I felt this as well re: trans issues, and the barrage of anti-trans EOs. My son is trans and whenever I tried to talk to family about what was happening they seemed disconnected, obtuse, like they didn't care. And I am even talking about family members who are dems and overtly support my son. And sometimes, worst of all, they tried to gaslight me into thinking, “you guys will be ok,” “even if it’s not ok, it will be ok,” “I just don’t want you to become obsessed and let it drag you down,” etc… WTF?! I’m tired, but fighting. I am disheartened, but still resisting.
Fellow parent of a trans kid, and this has been my experience as well. Even the people who love her a lot don't really FEEL how hard this is for us. It's heartbreaking. Sending you and your family love and strength!
So sorry to hear this. We’re also dealing with anti-trans legislation in the UK (from a nominally “left wing” government moreover) although it’s not - yet - as bad as the US. I think even socially “liberal” people have a lack of empathy sometimes; they know what the right thing to say is, but they’re not really invested. Which is short-sighted to say the least, because trans rights (& other lgbtq rights) and feminism are so commingled - if one is attacked, we’re all attacked.
I think you raise some important points. We can't normalize this, or tell ourselves, "well, it's going to be ok for me so I don't have to freak out (read: do anything)."
But also, I know and believe that activism has to play the long game. And that playing the long game depends on a sense of hope. Fascists want us demoralized, because then we cannot be strategic, cannot keep going, and may completely give up.
I think often of the fact that, right up until the moment Roe v. Wade ended, the fight to end it looked hopeless. The right held onto hope (and the discipline and organization hope tends to inspire) for 50 long years. We have to be at least that dedicated.
Your voice has been one that continuously helps me to rediscover hope, and so to hear that you might be feeling a little better makes me feel better, not worse <3
You know, I keep toying with the idea that we need another metaphor. Some things unmake us--we can't bounce back. Yes, we can rebuild. But we have to make ourselves anew.
Giving thanks for your brilliant work and all you do and are.
I just wrote this whole long comment, then closed the window to yell at some asshole on Facebook, causing me to lose the comment. But I'm going to try my best to recreate it:
In one of my fairy groups, a woman posted an image of the couch her cats had destroyed. She didn't want to sew it back together, or replace it. So she bought these gorgeous floral patches on Etsy, sewed them over the holes, and transformed this generic, boring couch into a breathtaking work of art. That's what we need here.
We can't go "back," and we shouldn't want to. Back sucked, too, and a lot of us--those with the most privilege--are in denial about that fact, because we are now being confronted with a reality that could one day suck as much for us as it has for more marginalized groups.
My husband is a civil rights attorney who specializes in police misconduct. So basically, police shootings and beatings, and jail deaths. His work didn't change under the first Trump administration, and I doubt it will change under this one. Because the violence his clients have faced has remained consistent. There was a boy starved to death in solitary confinement, alone and terrified, when Obama was president, not to mention dozens of horrific shootings. Women raped, left alone after childbirth to watch their babies die in jail cells, denied medical care, under Biden.
This country is broken, no matter who leads it. It is racist and misogynistic to the core, and our criminal justice system is an absolute hellhole.
When Biden was elected, a lot of the resistance receded. Liberals were triumphant. They thought they had won. The movement lost energy, even as deportations and raids, and genocide and human rights abuses, continued.
Our mandate is the same, no matter who is president: to find a sliver of hope that keeps us fighting, to fight, and to win.
This is so true. You don't get to that Oval Office without selling your soul to the project of American Empire. Very good to remember that - because the Democrats are not the answer either, they can't be within this system. They must be complicit.
This is beautiful. I do think we, myself included, get caught up in the moment and take the opportunity of positive political or legal outcomes to sit back and rest. Because we really would prefer not to have to fight. And fighting is so hard since there are just so many things to fight for!
