weshouldntbealone-blog

[weshouldntbealone-blog]

lil detox

If I just keep writing about men maybe they will become completely boring and uninteresting to me.

I think I’m going to take a small detox from learning about coding before I start school on the 4th.

Going to school is kinda fucking terrifying, I realized as I was pulling into the parking lot for orientation that I was triggered by the view of a school across a parking lot just from watching the NEWS about school shootings.

It’s a rainy day today and while I probably wouldn’t have minded staying in bed, I really appreciate the slow moving, sleepy way that people move around on days like this. I’m trying to enjoy what are hopefully my last 8 months in Columbia before I move to NYC and live with my best friend since like 7th grade. It’s crazy how I’m over half way done serving what is hopefully the last of my time in Columbia. The thing is though, this is like basically the cheapest city to live in in the entire country so in that regard I was probably pretty smart to move here even if all of the opportunities that exist here make me feel like I’m a senior in college again.

I gotta not do weed when I’m learning programming and that’s real.

[weshouldntbealone-blog]

working

It’s a Saturday and I’m at work. I really need to write all of this shit down as many times as it will take so that I can start to process what happened to me, finish, and move forward.

I escaped my husband. I ran away into the life of the unknown. My therapist called it a life raft. That’s what it was for some time. In all reality that period will probably be a blip on my consciousness and barely even noticeable in the future. It’s crazy. I’m not even 30 yet. How is that possible?

I feel like I’ve been alive forever and survived multiple lives already. Sometimes I get so afraid that my body is going to just break all the way down before me.

My boyfriend who I dated after fleeing my husband has become very hostile to me and we no longer speak. I think this has to do with a multitude of things, he won’t talk to me about it. I’m fairly certain he couldn’t stand that I was married while we were together. I suppose in his mind I wasn’t honest about who I was or what I was going through when we met, but to be honest, I didn’t even know what was happening.

I knew I was sick, I knew I was dying but I didn’t entirely know why. Now I know, and even though it makes complete sense in my own mind, trying to explain it to other people, especially those who haven’t been involved in anything similar (most people) is still challenging.

I don’t know why it’s really important to even talk about this stuff but I think I need to keep doing it until it comes out so easily I don’t even have to think.

[weshouldntbealone-blog]

Let’s Talk About Men

Specifically white men, as that is who, as a white woman, I have the most experience with generally.

I can’t help but notice that you all are a little upset. The suicide rate for middle aged white men is exploding since 2016, and I think we all know why, but this information seldom gets the sort of compassionate attention that it truly deserves. Lots of men (and others, but this isn’t about them right now) who I know personally grapple with existential dread and suicidal ideation, and loneliness.

I have some wonderful men in my life. However, despite all of their fantastic traits, nearly every man I know is burdened with a silent guilt and imposter syndrome. I believe this has almost always been there in the male psyche, but I’m no expert. In the past few years, this guilt and rage has been triggered, it seems, in many of them. I wish I could understand this fuller. To me, it seems like the blossoming of media about the experience of women has sort of shut men out of the conversation. I don’t think this is necessarily right, or fair to anyone. Men still hold the majority of the power in the world and without them on the side of justice, everything is going to be much more difficult.

Since Trump was elected, tons of emotional issues that many of us knew were looming silently just under the skin of most Americans were ripped out into the open. White men, what do you see when you see these men? Do you feel a sense of understanding when the president, his cabinet, senators, and representatives who look like you do all these unjust things? Do you feel pride? I know many of you do not.

I ask my next question with the deepest sincerity and lack of judgment:

Why do you seem to have grasped this tumultuous time in human history as an opportunity to ride your privilege for all that it’s worth?

Many men that I know do not agree with the current administration, I know that. But what are you, personally, doing to right these wrongs? Many men that I know are poor, and will employ tactics to further themselves within our current structure. I personally can’t blame you for looking out for yourself or your family first, but question what this says about you, and know also, that you’re not quite as sneaky as you think.

There is an undercurrent of silent understanding that it has to be a bit of a doozy to face these things as a white man who, as far as I know, does not wish to bring suffering on other people. Regardless, this rarely gets spoken about. It seems to me that lots of men don’t even know how to stop hurting the people that they interact with either directly or not, and due to patriarchal expectations, are unable to express these feelings to others for fear of appearing weak and thus a poor provider or a loser with no friends. I too have problems saying things that are hurtful or ignorant. We’re all learning how to be better people here.

Men, I want to encourage you to talk about how you feel. It isn’t really fair to have women speak among themselves in order to decode how you might feel. And besides, do you really want yourself to be represented in ways that you have no part in?

