The Proverbial Towel
Consider it chucked.
I started this Substack in hopes of building out the framework for sustaining resilience and resistance that my wild weird mind created one night soon after the election last fall:
Although I found a lot of life in writing what I’ve managed to map out so far, and have so much more of the framework I wanted to explore (especially around sense-making and thoughtful action)-- it's time for me to throw in the towel on this project... at least for the foreseeable future.
I have alluded to it here in some places, but in the fall and December I experienced multiple harms and trauma from some of the people close to me that reactivated my PTSD from India 15 years ago—which was a self-shattering illness that I had fought for years and years to heal and get stable from. Because of these more recent traumas, my new distorted reality, the accompanying adjacent losses/relational confusion, and daily distress, my mental health has taken a sharp nose dive over the last few months and I am doing my best just to survive each day right now. I've gone dark on all social media except for here in an effort to cope with triggers until I am stable again.
I was hoping that writing and continuing to explore and map-out the framework here on Substack would be a life-giving thing for me in this hard season, as it was starting to be before being re-traumatized in December, but unfortunately I am finding that my job, tending to my mental health, and trying to make it to tomorrow are all I have enough energy for most days.
Hopefully I'll make it through this darkest bit and be stable enough again in a few months to be able to continue to expand more on the framework, but here are some parting thoughts for my friends in the US in the meantime...
The things coming out of the administration are not going to get less shocking or disturbing. Be aware and informed, but unimpressed. Resist the false sense of effectiveness that comes from the cathartic path of the keyboard warrior and conserve your energy and rage for the things that will make a tangible difference in the real world. Breathe and Consider -- Might this choice to resist reactivity be a small way to be more compassionate and kind to my nervous system in an already trying time? Might resisting reactivity be a way to empower energized and practical love for my neighbor over the long haul?
Don't start something new. Find people who are already doing it and support or join them, even if it's not exactly how you'd prefer to do it.
Listen more than you speak. Find people and organizations who have already been doing resistance and justice work for decades, without having to be seen, learn from them.
Assume mass surveillance of metadata and if you've brought your phone to a protest, your personal data may be at risk also. Learn what to do to protect yourself and those you are digitally connected to who are vulnerable/at risk. *Note - I have 20 Faraday bags I was planning to give away or sell at cost with the tech/communication/security trainings I was planning to do on here. Let me know if you need one and cant afford one.
Use Drip or another period tracking app that only stores data locally on your phone. Or just use a paper calendar. Don't store it in the cloud or on your Google calendar, especially if you live in a red state. Share why with your teens, siblings, friends and encourage them to do the same.
Front load any healthcare things that you've been putting off. Start making appointments this week. Encourage your friends and family on Medicaid and Medicare to do the same, assist elders in accessing care.
Read most of your news. Read longer-form news 85% of the time, if you can, instead of getting it only from IG, tiktok, notes, Twitter, or TV. Some longer-form non-sensational podcasts may work also. This is about what your nervous system can handle over time to keep going sustainably, not about the credibility of those sources.
Learn and practice and keep practicing critical thinking skills and learn to identify logical fallacies and cognitive biases in your own thinking and arguments… this will help you spot them more quickly elsewhere.
Don't comply ahead of time.
Pick a lane or two that you want to give your energy to fighting for… there is too much injustice to tackle everything, what is yours to do? “We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something and to do it well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way…” - Oscar Romero (or his ghost I guess? 😂)
In these in-between months I might still post poetry occasionally, and if I have energy I may go back and record narrations for the previous posts for the folks who prefer listening to reading.
Until then.
🌱
Thank you Jo, for what you’ve shared here. Will be thinking of you as you take care of yourself!
Love you, Jo. Thank you for your wisdom.