But you’re right, liberals are just as likely to want to “make America great.” We want to go back to when unions were strong, when immigrants were (more) welcome, when abortion was legal. (Side note, apparently “abortion” is not in the predictive text on my iPhone??!!””) but even RBG wasn’t convinced that Roe vs. Wade was the best way to achieve our goals. So let’s fight for a better solution. What if we remade America into a country that had more sustainable and less fragile laws to “promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” What if we remade our country into one that CARED about the general welfare and the liberty of our posterity. Who’s working on the dems “project 2025”? Because if no one is, then it’s our own fault. We can’t create something beautiful if we have no vision and no plan.
I think it's ok to have some mental health in spite of everything. Plenty of people in history have woken up in a country they didn't recognize. Plenty of people have figured out ways to survive psychologically, and even thrive, in bad political situations. You don't have to go full-on Navalny to keep a sense of humor and optimism about the future.
The truth is, we live in a bad country, where a lot of the voters are bad. I am using this short word deliberately. I could say sociopathic, misogynist, etc, but I just mean bad. And they're unapologetic about it.
These same people can be polite, even kind. But they don't feel responsible for anybody else. They really don't care about trans people, or brown people (even though some of them ARE brown), or women (even though some of them ARE women). They attract bad information like a magnet attracts iron filings.
(A black friend who is my age told me that her daughters voted for Trump because he sent them checks during the pandemic. They fell for that trick: Trump appeared to have personally signed the stimulus checks. He's great at this sort of sorry vaudeville stuff.)
Capitalism teaches people to only care about their own, very narrow interests. And these are not just material, but are in fact mainly about perceived social status. Trump voters like being dominant over others, and they like him because that's what he likes. And he does successfully hurt a lot of people in various ways, and that is entertaining and gratifying to them. It's a kind of vicarious sadism.
It's just realistic to admit that this is the case about the United States and that it has been the case for a very long time. I just finished reading "Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy, which is about the wars between indigenous people, Mexicans, and Americans in the mid-19th century. Everybody behaved horribly. This is not made up: McCarthy based the novel on historical first-person accounts of this border violence.
I think one problem for liberal women is that we expect other people to be as nice as we are. They mostly aren't.
Waking up everyday to more breaking news, which is always bad news, is so disheartening. It makes me sick to my stomach with how everything is being dismantled. When the things that were your rights are taken away and you see people cheering for these actions. I don’t know how to make this make sense. When my (autistic) daughter comes to me scared that things won’t be ok as she sees the services meant to help her thrive are dismantled. How can I lie to her and say don’t worry we will be ok when I don’t believe it myself. I pray we all pay attention and see what is coming and stand up loud
I must not have read your last post - anyway - yes, the attack on trans women is the attack on all things FEMININE. The right has conflated "feminism" (which we all know is bulllshit) with keeping trans women from sports or from the bathroom they want to go in or from women's prisons. But what it's REALLY about is this homophobia by cis-men that one of their own does not feel part of the group, and so they want to destroy the "other." Their legislation has NOTHING to do with the safety of straight women. I feel more unsafe with cis-gendered men than ANY trans women. I will share bathrooms, sports, prisons, whatever - it doesn't bother me. As far as professional sports - I will go by the doctors who report that depending on when hormones started being taken and all that, most of these women are fine to compete (notice though that it's not even an option for trans men to compete...). And I get the fight with Lia Thompson - but then shouldn't we be creating a trans category? Why are we simply canceling and condemning?
And yeah - too many of my friends are saying, "I'm just ignoring the news" and I'm over here going nuts and feeling anxious and depressed. I used to teach Nazi Germany and there are too many things that are going on in Washington that are straight out of Hitler's playbook, so yeah - I'm livid at all of these tech companies and corporations that are kowtowing to these illegal executive orders without pushing back and I don't UNDERSTAND.
Crickets on your “plight of trans women piece ??? I’m stunned! That’s the one I finally commented on. That’s the one that kicked me in the gut and threw gas on my already raging fire of anger!
I have noticed that I feel the closest to comfort when I am around others who are angry and grieving. Perhaps we can care for ourselves by raging and grieving in community? It could be a path from all this emotion to some kind of action, since whatever action we take must be collective.
