Finding Your People: IFS and the Search for Community as a COVID-Cautious, Childfree Woman
Disclaimer: This blog post is meant for informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or prevent any physical or mental disorder. This is not a substitute for treatment from a licensed mental health professional.
One of the particular challenges of being both COVID-cautious and childfree is the question of community. Where do you find your people?
Most social structures are built around families with children or around large social gatherings. If you're avoiding both of these, where does community happen?
And perhaps more importantly: what happens internally when you're searching for community and keep finding that you don't quite fit anywhere? What parts of you get activated by this search? What beliefs form about whether belonging is even possible for someone like you?
The Isolation That Goes Unnoticed
When you're childfree, many people assume you have endless freedom and community because you're not tied down by parenting. What they don't see is the particular loneliness of being the person without children—not invited to certain events, not part of the implicit community of parents, watching friendships shift as people have kids.
When you're COVID-cautious, you're isolated by your own struggles surrounding needing to avoid the virus. You're not going to the large gatherings, the indoor parties, the spontaneous social events. Many people around you have moved on and forgotten that not everyone feels safe in those spaces.
When you're both, the isolation can feel profound. You're not part of the parent community. You're not part of the "back to normal" community. You're watching people you care about live lives that feel increasingly inaccessible to you.
The Parts That Respond to Isolation
When you're searching for community and keep finding that you don't fit, certain protective parts become active:
The Hopeful Seeker: This part keeps trying, believing that somewhere there are your people. It scours online communities, attends events in hopes of finding connection, reaches out to others who seem like they might understand.
The Resigned Part: This part has given up hope. It believes that true community isn't possible for someone like you. It might become cynical about other people or resigned to solitude.
The Shame Part: This part wonders if maybe you're the problem. Maybe if you weren't so cautious or so childfree, you'd fit in better. Maybe your choices have made you unlovable or unacceptable.
The Angry Part: This part is furious that society isn't set up to accommodate people like you. It's angry at people who can fit neatly into mainstream structures and don't understand what it's like to be outside them.
The Independent Part: This part has learned to be self-sufficient, to create meaning and fulfillment without depending on community. It tells you that you don't need people anyway.
What Community Requires
At a fundamental level, community requires visibility. You need to be able to be seen as you are—COVID-cautious, childfree—without having to minimize, defend, or explain yourself.
But when your choices are outside the norm, visibility feels risky. You've likely experienced judgment, dismissal, or attempts to change your mind. So parts of you have learned to hide.
The paradox: the parts trying to keep you safe by hiding are preventing the visibility required for genuine community.
The Search for Your People
Many women in this position describe an internal shift when they stop looking for a perfect fit and start looking for people who share values rather than identical choices:
People who respect autonomy and self-determination
People who don't pressure you to change fundamental life decisions
People who can hold complexity (you don't have to agree on everything)
People who honor both caution and freedom as valid choices
People who create connection in ways that work for your life (not just large gatherings or family-centered events)
These people exist. They may not be in the obvious places. They may be:
Online communities focused on values rather than specific demographics
Professional or intellectual spaces where non-conformity is expected
Therapy or personal development communities
People who are themselves outside mainstream in some way
Smaller gatherings, creative spaces, or cause-based groups
Friendships developed slowly and deeply rather than through mainstream social structures
The Internal Work
Beyond finding external community, there's important internal work that happens through IFS:
Understanding the parts that hide your identity and what they're protecting you from. Understanding the parts that have given up on community and what losses they're grieving. Understanding the parts that feel shame about your choices and challenging the false beliefs they carry.
Many women find that as they become more internally aligned—less fragmented between hiding and seeking, more grounded in their choices—community becomes more possible. Not because the external situation changes, but because they're able to show up more authentically.
When you're not constantly managing which parts are safe to express in which contexts, you have more energy for genuine connection. When you've released shame about your choices, you can speak about them without defensiveness. When you're grounded in Self-led clarity about what you want, you can look for community from a place of genuine interest rather than desperate need.
The Particular Gift of Chosen Family
Many COVID-cautious, childfree women eventually create communities that look different from mainstream structures. Instead of being built around shared life stage (like neighborhoods where everyone has kids), they're built around:
Shared values about autonomy and self-determination
Shared experiences of being outside the norm
Shared interests or commitments
Genuine connection and mutual care
Flexibility about how connection happens (since mainstream structures don't quite fit)
This kind of community—built consciously rather than defaulting to mainstream structures—often feels deeper and more authentic than communities people are born or married into.
The Reality
Finding your people as a COVID-cautious, childfree woman isn't easy. There's a real cost to living outside multiple norms simultaneously. The isolation is real. The searching is real. The grief about not fitting neatly into existing structures is real.
But many women also discover that this search, while painful, has led them to communities they wouldn't have found otherwise. Communities built on genuine connection rather than circumstance. Communities that honor complexity and autonomy. Communities where they can finally be fully seen.
That's worth searching for. That's worth the vulnerability of showing up authentically, even when you've been hurt or rejected before. That's worth the internal work of releasing shame and protective hiding.
Your group of people exists. They may look different from what mainstream structures suggest. But they're out there—people who understand what it's like to live outside the norm, who respect your choices, who can hold both the difficulty and the freedom that come with being exactly who you are.
To connect with a mental health professional who understands the difficulties of navigating this internal terrain, reach out to Dr. Lauren Bartholomew today!
