Is it a diagnosis or the end of the world?
For the last four years, I’ve been fighting a general malaise that waffles between mostly tolerable to completely unsurvivable. Back in 2020, everyone seemed to understand that a mass-disabling global pandemic that caused the end of society as we know it might make a person feel a little down.
From 2021–2022, there was this glimmer that maybe we’d learned something. That society as we knew it was broken to begin with, and that we have the capacity and infrastructure to create something better for everyone. It felt so close, so achievable. It felt like people were starting to wake up and demand more for our lives.
In 2024, the world around me seems to have returned to a state of apathy with an edge of callousness toward vulnerability that I don’t remember prior to the global shut down. This is not business as usual, this is bootstrap mentality on steroids. Perhaps before all this, I was simply in my early 20s with a vibrant social life and fulfilling career at the time. Perhaps young adulthood affords us with a natural levity to help us cope with the heavy unknown of the future.
I’ve always lived my life through the modality of collective care: when we are struggling we lean on each other; we assume good intentions of those around us; we make the effort to be pleasant to each other; we take care of ourselves while still leaving room for acts of selflessness; we expect reciprocity from one another.
2024, one month in, is marked with power-drunk politicians mocking the will of their constituents, a job market so competitive it’s hard to understand what “minimum qualifications” even means anymore, rigid return-to-office mandates in droves, and still…COVID 19. That’s on top of the mounting attempts at the removal of transgender people from public life. My fundamental worldview is being challenged in a way that it never has before.
There is one principle I have lived by since my early days as a baby organizer; taught to me by incredible BIPOC activists from our history.
Angela Davis said
You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.
Grace Lee Boggs said
Revolution that is based on the people exercising their creativity in the midst of devastation is one of the great historical contributions of humankind.
James Baldwin said
Yet, hope — the hope that we, human beings, can be better than we are — dies hard; perhaps one can no longer live if one allows that hope to die.
Put simply: have hope, relentlessly. I’ve long since dug my heels in at the shores of hope, believing fiercely that the shifting sands would shift in the right direction. It’s felt like high tide for me for a little too long. It’s only a matter of time before I’m treading water. One can only tread water and hope relentlessly at the same time for so long.
I think like many other angsty teens who are now almost 30, I’ve been diagnosed with mental illness at various points in my life. When I was 13, it was anger management issues; at 19, it was generalized anxiety disorder; at 22, it was depression. And yet, my friends at that time found me to be annoyingly positive. I always had a silver lining and an action plan ready and waiting. I used to wonder if any mental health professional would be able to make sense of me.
When I was 24, I started seeing an LCSW instead of a psychologist. I sought this person out because I was absorbing some of the trauma of the community I served at my LGBTQ+ non-profit job. This is the first therapist I’ve had that acknowledged how the world that we live in makes us sick and that mental health is not a perfect science. For example, there is no substantive evidence that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in our brains.
In fact, recent studies on SSRIs indicate long-term harm and dependence without actually curing mental illness. Yet, we continue to prescribe them and hope for the best. We are a highly medicated society; with pharmaceuticals, yes, but also self-soothed by substances and distractions alike. We are ameliorating the symptoms, but are we addressing the root causes? Is this society functioning if we must numb ourselves to it to survive?
Further, what is a “normal” level of emotional distress under a deeply oppressive society?
Anyone that dares to dream of a world that doesn’t revolve around the constant sale of their labor in exchange for less than the bare minimum is likely to feel insane. The medical model of mental healthcare is failing us all. We are not disordered. We are having a normal reaction to climate disaster, paying for genocide, low wages, poor healthcare, poorer education, and a continuous descent into fascism.
I’ve known this for 6 years now, and when I first realized how dire it is, it drove me forward in my pursuit of relentless hope for a better world. It fueled my passion for collectivism, to be believe that people are generally good, that every life is valuable simple because we are alive. I’ve cultivated a community that shared this worldview and we all fight every day for a future we know is possible.
My current tension is this: I’m tired. In a way I’ve never been. And I know that’s by design, so that we stop fighting back. The trouble is, it’s working on me. I feel a bone-deep defeat that I just can’t seem to bounce back from. And I’m not alone.
Suicide rates have been steadily increasing for decades, and in 2024, are the highest they’ve been in 80 years. For those doing the math, the highest they’ve been since the last publicly witnessed mass genocide and financial crisis. Suicide prevention programs focus largely on access to mental health care and medication. The mantra in wellness spaces I’ve heard since the early 2000s is “everyone should go to therapy!”
Which, indicates to me, that on some level we know that we’re all unwell. Suicide prevention is a society that values human life — one that we do not currently live in. It’s having our basic needs met; it’s contributing positively to our communities in tangible ways; it’s having time to play and rest.
Did you know that FICO scores were only introduced in 1989? Did you know your financial data that is used to determine this score is owned by 3 private corporations? Did you know you have to pay them to access that data? And now this closed system dictates whether you get to have safe housing and transportation? Does that sound functional to you?
My writing typically provides clear action steps toward radical change, with a message of hope interwoven in every paragraph. That’s who I am, who I have always been. And I still think that’s true, but at the moment? I simply don’t have access to it. And no amount of intention setting, journaling, mental health days, or therapy sessions are pulling my head above the water.
We need a fundamental restructuring of our world, or we’ll all drown. Figuratively, and literally (if we don’t take collective action to end the climate crisis). I’m typically the lighthouse for folks in my life, the one to remind us that we can’t give up and that a better world is possible. Not only is it possible, but it’s on the horizon. But I need to pass the torch, at least for a little while.
So, I’m asking you, reader: what are you doing to get back to shore?