I think that a group of furious frightened grief-stricken friends can go dancing or have a party and fill our nervous systems' need for resilience while as a group hating the co-presidents and their detestable supporters.
Conversely, when I am around (privileged) people who say something along the lines of I can't deal with thinking about this or I'm choosing to be hopeful, I feel frustrated and alone.
I have heard a few people say that our side has joy, art, culture, love, the freedom to be ourselves, supportive families, good sex, etc., and maga does not. I think that's probably true (with exceptions on both sides obviously), and that is part of why they hate us. I do think that we are striking back in some small way by continuing to be ourselves, by loving who we love, dancing to good music, or generally enjoying whatever we have been able to create that they so desperately want to take from us. We can do that ragefully.
We don't have to believe that it is revolutionary to love ourselves and each other, but we can give ourselves that gift knowing that they hate to see us unapologetically ourselves. We can model for our children the kind of world that we want to create. I hope with every part of me that maga does not succeed in taking these things from us, but if they do, our children will have seen it and will know what they are fighting for.
Most of all I think that we must not turn any of our rage on ourselves or each other. We're all figuring out how to go on in real time. We owe ourselves, and everyone who is not a nazi, some grace as we find our way. We can sit in our justified rage and grief while loving the s**t out of ourselves and each other.
So many thoughts. First, I read your article on the plight of trans women and thought--yes, yes, yes! I should have taken the time to show you appreciation. However, between your article and hearing Ruth Ben Ghiat, I thought about a new clinic in Frederick, MD for trans folk and began planning how to help. Your article moved me into action.
The subjects of trauma (you reference a previous article) and resilience are complex. I am trained in Prolonged Exposure (PE) for complex trauma and Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) --completely different treatments because one size does not fit all. ART harnesses imagination to reconstruct memories and PE is primarily exposure to emotions associated memory. PTSD is a specific measure that defines a particular type of trauma response. This is super useful for research and when evaluating an evidenced based treatment like PE. During my ART training, the therapists practiced on each other. Because therapists are so siloed, we are a mysterious bunch--even to each other. I discovered in the training than most of the therapists had experienced considerable trauma--I thought it was just me :) However, most of us would not have met criteria for PTSD. Therapists are usually labeled "resilient" and have lots of tools to help themselves. In therapy, we gauge whether or not something is clinically significant by the degree to which impairment occurs. A super traumatized but highly functional person is not seen as needing the same level of treatment as someone who cannot hold down a job or leave their apartment. Unfortunately, therapists are mostly human givers who value excess responsibility and over-function. Recipe for a therapist: traumatized, over-functioning human giver :)
Circling back to social protection. What is protective about social connection is compassion and this includes self-compassion. I think "social" does not have to be human--the natural non-human world can be extraordinarily restorative. Compassionate behaviors include spending some time in bed, taking political action, having a nap, writing, going to a protest, lying under a tree as well as connecting with other compassionate humans. Instead of thinking that resilience is something we are, maybe it could be something we do--the back and forth between resting and fighting. It is not compassionate to tell ourselves we are too fragile to cope or we have to fix everything by ourselves. Compassion includes common humanity--you are no better or worse than anyone else. Resilient behavior could be a balanced "right-sized" approach to entitlement, responsibility, and well-being...
This is just a theory but moving back and forth between giving anger permission and self-compassion (doing and being) helps me to stay in right relationship with myself.
Thank you, Lisa! I love the way you re-frame resilience here :) And I've experienced a bit of ART (and loved it) without knowing what it was called, so thanks for that as well!
That's kind of you. I read an article about the Serbian resistance to Milosevic which said that instead of mass protests in front of the capital, they had many small, creative actions in markets where people normally gathered--so small can be beautiful. Ruth Ben Ghiat pointed out that fascists choose to target small groups like Jews--most Germans in WWII did not even know a Jewish person. Same now with trans people. It's easier to demonize people you do not know. In a way, supporting the most targeted group directly and perhaps elevating their stories as ordinary people removes a core tool of fascism--dehumanization. Ann Frank was a regular girl.
