When You’ve Hurt Someone: Reflecting Without Collapse

A conversation for queer people navigating accountability, regret, and the slow work of becoming someone safer

You’re here because something happened. Maybe it’s a conversation that didn’t go well. Maybe someone told you that you crossed a line. Maybe you’ve been carrying the guilt for months. Maybe it hit you all at once. Or maybe it crept in slowly, as you began to notice the impact of your actions.

Whatever brought you here, this page isn’t about blaming or shaming. It’s about what happens next.

You might be sitting with regret. Or confusion. Or defensiveness. Or panic. You might be scared you’re an abuser. You might be trying to figure out what’s yours to hold, and what isn’t. You might be trying not to disappear.

This guide is for queer people who want to face themselves honestly, without spiralling into collapse. For those who want to change, not to perform redemption, but to genuinely become safer.

It’s Okay to Feel a Lot at Once

Accountability doesn’t require you to be calm. It doesn’t require you to know exactly what happened. It doesn’t require you to be confident or articulate or already changed.

You might feel:

• Ashamed

• Defensive

• Relieved that it’s finally being named

• Heartbroken

• Numb

• Scared that you’ll be defined by your worst moment

• Scared that you’ve lost something you can’t get back

• Afraid that people will turn away

• Afraid that they won’t

All of that makes sense. These feelings don’t excuse what happened, but they are part of the work.

You can feel the impact and feel scared. You can feel regret and not be ready to speak. You can feel the urge to justify yourself and choose not to.

What It Doesn’t Mean

If you’ve used harm, it doesn’t mean:

• You’re irredeemable

• You’ve lost the right to be in community

• You’re only the worst thing you’ve done

• You’re no longer a survivor

• You don’t deserve care

• You’re excused from accountability because of your trauma

People who’ve caused harm are still people. Still part of the collective. Still capable of change.

But change doesn’t happen just because you want to feel better. It begins when you’re willing to stay with the discomfort, ask honest questions, and shift how you move through the world.

Before You Reach Out

You might want to say something. To apologise. To clear your name. To explain.

Before you do, ask:

• Who is this for?

• Am I asking for forgiveness, or offering accountability?

• Am I ready to receive a response I might not like, or any response at all?

• Am I centring myself, or trying to reduce the harm?

Not all repair is possible. Not all communication is welcome. Not all harm gets to be resolved.

Sometimes the work starts with what you do quietly. How you talk about it. How you learn. How you interrupt your own patterns. How you show up differently going forward.

What Accountability Can Actually Look Like

Accountability isn’t one thing. It’s not one apology or one therapy session or one grand gesture. It’s ongoing. It’s not always visible. And it’s not always reciprocated.

It might look like:

• Naming what you did, clearly and without excuse

• Listening to the impact without correcting the version you’re given

• Taking space from platforms, people, or dynamics that reinforced the harm

• Getting support from someone who will challenge you, not coddle you

• Learning how your history, trauma, and context shaped your choices—without using them as a shield

• Practising different behaviours before they’re demanded of you

• Accepting that the person you hurt may never want to reconnect—and that you don’t get to decide what healing looks like for them

• Staying in the work long after the heat has faded

If You’re Trying Not to Spiral

Sometimes the weight of accountability turns inward. You might feel like disappearing. You might feel like you’ve ruined everything. You might be tempted to reframe the story so it hurts less.

But accountability isn’t about collapsing under the weight. It’s about finding the strength to stay present. Not to be perfect. Just to be responsible.

You can hold what you did without becoming it.
You can take responsibility without turning it into self-punishment.
You can make repair, if it’s welcomed, and still change even if it’s not.

If You’ve Also Been Harmed

Maybe you’re someone who’s survived violence. Maybe your own trauma is close to the surface. Maybe you acted from pain. That matters. And it’s something to explore.

But harm you experienced does not cancel out harm you caused. You can be both. Many people are.

You don’t need to erase your own survival. But you do need to stop the harm that’s coming from you now.

You Don’t Have to Do This Alone

Trying to navigate this without collapsing is hard. It’s made harder by communities that sometimes demand perfection, or punish clumsiness, or confuse shame for growth.

You don’t have to prove your worth. But you do have to stay in the work.

Find someone who can hold you accountable with love. Someone who won’t let you off the hook, but also won’t throw you away.

Let it take time. Let it be uneven. Let it be real.

If You Want Support

Accountability doesn’t mean going it alone. It means choosing better support.

• A therapist who gets systems and harm, not just feelings

• A community elder or peer who’s done their own work

• A program or group for people who’ve caused harm

• Someone who will ask hard questions and stay in it with you

And sometimes, it means being the one who builds what didn’t exist when you needed it.