There Are No Sides. There Just Is.
I want to apologize to my readers for having been so quiet lately. The past year and some change have been a consistent uphill battle, with me rolling back downhill quite a lot. I’ve been trying to put a pin into what exactly it is that has changed for me in regards to writing, as well as why it’s been so hard for me to grasp any semblance of sure footing in life; but it’s been a hard journey.
I’ve felt more hopeless and like I no longer have any sort of solid foundation. The threat of the rug being pulled out from under me is always looming over my head. Is it the current administration and their constant dismantling of everything that keeps me afloat; from medicare, to the ADA, to the my bodily autonomy as a ciswoman, to the facade that this country had learned to care about Black lives that has quickly fallen away? It’s all of those things and more.
From the political to the personal, I feel unsafe in all regards. The last couple of years has caused, what feels like irreparable damage, to my mental health at the hands of people who I thought I could trust. I’ve been threatened with kidnapping and bodily harm that was so bad I became scared to both stay in my home and leave my home for months, leading to a diagnosis of PTSD. I’ve been emotionally abused and gaslit by men I was convinced to trust because they wore a mask of being caring and understanding until they knew they didn’t have to wear it anymore. They’ve used my mental illness against me in ways that I’ve never experienced and I doubt I’ll ever recover from.
As I get older, each and every new experience, each shedding of light onto just how deep the wrongs of the world goes, leaves me more and more hopeless. This particular country is on the verge of an economic collapse that most aren’t prepared for and quite frankly, I don’t see myself making it out of alive. No amount of good times with my friends or good news quiets the voice inside that is telling me that this all coming to an end soon.
That inability to quiet these thoughts and find a silver lining, or even make my words more poetic when expressing these thoughts are part of why I’ve been so quiet online. I’ve always been able to at least frame my hopelessness and catastrophizing in a way that is moving to read, but lately, nothing comes out but the flow of consciousness similar to the scrawling of disconnected, but somehow still connected, thoughts in my journal.
It’s not pleasant to say and I know it’s not pleasant to read. My throat burns with hot tears just typing these words out. Being gentle with myself doesn’t really help when the world is hellbent on being as rough with you as possible. I can’t advocate my way, self care my wya, therapy my way, or medicate my way through to the “other side.” There are no sides. There just is. The Venn Diagram is a circle. It’s nothing and everything all at once.
The most alarming thing about all of this is that I’m not “actively suicidal.” Yes, I’d prefer to not exist any longer, but I’ve come to just accept that this is just my state of being and it is my normal. This isn’t a cry for help. This isn’t even a call to ask if anyone else relates. This is just me. I may have given a lot of myself to others and made small changes for the better, but I’ve absorbed far more negative than one body, one soul, one being should ever have to endure. No one was put on this earth to suffer, but that doesn’t mean we won’t.