In my own limited experience (I'm thinking very specifically about one person, but I also think it is more widely applicable), it seems that people still manage to demonize groups even when they know someone from those groups. They make an *exception* for the people they know. "*You're* great, but do I want *it* to be taught in our schools? No, I most certainly do not." Still, I agree about elevating their stories as ordinary people. I had a lovely conversation recently about the need for more stories about queer and trans joy, for example, because too often all we hear are the bad things. How demonized especially trans folks are, all the discrimination they experience, and so on. That in itself is othering.
And I find it very encouraging to hear about resistance taking the form of small, creative actions. Because that's something I'm capable of doing. Thanks again :)
I'm grieving for my country in which I'm a 2nd generation American.
I'm grieving for the alienation with Canada and my many friends there (I'm not alienated from them personally, thankfully).
I'm sickened that around 90 million people *didn't* *vote* at all.
I'm heartened by the ever-growing response(s) by ACLU, Public Citizen, Robert Hubbell, Meidas Touch Network, (I could go on and on) who are taking actions, filing lawsuits, protesting, signing, petitioning, and more. I periodically hit a wall where I can't open another newsletter (I mostly stopped watching any "legacy news" source some time ago). I take a breather (missed at least one of yours among others), and then I go back to it.
Chop Wood/Carry Water is one of my favorites b/c even if I can't do everything in it, I can at the very least do the text to Resistbot part of it.
I did *not* go with a group of people to Sen Collins' office b/c I had just left a scathing voicemail message AND a scathing email to her for flipping and voting to confirm one of the ludicrously unqualified nominees, and I realized that I could not be civil with her.
When so many people don't vote at all, it speaks volumes. It's probably the only third option in a two party system where your choice is either bad or worse.
I’m a black woman with a trans daughter. Surviving this is all that matters. I went to the first pink hat Woman’s March in DC. I gave money and dragged people to the polls. I stayed on top of all the issues, not just the ones that directly affected me. I believed the people in rural communities deserved broadband, hospitals and businesses to return. I voted for what was best for America, not just my interests. And no I do not expect reparations or even an apology for the horrific shit my ancestors suffered. I just want to move on, be better, progress.
Well now I am going to watch the shit show and keep my daughter safe. Don’t ask me for shit! I’m done!
You need to put your bodies on the line before I jump back in.
thanks again for another banger, I think there's a huge pressure right now to be ok, to not be feeling the big ugly feelings for so many reasons, but I worry about all the things you say. Certainly grief, rage, terror can paralyze us, but maybe we need catharsis? And to be able to carry them with you?
I especially hated the command to not mourn, organize, when I didn't see that there was anything in particular I could organize around.
Also I have ADHD and organizing my shelves is hard, crap! But trying to organize a party? Maybe not so hard.
Thank you, Kate, for another heartfelt and honest essay. Like you, i'm appalled and angry that he has returned, And I suspect that he will do great harm to our republic, and I'm certain he will do great harm to women, girls, and other people who happen not to be male and white. (He already has done so.) Also like you, I'm disgusted with people who voted for him as well as horrified that he was elected because those people who acknowledge they pay no attention to politics voted overwhelmingly for him, whereas those people who pay some or a lot of attention to politics voted for Ms. Harris.
Before I was diagnosed with c-PTSD, and for a long while afterward, I always saw my resilience as a great gift and a virtue. Lately I've realized that it prolonged my suffering in some ways. This piece, as always, articulated the issues as it relates to our current dumpster fire perfectly.
I felt this as well re: trans issues, and the barrage of anti-trans EOs. My son is trans and whenever I tried to talk to family about what was happening they seemed disconnected, obtuse, like they didn't care. And I am even talking about family members who are dems and overtly support my son. And sometimes, worst of all, they tried to gaslight me into thinking, “you guys will be ok,” “even if it’s not ok, it will be ok,” “I just don’t want you to become obsessed and let it drag you down,” etc… WTF?! I’m tired, but fighting. I am disheartened, but still resisting.
