller and #1 New Release in Business Conflict Resolution & Mediation. Link to the book : https://linktr.ee/anna.lecat.
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