Blog Post oo1: Your Demons Have Good Advice

(Published on Patreon May 5, 2019)

As per my poll, I will be rolling out weekly blog-personal posts! Where and when I have the energy and resources, I will occasionally substitute such with a round-up and/or interview with local activists and social justice warriors. My first blog-personal post is inspired by Zenophrenic's piece called "Your Demons Have Good Advice, Actually" (Tumblr or Twitter). It is also heavily inspired by Mx. Moireabh's tarot reading that they did for me yesterday.

This post was drafted for Saturday April 5th but was posted late, my apologies.

CW/TW: activism, social justice, mental illness, disability, burn out, transformation.

As activists and social justice warriors, we often find a base in our Work to be through anger and outrage - of which such is valid. We understand that those of us who are marginalized and oppressed are not only permitted to be outraged and hurt, but are valid in expressing such, wherever and however this may be. That we are crying out about and against the structures, systems, forces, axis, groups, peoples, representations, and perpetuations of oppression.

We allow ourselves to be angry, to be in it and sit in that anger and hurt and despair - to have a tantrum to decry it. To pour out the cup and scoop up again. We transform and move forward in differing ways - where each chariot of activism and social justice are each valid and no one more correct than the other. They cannot be compared to each other.

But what many of us forget about is ourselves, how to use the tools and skills we have learned about valid anger, transformation, and compassion, can be applied to ourselves.

And when you forget this and combine it with our experiences/expressions of mental illness (like C-PTSD, as is my experience), you fear your own hurt and anger and frustration. Righteousness becomes ugly, appears weaponized against those who may not be riding the chariots of social justice with you - whether this is because they fear it, bear contempt towards such, resist it, avoid it, disregard it, or simply have not grown in the same direction as you.

Experience, feelings, context, nuance, relations, understandings, contentions, and such become utterly mixed and unclear. One one side is inherently more right or wrong, all feelings are valid, each view has its context - but suddenly it is our chariots versus them. And we ride with our minds and hearts wracked with the complexity of these relationships (activism, social justice, and those not of such), fearing the ugliness inside us.

How do we allow ourselves the personal anger and hurt and frustration? How are we allowed to use it and learn from it? Can we take to a chariot and move forward? How do we choose what to leave in the fire and where to rise from the ashes?

Our righteous "ugly" that we permit, use, and transform in our Work seems wrong and skewed in personal contexts, further twisted by the trauma and perceptions formed and informed by mental illness and disabilities.

-- Our perceived and inner demons seem always wrong and frightening. We dehumanize and silence a part of ourselves that we otherwise humanize and transform in our Work.

• "The decision to be a healthy person is the greatest gift you can offer the world." (Carisa Mellado)

• "You have a right to decency. What's important is that you will learn from this. It's an unfair way to be taught , but it's over. Whether they change - or not - is irrelevant. Keep fighting!! Get mad if you must. Focus on what is ahead and step forward." (Zenophrenic)

We have a right to feel our anger, our hurt, our frustration - and we are not any less valid or wrong than those in and among us, riding with us or not. Step out of the avenue of our Work, allow ourselves our transformation, and move forward. It may be agony, but we will rise from the ashes.