The indifference is so infuriating and scary. Sending you and your son love and solidarity at this impossible time ❤️
Fellow parent of a trans kid, and this has been my experience as well. Even the people who love her a lot don't really FEEL how hard this is for us. It's heartbreaking. Sending you and your family love and strength!
So sorry to hear this. We’re also dealing with anti-trans legislation in the UK (from a nominally “left wing” government moreover) although it’s not - yet - as bad as the US. I think even socially “liberal” people have a lack of empathy sometimes; they know what the right thing to say is, but they’re not really invested. Which is short-sighted to say the least, because trans rights (& other lgbtq rights) and feminism are so commingled - if one is attacked, we’re all attacked.
I think you raise some important points. We can't normalize this, or tell ourselves, "well, it's going to be ok for me so I don't have to freak out (read: do anything)."
But also, I know and believe that activism has to play the long game. And that playing the long game depends on a sense of hope. Fascists want us demoralized, because then we cannot be strategic, cannot keep going, and may completely give up.
I think often of the fact that, right up until the moment Roe v. Wade ended, the fight to end it looked hopeless. The right held onto hope (and the discipline and organization hope tends to inspire) for 50 long years. We have to be at least that dedicated.
Your voice has been one that continuously helps me to rediscover hope, and so to hear that you might be feeling a little better makes me feel better, not worse <3
You know, I keep toying with the idea that we need another metaphor. Some things unmake us--we can't bounce back. Yes, we can rebuild. But we have to make ourselves anew.
Giving thanks for your brilliant work and all you do and are.
I just wrote this whole long comment, then closed the window to yell at some asshole on Facebook, causing me to lose the comment. But I'm going to try my best to recreate it:
In one of my fairy groups, a woman posted an image of the couch her cats had destroyed. She didn't want to sew it back together, or replace it. So she bought these gorgeous floral patches on Etsy, sewed them over the holes, and transformed this generic, boring couch into a breathtaking work of art. That's what we need here.
We can't go "back," and we shouldn't want to. Back sucked, too, and a lot of us--those with the most privilege--are in denial about that fact, because we are now being confronted with a reality that could one day suck as much for us as it has for more marginalized groups.
My husband is a civil rights attorney who specializes in police misconduct. So basically, police shootings and beatings, and jail deaths. His work didn't change under the first Trump administration, and I doubt it will change under this one. Because the violence his clients have faced has remained consistent. There was a boy starved to death in solitary confinement, alone and terrified, when Obama was president, not to mention dozens of horrific shootings. Women raped, left alone after childbirth to watch their babies die in jail cells, denied medical care, under Biden.
This country is broken, no matter who leads it. It is racist and misogynistic to the core, and our criminal justice system is an absolute hellhole.
When Biden was elected, a lot of the resistance receded. Liberals were triumphant. They thought they had won. The movement lost energy, even as deportations and raids, and genocide and human rights abuses, continued.
Our mandate is the same, no matter who is president: to find a sliver of hope that keeps us fighting, to fight, and to win.
Beautiful. Thank you ❤️
This is so true. You don't get to that Oval Office without selling your soul to the project of American Empire. Very good to remember that - because the Democrats are not the answer either, they can't be within this system. They must be complicit.
This is beautiful. I do think we, myself included, get caught up in the moment and take the opportunity of positive political or legal outcomes to sit back and rest. Because we really would prefer not to have to fight. And fighting is so hard since there are just so many things to fight for!
But you’re right, liberals are just as likely to want to “make America great.” We want to go back to when unions were strong, when immigrants were (more) welcome, when abortion was legal. (Side note, apparently “abortion” is not in the predictive text on my iPhone??!!””) but even RBG wasn’t convinced that Roe vs. Wade was the best way to achieve our goals. So let’s fight for a better solution. What if we remade America into a country that had more sustainable and less fragile laws to “promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” What if we remade our country into one that CARED about the general welfare and the liberty of our posterity. Who’s working on the dems “project 2025”? Because if no one is, then it’s our own fault. We can’t create something beautiful if we have no vision and no plan.
