SOCIAL & RECOVERY
How to Start a Revolution
And when not to start one
I sent a story into The Bad Influence a couple of weeks ago. I really dig these humans.
And I’m not biased because they allow me to be overly overtly mouthy and sweary. I’ve been following them for a while now, and they’re genuine about shining some light into the shadows, and talking about the stuff we mostly want to avoid.
I sent an article to them a couple of weeks ago, and one of their editors added a note next to my “ffs,” in the story.
A brief and polite: “Is there any particular reason you are censoring yourself?’
My reply: “Holy fuck! I love you people. Yes. Hurt feelings and some trauma because an abusive family member once commented that she wouldn’t read me because my language was too foul. Duly noted that I do not need to censor myself anymore. And thanks! ❤”
I changed the “ffs” to for fuck’s sake.
I had crawled back into my place in the corner because my role is to not attract any attention at all.
My place, in our charmingly dysfunctional family, is the lost child. Or the hero if I’m feeling too threatened and guilted out to say any kind of authentic no.
And the scapegoat, most often, because I’ve never been able to keep my mouth shut when people are being mean. I call shit out and ask too many questions.
Calling out the crazy in a dysfunctional system brings all sorts of retaliation down on your head as the system tries to keep things firmly in place.
You can’t avoid this.
It wouldn’t be dysfunctional if open discussion, different views/opinions were allowed and tolerance for other ways of walking in the world were practiced.
But if you don’t stand ground in any toxic relationship, be it with your boss, never-were-your-friends, family, or government, nothing will change.
When a family member went all out to call crazy on me and to share some overly critical criticism of my writing to shut me up, I surrendered subliminally and began to edit myself.
I was writing about some really hard stuff, which was attracting some attention. And I was writing about some really scary stuff, which triggered me into some really sweary sharing.
How to be an activist
Just don’t.
Don’t do any activism-y things unless you are healed enough to not get triggered and hurt yourself.
You need a really good balance between being almost clinical about the stuff that matters most to you, and still caring enough to be driven to take action, to actually live the life of a real activist.
Because it is fucking hardcore.
If you‘‘’re not ready to hold true in unsteady waters, you are only going to hurt yourself. And probably the cause that you are trying to help by extension.
Most people end up in activism because they have personal experience, of the very necessary changes that are needed, in the areas that they choose to focus on.
But if you are not healed enough to do the work, you will get triggered dealing with the stuff that matters to you most. Because it usually is personal. And you will slow down your own healing. Or hurt yourself even more.
First, fix yourself. Get fucking strong. Then go back to rescue others. Or you will struggle and possibly fail anyway.
Face facts
When you are triggered, your Fight/Flight response kicks in.
This means that you will not be thinking clearly and at your best, you could make bad calls publicly, and you will (most likely) come off as unreasonable and strident at best, or possibly just nutty nuts at worst.
This will scare people right off hearing you. And your goal is to be heard.
If you are triggered, you are gonna trigger people’s Fight/Flight response in return. If you get all overly ardent, you’ll make them feel shit, ashamed, guilty, or frightened about not hearing the hard stuff, or by seeing you and others suffering.
A human brain’s natural response to any kind of perceived danger or pain, is to get the hell away from it.
Maybe this is why the hard discussions are so difficult for us to engage with in the first place.
Be sure and be ready for this
To be a real activist you have to walk through the fire of being able to:
- Be totally ignored by almost everyone (often), to not care anyway and to continue to make some noise and knock on doors (to honestly not be doing it for the likes or power/admiration /respect)
- Be attacked by trolls/haters / intolerant people even and to ignore ’em entirely (publicly and behind your back — there will be many, so you can’t be a people pleaser anymore, okay?)
- Be accused of a variety of awful and unethical things in attempts to shut you up and to shut you down — possibly publicly - and to not take it personally
- Know yourself well enough to laugh when people tell you that you’re rubbish — really laugh / like that healed, that self-aware and that confident about who you really are
- Know who your real people are, or you may listen to the wrong advice and go off course due to the skewed intentions of others (trust no one -and it is lonely)
- Not have to take advice because you trust yourself completely and your intentions are sound (best to have one person you trust to bounce your plans off — in fact, suggested to keep you on track)
- Have no interest in money or financial stability because you are probably going to be broke and have to do without A LOT. Really. You will.
- Have healed your own personal stuff enough to be fucking Titanium, because any vulnerability that you have will be used against you by those wanting to keep the status quo in check. Know this before you start.
If you aren’t healed enough to deal enough, you won’t make any impact other than to, possibly, further embed the prejudice, bias and injustice that you are probably trying to change.
And further traumatise yourself as well.
If you wanna be an activist, make a real impact and get other human beings to stop and engage with the hard stuff, then you need to be able to speak to them so that they can hear you.
In your particular voice, of course. For your particular chosen audience. In the tone that they are able to hear, first and foremost.
You simply can’t do this if you are afraid in any way. Be it fear of judgment; rejection; financial stress; possible arrest; failure; shame; uncertainty; embarrassment; or of being ostracised entirely.
You will be.
A lot of the time.
At least some of these things.
It goes with the territory.
So best you drop all of that beautiful naivety that made you want to get into activism before you begin.
I can’t be an activist. Yet.
I stood my ground against a really dysfunctional system in South Africa, alone, for over two years and I did my fucking best to hold it accountable and ensure that truth and justice would prevail.
And in doing so. I lost everything.
But mostly, I lost myself.
I would do it again because I fought on principle. And for actual real-life truth and justice. I couldn’t not fight. I did try to not fight, but I couldn’t rest until I realized what continuing would actually entail. And until I realized that I was chronically naive when I went into the system and that, more often than not, the truth and justice do not prevail.
