2 MUCH THINK 2 SLEEP

Between my lived experience, my mental heath (anxiety/ocd disorders currently diagnosed, god knows what undiagnosed), and the awareness I try to carry of space I occupy (present as cishet white dude who likely made questionable life choices, paying way too much money to live in an expensive ass city on stolen land) – I spend a lot of time trying to feel small.

I’ve worked in non-profit for over a decade, after an undergrad in psychology, with the goal of, how do I support others?
How can I try to support people in the ways I’m now aware helped keep me from some very dark outcomes?
How do I use the things I’ve learned in my lived experience, and academic exposure, to improve my community?
How do I try to turn the dial down in some small measure on the amount of unnecessary hurt in the world?
How do I make sure that in the process I don’t turn myself into a martyr/saviour/some other permutation that makes it about me?
How do I not take myself and the values I’ve built up too seriously, because ultimately I won’t even register as a spec in the universe, and my time here too small to measure in the grander scheme?
How do I not overthink myself into madness?

Or worse – into looking like a fucking asshole? *gasp*

This list has gone off the rails.

There’s an even longer ranty bunch of tangled thoughts that go into my philosophy around my work and who I want to be in life…
However, this post is already going to talk enough about me, and I’ll be uncomfortable with how centered I am in a post where I want to feel like a nobody by the end of it. Ugh.

There are so many stories out there that I think matter more than mine, so many stories that I believe can help us learn how to break down barriers and become more empathetic of each other.

There are so many things we’ve learned in studying human behaviour that I know are only slowly making their way into public policy and legislation – decades behind the times.

There are so many people in community that have been screaming, crying, and begging for change for even longer than that.
I know there have been times when I wasn’t hearing them, and even more times I still need to listen.

How do I try and channel this into changing systems that have existed long before me, but my life has given me the opportunity to intersect with in my profession?

What is my responsibility to do so, or to get the fuck out of the way?

So, sure, a big chunk of the frequency that I experience anxiety over this conversation playing out in my head I can chalk up to my mental health.
Just gonna name that before moving on.

What the fuck we on about again?

Oh yeah – but what if this anxious mass of thinky-noodles floating in my skull occasionally hits on some good perspectives in the constant over-analyzing, rumination, and wild ass intrusive thoughts? [Most of the latter category should almost immediately go into the trash]

I bailed on social media because I constantly found myself getting into disputes. I would see comments that felt like they disrespected the lessons I’ve had to learn on the backs of a hurting community that I work in, and the stories of other communities that have experienced this for decades, stories that are so easily accessible in the digital age…

My growth has depended on being self-critical, and holy shit is my anxiety/ocd good at that. I’ve heard time and time again from the ambiguously referenced of the previous paragraph that they are tired of having to teach people who look like me, especially given that it is so easy to access the information to teach ourselves now.

I’ve felt a need to challenge my peers who look like me when they have these moments that seem to disrespect lessons that I have been fortunate to learn, and have come at a high cost.
I’ve known more people who have died under the age of 30 due to mental health and addictions than any person should have to experience. I’ve been a witness to the issues that BIPOC folks still have to struggle with, and the struggle to get people who look like me to believe these issues exist and are problematic.

There are theories of attitude and persuasion that suggest that folks may be more willing to change positions when the message comes from someone they trust, think fondly of, etc.

So when social media debate shit has gone poorly, believe me, I definitely reconsider that maybe I don’t hold the status in other people’s lives that I think I do – so I probably fucked up somewhere.

The debates also challenge some deeply held beliefs that people have acquired over time, and that is going to be uncomfortable – there is likely to be resistance, and change doesn’t happen immediately. So does one persist?

Fucked if I know. I had to bail. Because of the assumption that change does not occur – and people still post dismissive statements of BIPOC issues/other social concerns. I assume is a failure on my part.
Either in my ability to communicate; or that maybe I don’t know, what I think I know.

So I decided to go old school, rant on the internet blog style. If there’s something fucking meaningful in all this nonsense – then let it live because someone found this and it helped them. I don’t want ‘me’ attached to the equation, I’m a fucked up ball of mess who feels like he’s already outlived the time he had. Learned a bunch of cool shit, and experienced some really cool things though!!!

Beyond that, I’m still here – and I’m still learning, and I’m still growing, and still trying to be better, and I’m alright with being nobody.
I am building good relationships, I’m trying to ensure my work revolves around introducing folks to concepts while keeping myself out of it, and taking all the criticism and feedback I can.

I’m addressing my trauma, instead of performing that it doesn’t still haunt me every day of my life.
That involves counselling, reviewing my medication, any recreational substances (ie. alcohol), and possibly opening up more to mental health professionals about my experiences instead of being terrified of the diagnoses (Maria Bamford, you inspire me).
Oh, and giving back the part of my trauma that isn’t mine to carry, and leaving it in the court of the parent responsible.
I’m done hiding my hurt behind a curtain to preserve the feelings of someone who can’t own the harm they’ve done – and if they can’t figure that out, I trust they can figure out their life without me.

I’ll just be over here trying to figure out how to be my best nobody.

*[Lizzo just said “it wouldn’t be my life if it wasn’t in hard mode” in the documentary I’m watching – and my partner immediately hard turned with a double finger point at me… not relevant, but somehow feels a little relevant? Also the glory that is Lizzo is so dang bright I aspire to be like that and would have to earn being held up in comparison :P]