I think it's ok to have some mental health in spite of everything. Plenty of people in history have woken up in a country they didn't recognize. Plenty of people have figured out ways to survive psychologically, and even thrive, in bad political situations. You don't have to go full-on Navalny to keep a sense of humor and optimism about the future.
The truth is, we live in a bad country, where a lot of the voters are bad. I am using this short word deliberately. I could say sociopathic, misogynist, etc, but I just mean bad. And they're unapologetic about it.
These same people can be polite, even kind. But they don't feel responsible for anybody else. They really don't care about trans people, or brown people (even though some of them ARE brown), or women (even though some of them ARE women). They attract bad information like a magnet attracts iron filings.
(A black friend who is my age told me that her daughters voted for Trump because he sent them checks during the pandemic. They fell for that trick: Trump appeared to have personally signed the stimulus checks. He's great at this sort of sorry vaudeville stuff.)
Capitalism teaches people to only care about their own, very narrow interests. And these are not just material, but are in fact mainly about perceived social status. Trump voters like being dominant over others, and they like him because that's what he likes. And he does successfully hurt a lot of people in various ways, and that is entertaining and gratifying to them. It's a kind of vicarious sadism.
It's just realistic to admit that this is the case about the United States and that it has been the case for a very long time. I just finished reading "Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy, which is about the wars between indigenous people, Mexicans, and Americans in the mid-19th century. Everybody behaved horribly. This is not made up: McCarthy based the novel on historical first-person accounts of this border violence.
I think one problem for liberal women is that we expect other people to be as nice as we are. They mostly aren't.
Waking up everyday to more breaking news, which is always bad news, is so disheartening. It makes me sick to my stomach with how everything is being dismantled. When the things that were your rights are taken away and you see people cheering for these actions. I don’t know how to make this make sense. When my (autistic) daughter comes to me scared that things won’t be ok as she sees the services meant to help her thrive are dismantled. How can I lie to her and say don’t worry we will be ok when I don’t believe it myself. I pray we all pay attention and see what is coming and stand up loud
Exactly this. And I'm so sorry. Sending all the solidarity to you and your daughter. xo
I must not have read your last post - anyway - yes, the attack on trans women is the attack on all things FEMININE. The right has conflated "feminism" (which we all know is bulllshit) with keeping trans women from sports or from the bathroom they want to go in or from women's prisons. But what it's REALLY about is this homophobia by cis-men that one of their own does not feel part of the group, and so they want to destroy the "other." Their legislation has NOTHING to do with the safety of straight women. I feel more unsafe with cis-gendered men than ANY trans women. I will share bathrooms, sports, prisons, whatever - it doesn't bother me. As far as professional sports - I will go by the doctors who report that depending on when hormones started being taken and all that, most of these women are fine to compete (notice though that it's not even an option for trans men to compete...). And I get the fight with Lia Thompson - but then shouldn't we be creating a trans category? Why are we simply canceling and condemning?
And yeah - too many of my friends are saying, "I'm just ignoring the news" and I'm over here going nuts and feeling anxious and depressed. I used to teach Nazi Germany and there are too many things that are going on in Washington that are straight out of Hitler's playbook, so yeah - I'm livid at all of these tech companies and corporations that are kowtowing to these illegal executive orders without pushing back and I don't UNDERSTAND.
Crickets on your “plight of trans women piece ??? I’m stunned! That’s the one I finally commented on. That’s the one that kicked me in the gut and threw gas on my already raging fire of anger!
🙏❤️
I have noticed that I feel the closest to comfort when I am around others who are angry and grieving. Perhaps we can care for ourselves by raging and grieving in community? It could be a path from all this emotion to some kind of action, since whatever action we take must be collective.