And that a government system, although I assume has good intentions, does not protect us, the people, as it was intended to. It took me losing everything and hearing from others who had done the same to really accept this.
But the worst part of the ordeal was, as mentioned above, I ended up losing myself in many ways as well.
A lover or a fighter?
I was a really gentle person by nature. I’m not a natural warrior. Although I was called the latter repeatedly during this experience.
I did my utmost. I really did. And my sense of injustice and outrage is what did keep me going. It was what stopped me from sinking into utter depression. It kept me alive in many ways.
But over the two years and a bit more and in the end, it only made me physically, emotionally, and spiritually ill.
And incredibly despondent about humanity in general. In fact, I lost hope in us entirely.
Maybe seeing the magnitude of the problem, when you are in an arena and trying to help others, amplified by seeing the worst of humanity on a daily basis is just soul-destroying for us mere mortals.
I have to concede, that I don’t have what it takes to be a full-time activist.
I’m not strong enough. Yet. Perhaps I never will be.
I doff my hat to the people, that I met on the way, that have been fighting in their chosen arenas for ongoing ten years and more, and who still haven’t had their promised meetings with relevant government departments, nor seen any substantial change (or even interest in change) by either government or society at large.
I applaud your tenacity. And strength. Really, I do. Respect. Massive.
In fact, a couple of you helped me find my way back from a very dark time. And I’ve seen you do this for others as well. I’ve seen you break some days and wonder if it’s all worth it. It is. You are saving lives. One at a time, maybe. We need you. Fuck, do we need you!
Real activists
These people lose a lot.
I watched two people in the arena of activism and talked to them privately as well, while I was banging my head on my own brick wall and shouting into the wind.
I watched them rise with fire and outrage. I watched them celebrate small victories. I watched them weep with exhaustion and despair. I watched them fend off unnecessary abuse. I watched them struggle financially even though they are pulling mad hour days and weekends, financing their own causes, and helping people because they couldn’t not. And more.
It is a lifestyle and a commitment. It is a lifetime. And it is all-consuming because people just don’t want to fucking deal with the hard stuff.
Or even change itself.
Nope. You have to be hardcore to be a real activist. And I don’t want to be hardcore anymore. Like that.
But I’m not going to be a Muppet that walks on by. My parents didn’t raise me like that. And I’m not raising my kids like that either.
Perhaps some of us can do what we can with our art. I hope so, because trying to be an activist by negotiating directly with government officials and related departments, and the survivors of these almost killed my soul.
And I’m busy trying to resuscitate it.
Maybe Artivism is a solution for some of us.
For those of us that are more gentle by nature. But who still care enough to try.
But I will share this as well… even those of us who don’t want to make art can help to institute changes and save lives, just by not walking on by.
Really. It’s that simple.
So I shut up and stopped fighting
But back to being harshly critiqued for my activism-y things that were personal too…
I continued to write, but with this now subliminal shame and personal censorship.
Until this cool editor called me out for fuck’s sake.
I then decided to go full tilt. And to go full tilt on a reply to a topic that pisses me off quite a bit. Probably because it goes to the above and people not caring about the greater good of the whole. Again.
I guess it takes walking in another’s shoes to really understand privilege. And I still have my own hot shower, indoor plumbing, and enough education to know how fucking ignorant I was/am… so I hardly even qualify.
But back to the comment.
I let rip. Fucks abound and I go as far as to drop the c-word.
I hit publish and cringe.
I wait for the reprisal.
The resounding sound of silence — total rejection. My family’s preferred way of dealing with high-intensity emotion, any kind of strong reaction or vaguely uncomfortable truth.
I’m waiting for the behind-the-scenes request to please tone it down, with the inevitable resonance of disappointed disapproval.
Because shame is the point, right? How could you do that? What the fuck is wrong with you?
I wait for it…
I consider going to edit the comment but I hold…
I do add an asterisk to mellow it out.
I add a “but not you” in case it is misconstrued and I upset or hurt someone.
My childhood trauma pitching up as the fawn response and fear of the consequences of me being my vociferous self.
I know enough to know this.
But I do it anyway.
I get a reply from an editor.
I take a couple of days to sit with it. And what comes to me is this:
- This is me at my most outraged, triggered, foul, and vulgar. And apparently, it isn’t too much for some people.
2. Not a fucking eyelid even batted. I am moving from the honeymoon period into a total commitment to this publication and platform.
3. I have, personally, always loved the word, “cunt.” Even though I use it with caution as it is a big word and people are afraid of it. The word “cunt” has a resounding snap to it as the “t” is uttered. It is also hilarious when it is said with a British accent. As in, “He’s a right cunt.”
4. The fact that my “inner circle” found some questionably edgy language more shocking than a personal account of a system that is actively abusive, clearly corrupt and that is committing actual Human Rights Violations, every day, as standard practice… is interesting.
And I’m being polite here.
Its fucking nuts!
Come now. Get some fucking perspective
… for fuck’s sake.
How we can help without losing ourselves
It really doesn’t have to be a big deal.
I know it is hard to engage with the tough stuff. It’s scary. It seems insurmountable. It can be overwhelming.
I get it. I feel you. Some days I hide in Netflix and denial as well. Because I have to, to ground again.
Life is fucking stressful. The world seems to have gone quite mad. And we are all on a treadmill. Or treading water. It feels like that some days anyway.
Even if you can just be courageous enough to be curious about things that are less than sparkly, you can read the icky articles that we all want to avoid, you are strong enough to hear the experiences of others with objectivity and non-judgment — you will already participating in making a change.
Just by Not walking on by
Change begins with awareness.
You are strong. You are powerful.
You can do this!
Or if you really are hardcore enough to be a full-on activist then this may interest you too.
Thanks for your reading time!
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