It is okay to be vulnerable in times like these. As a matter of fact, it is crucial. We will not be able to unchain ourselves from the sinking ship of patriarchy without understanding each others’ pain and learning to be empathetic.

Talk to women. Pay them for their time. If you can’t afford a therapist, or don’t feel comfortable going to one, or don’t think it would be productive because they don’t know you personally and it would take too much time to give a backstory, I’m sure any of a number of your women friends would be happy to listen to you and talk through your feelings if you give them some money for their time and work. We all want to make the world a better place, but it really isn’t fair to expect women to work to support themselves and additionally work to help you deprogram your internalized guilt and self loathing for free. You’re surrounded by women who have been raised to be empathetic and compassionate, oftentimes to a fault. Put that resource to work for you, just make sure you don’t take advantage.

Practicing empathy and openness with women may help you when interacting with other men. We are not all that different, you know. Practice these skills on women in your life and pay them for their time, then pass the message along to the next guy and see if you can both open a pathway between each other to set fire to the destructive tendencies lying latent in your subconscious that you likely do not understand or wish to confront on any level.

If you ignore them, they will not go away on their own.

[weshouldntbealone-blog]

We Don’t Have Time to Be Lonely

There is no reason to be alive and happy other than to make your life and those of others just a bit easier. I’ve been struggling on my own for nearly a year now and, despite pulling myself up and out of a terribly pernicious situation, have had a much more difficult time than I anticipated dealing with loneliness and heartbreak. That’s beside the point, however. We all go through periods of downturn and isolation from time to time, and the most important thing my therapist ever told me was to be grateful that my experiences have not cut off my ability to feel things. When you stop having things affect you emotionally, it’s a slippery slope to sociopathy and even deeper isolation.

In our current political and economic climate, it is so easy to become jaded and burned out. Nearly everyone knows that capitalism and wealth inequality are the root causes for our suffering, but what can be done about it? Where do we go from here? Every day I wake up wondering what will inspire the tidal wave of angry millennials and zoomers to fight back in a way that is simple and methodical. We’re not only waiting on a miracle, we’re waiting on a well constructed message, and we know that no one person, or organization can do it alone. The only way that we have any chance is to bridge the expansive gaps between us and find common ground in our isolation and despair.

Recently I posted on my Instagram about how isolated I felt and how I perceived the world to be passing me by, as if I would be forgotten about by everyone who I hold dear and would never be able to escape from my precarious situation living in South Carolina, where every menial job available to me as a Bachelor of Art competes with some manner of prison labor. The responses I received were surprising. I sort of expected an outpouring of support, but that wasn’t all I got. I was given a glimpse into the worlds of various people who I have met throughout my life, and these people indicated to me that they have been feeling the same thing.

“Besides the ongoing financial and economic instability since before we were teenagers, the social landscape with unlimited options and no recourse for follow through? More time spent sending messages that are easily forgotten than real face-to-face interactions?”

Head, meet hammer. How do we fix this problem? I can’t pretend to know the answer. I know that there has been a rustle of movement recently to encourage verbal communication among our peers, but I feel like that’s not enough. What do we talk about? What is important to us? Despite how strongly I feel about social change and revolution, sometimes I can’t help but feel like I harp on it too often, or like the message has too much potential to be lost which is even more depressing than not speaking about it at all, sometimes. Nearly everyone I meet speaks about wealth disparity with disdain, how do we open these conversations up, across generations, across every other thing that attempts to divide us? It seems clear to most people now who the enemy is, but the enemy seems too big and too powerful for any one of us to make a difference.

I implore you to look around you and see everyone that you meet as aware and intelligent. We are all looking for a way to make this life a little less crushing. Your friends online may be a bit out of reach, but there are gas station attendants, coworkers, baristas, and on and on who have a lot more in common with you than you may think. Lots of people understand that if you’re not angry you’re not paying attention, but being angry is tiresome, especially alone, and it seems so much easier to just knuckle down and try to pave a path for our own comfort.

If we are to have any hope for the future in the face of climate change and wealth inequality, without just, massive death and terror, we must use the resources we have directly in front of us. Work with what you have. Start a conversation with someone you’ve never spoken to before but see often in polite circumstances. Write about it. Constantly confirm your reality to yourself and others. We are living in difficult times and nothing will change without action, but before we can do anything we must pull ourselves out of this muck of depression. What else can really be done?

We cannot wait until we elect people to represent us in a fight about which they have no direct understanding. We will be let down over and over. The gears of justice turn so slowly and we simply do not have time to wait.