I think that a group of furious frightened grief-stricken friends can go dancing or have a party and fill our nervous systems' need for resilience while as a group hating the co-presidents and their detestable supporters.
Conversely, when I am around (privileged) people who say something along the lines of I can't deal with thinking about this or I'm choosing to be hopeful, I feel frustrated and alone.
I have heard a few people say that our side has joy, art, culture, love, the freedom to be ourselves, supportive families, good sex, etc., and maga does not. I think that's probably true (with exceptions on both sides obviously), and that is part of why they hate us. I do think that we are striking back in some small way by continuing to be ourselves, by loving who we love, dancing to good music, or generally enjoying whatever we have been able to create that they so desperately want to take from us. We can do that ragefully.
We don't have to believe that it is revolutionary to love ourselves and each other, but we can give ourselves that gift knowing that they hate to see us unapologetically ourselves. We can model for our children the kind of world that we want to create. I hope with every part of me that maga does not succeed in taking these things from us, but if they do, our children will have seen it and will know what they are fighting for.
Most of all I think that we must not turn any of our rage on ourselves or each other. We're all figuring out how to go on in real time. We owe ourselves, and everyone who is not a nazi, some grace as we find our way. We can sit in our justified rage and grief while loving the s**t out of ourselves and each other.
I’m angry, but pacing myself. Calling Senators, etc often.
So many thoughts. First, I read your article on the plight of trans women and thought--yes, yes, yes! I should have taken the time to show you appreciation. However, between your article and hearing Ruth Ben Ghiat, I thought about a new clinic in Frederick, MD for trans folk and began planning how to help. Your article moved me into action.
The subjects of trauma (you reference a previous article) and resilience are complex. I am trained in Prolonged Exposure (PE) for complex trauma and Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) --completely different treatments because one size does not fit all. ART harnesses imagination to reconstruct memories and PE is primarily exposure to emotions associated memory. PTSD is a specific measure that defines a particular type of trauma response. This is super useful for research and when evaluating an evidenced based treatment like PE. During my ART training, the therapists practiced on each other. Because therapists are so siloed, we are a mysterious bunch--even to each other. I discovered in the training than most of the therapists had experienced considerable trauma--I thought it was just me :) However, most of us would not have met criteria for PTSD. Therapists are usually labeled "resilient" and have lots of tools to help themselves. In therapy, we gauge whether or not something is clinically significant by the degree to which impairment occurs. A super traumatized but highly functional person is not seen as needing the same level of treatment as someone who cannot hold down a job or leave their apartment. Unfortunately, therapists are mostly human givers who value excess responsibility and over-function. Recipe for a therapist: traumatized, over-functioning human giver :)
Circling back to social protection. What is protective about social connection is compassion and this includes self-compassion. I think "social" does not have to be human--the natural non-human world can be extraordinarily restorative. Compassionate behaviors include spending some time in bed, taking political action, having a nap, writing, going to a protest, lying under a tree as well as connecting with other compassionate humans. Instead of thinking that resilience is something we are, maybe it could be something we do--the back and forth between resting and fighting. It is not compassionate to tell ourselves we are too fragile to cope or we have to fix everything by ourselves. Compassion includes common humanity--you are no better or worse than anyone else. Resilient behavior could be a balanced "right-sized" approach to entitlement, responsibility, and well-being...
This is just a theory but moving back and forth between giving anger permission and self-compassion (doing and being) helps me to stay in right relationship with myself.
To you all in solidarity.
Thank you, Lisa! I love the way you re-frame resilience here :) And I've experienced a bit of ART (and loved it) without knowing what it was called, so thanks for that as well!
That's kind of you. I read an article about the Serbian resistance to Milosevic which said that instead of mass protests in front of the capital, they had many small, creative actions in markets where people normally gathered--so small can be beautiful. Ruth Ben Ghiat pointed out that fascists choose to target small groups like Jews--most Germans in WWII did not even know a Jewish person. Same now with trans people. It's easier to demonize people you do not know. In a way, supporting the most targeted group directly and perhaps elevating their stories as ordinary people removes a core tool of fascism--dehumanization. Ann Frank was a regular girl.
