Downturn in Covid-Upturn in Human Rights and The Mental Monster Dance

I woke up at 2 am feeling sick, dizzy and weepy. The monsters are loud today. 

It’s been a couple of weeks since my anxiety had gotten the better of me. And for that I’m proud that I have been keeping it at bay. Given what’s going on globally, personally and adding the extra fun of a full moon and eclipse just to rev things up, it hasn’t been easy to keep my own monsters quiet. 

I had stepped outside of my own head in some ways in this last while. But I have had to look at my own self and the system I was born into. I have wept for the dead and the oppressed. 
I have equally wept and been enraged by the system I live in. A system that does not really protect women, but I’m still steps ahead on that being white and not a POC. I am enraged at knowing having mental health issues have also put me in a place to be judged and vulnerable, but I’m still steps ahead because I am white and not a POC. 

I know I am still privileged. I have spent this last while trying to learn. Learn the permissive history that allows this. Not the stuff we’ve been taught ( the bullshit written by the oppressors), but the stories and history of the real people that have all been but buried deep. I have been reading, watching and asking questions so I can put my voice and my privilege to better use. 

I have taken for granted that my fight for mental health, my fight for feminism, my allyship with LGBTQ was enough, I was woke.

I have now been schooled, that while these are very valid, very needed battles, but I have been over looking the very real need for inclusion and visibility for POC in these causes as well. That my voice could not just represent my point of view of feeling oppressed within these channels ( it feels wrong to even say that atm), I now need to champion, and pull forward with me the POC fighting for survival every day with these same issues, only compounded and very oppressed due to the colour of their skin. I have committed in my heart to keep learning, listening and doing what I can, from where I am. 

But today my battle is mine. There are still very hard moments of my own self journey that easily defeat me. I woke, not only with the big physical symptoms of a major ‘mental monster take down’ but a random list on screaming repeat in my head. 

• why are you trying to help the world at large when you still have so much mess of your own? 
• You are not enough to do anything helpful
• Why do you keep letting the same things in to eat at you? 
• You get played so easily, and you are stupid for believing in the good of people. 
• You don’t mean nearly as much to those around you as you think. 
• I’m told I have a great ability to read people and see who they really are meant to be. I want to trust that. I know I see that. Yet I am left with confusion about why some things are the way they are, and if I really have that ability or I’m just foolish in empathy and forgiveness? 
• I am fearful, I have asked some questions that there have been no answers to, or confusing signs ( I see those often too, but am now prone to second guessing).
• Needing answers – so I can quit having the possible false narratives rolling around my head and be able to cleanly heal, move forward and get what I need. 
• I need my emotional and rational brain to work together, when it comes to my own matters.
• I have to stop needing to believe I should matter to all those who, at some point mattered so much to me, needing to be validated that I gave something good, that distance isn’t always my fault, that I am not hated or disrespected. That I am not the monster I have been made to feel I am.
• I need to remember even though the defeating silence and invisibility I feel rip at me, there is someone, somewhere who hears and sees, and it matters, I just might not know it. 
• That my discomfort in some situations does not mean enough to be eased by the people around and I should take it for the warning it is…. this is the hardest. For the acceptance of this will change some fundamental things in my life, some connections and events I viewed very differently than what they are really appearing to be. This will change how and why I connect with people. This will take work to not let it make me bitter while I work through living grief and disappointment. 

Today my battle is within. Today I must reestablish the team I need ( now that Covid is easing) to willingly and supportively help me move mentally, emotionally and physically forward. Today I need myself more than others need me. When I can muster getting myself off the floor, dry my eyes, and straightening my crown, I will once again raise my voice, not only for me, but for those that need it more. AKF 💜