I’m gong through a bout of depression.
It’s circumstantial but it’s real.
The horrific bill that was passed in the House last week was probably the last straw, maybe because it’s one of the most all-encompassing measures of disaster and discrimination and abomination, such a widespread, all-encompassing measure of hatred and evil.
I’m worried. I’m worried and scared and angry. The world seems like such a horrible place in this moment: horror and violence and wars and hatred and discrimination and abuse of power wherever one looks. When the LGBTQIA+ community is attacked politically here, my friends and acquaintances say things like, “Well, at least you have a European passport and can go back to Europe!”. But I cannot. It’s as bad in many European countries — in some even worse — than it is here. At least, Colorado is a “safe haven”. But I feel at “house arrest” here. I’d like to go visit friends in Germany & Italy; I’d love to go on a climbing trip this summer with some buddies in Squamish (Canada); but I dare not leave this country lest I not be allowed back in or submitted to violence at the border because of the ‘X’ on my passport.
But it’s not only the attacks on the LGBTQIA+ community (which are horrible and would be enough to make this a criminal government): it’s the attacks on democracy itself, on the democratic institutions, on the different branches of democratic power; on the press & media & freedom of speech; on science & research; on healthcare for the people more in need, on the middle-class & the less privileged in general. To me it seems that we’re not simply veering but actually hurtling towards an authoritarian, oligarchic, phobic regime with the population of a whole country allowing it, sleep-walking straight into doom.
It’s terrifying and I don’t know what to do about it and that’s why I’m depressed. Because I feel so powerless. And exhausted. My job itself is constantly at risk because of this criminal government. And if I lose my job, I lose health insurance and thus gender-affirming care, and I literally risk ending up homeless because I have no one to fall back upon. So what battles should I pick to fight?
What battle can I pick to fight?
The Little Prince and the Fox 