In my own limited experience (I'm thinking very specifically about one person, but I also think it is more widely applicable), it seems that people still manage to demonize groups even when they know someone from those groups. They make an *exception* for the people they know. "*You're* great, but do I want *it* to be taught in our schools? No, I most certainly do not." Still, I agree about elevating their stories as ordinary people. I had a lovely conversation recently about the need for more stories about queer and trans joy, for example, because too often all we hear are the bad things. How demonized especially trans folks are, all the discrimination they experience, and so on. That in itself is othering.
And I find it very encouraging to hear about resistance taking the form of small, creative actions. Because that's something I'm capable of doing. Thanks again :)
Thank you for your words...
I'm grieving for my country in which I'm a 2nd generation American.
I'm grieving for the alienation with Canada and my many friends there (I'm not alienated from them personally, thankfully).
I'm sickened that around 90 million people *didn't* *vote* at all.
I'm heartened by the ever-growing response(s) by ACLU, Public Citizen, Robert Hubbell, Meidas Touch Network, (I could go on and on) who are taking actions, filing lawsuits, protesting, signing, petitioning, and more. I periodically hit a wall where I can't open another newsletter (I mostly stopped watching any "legacy news" source some time ago). I take a breather (missed at least one of yours among others), and then I go back to it.
Chop Wood/Carry Water is one of my favorites b/c even if I can't do everything in it, I can at the very least do the text to Resistbot part of it.
I did *not* go with a group of people to Sen Collins' office b/c I had just left a scathing voicemail message AND a scathing email to her for flipping and voting to confirm one of the ludicrously unqualified nominees, and I realized that I could not be civil with her.
When so many people don't vote at all, it speaks volumes. It's probably the only third option in a two party system where your choice is either bad or worse.
I’m a black woman with a trans daughter. Surviving this is all that matters. I went to the first pink hat Woman’s March in DC. I gave money and dragged people to the polls. I stayed on top of all the issues, not just the ones that directly affected me. I believed the people in rural communities deserved broadband, hospitals and businesses to return. I voted for what was best for America, not just my interests. And no I do not expect reparations or even an apology for the horrific shit my ancestors suffered. I just want to move on, be better, progress.
Well now I am going to watch the shit show and keep my daughter safe. Don’t ask me for shit! I’m done!
You need to put your bodies on the line before I jump back in.
thanks again for another banger, I think there's a huge pressure right now to be ok, to not be feeling the big ugly feelings for so many reasons, but I worry about all the things you say. Certainly grief, rage, terror can paralyze us, but maybe we need catharsis? And to be able to carry them with you?
I especially hated the command to not mourn, organize, when I didn't see that there was anything in particular I could organize around.
Also I have ADHD and organizing my shelves is hard, crap! But trying to organize a party? Maybe not so hard.
I feel like we can hang onto our physical anger as long as we do physical things to mitigate its ill effects. Like walking, a lot.
This is a spot on post, Kate. I see it exactly the same way (particularly with my specialization in trauma studies). Resiliency rhetoric is cruel.
Thank you, Kate, for another heartfelt and honest essay. Like you, i'm appalled and angry that he has returned, And I suspect that he will do great harm to our republic, and I'm certain he will do great harm to women, girls, and other people who happen not to be male and white. (He already has done so.) Also like you, I'm disgusted with people who voted for him as well as horrified that he was elected because those people who acknowledge they pay no attention to politics voted overwhelmingly for him, whereas those people who pay some or a lot of attention to politics voted for Ms. Harris.
Before I was diagnosed with c-PTSD, and for a long while afterward, I always saw my resilience as a great gift and a virtue. Lately I've realized that it prolonged my suffering in some ways. This piece, as always, articulated the issues as it relates to our current dumpster fire perfectly.