Depression — The horrific state of the world

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?

Loneliness and fatigue

For the past couple weeks, I’ve been struggling with bouts of extreme fatigue and loneliness, and the past week it’s gotten worse. 

They seem to go hand in hand, these two feelings. Although one is physical (the extreme fatigue, including dizziness, sometimes even when I’m sitting or lying) and one is emotional (the loneliness), they seem to at least partly feed off of each other, i.e. I feel more lonely when I’m exhausted (& physically inactive) and more exhausted when I’m alone. 

It’s also very scary to be, or feel, unwell when one’s alone: the fear of getting to a point where I’m so unwell (& alone) that I have to call 911 and be taken to the ED by strangers is always at the back of my mind when I start feeling as unwell as I have been in the past few days, so exhausted and dizzy that I couldn’t drive myself to a doctor or hospital if I needed care.  

Being single and alone when well can be a mix of liberating and scary or difficult. But being single and alone when unwell is just plain scary and difficult.

A mistake but not necessarily wrong

“

Lomeli said in a low voice, “Did I do the right thing, Vincent? What is your opinion?” 

“No one who follows their conscience ever does wrong, Your Eminence. The consequences may not turn out as we intend; it may prove in time that we made a mistake. But that is not the same as being wrong. […]”

”

[from the book Conclave by Robert Harris] 

I don’t believe in God, especially not the Catholic or Christian one or any monotheistic version; and I’m not sure what I think about the concept of “conscience”. But I love the quoted dialogue from the book Conclave by Robert Harris. I love how Vincent (a.k.a. Cardinal Benítez) separates the concepts of “mistake” vs. “doing right or wrong”. I love the idea that one can “make a mistake while still doing the right thing” or “make a mistake without it necessarily being the wrong thing”. 

I like this way of putting it because, to me, it disrupts the binary of right vs. wrong, the binary of there being only two options, one being right — and thus, good or preferable or ideal or the one to follow — and one being wrong — and thus, bad or regrettable or shameful or to be avoided. 

I also like the idea that something we do at some point in time, seeming “good” or “right” then, may prove in time to be a mistake. “Time will tell”. We don’t always have all the necessary information to make a decision and we choose what seems, or feels, “best” to us in that moment. That might, in time, turn out to not be “the best option”, or to be something that needs to be reconsidered, even changed completely. A mistake. Fine, we’re human, fallible. But a mistake isn’t necessarily wrong. And something that seems “good” today might turn out to be “bad” tomorrow, in hindsight, when we have more knowledge. 

Maybe I like this passage, this viewpoint, so much because it’s bringing me some reprieve from my own condemnation. 

At the end of grad school I got together with a guy who was in our common group of friends and stayed with him for seven years, basing some big life decisions on the relationship between us. In many ways, that was a mistake. 

Last spring, for three months I tried to have a sexual/romantic relationship with a transgirl before ending it because I realized it wasn’t what I wanted. In some ways, that relationship also was a mistake. 

And probably hooking up with the gender-expansive gay guy from the chorus a few months ago was also a mistake — and one for which I’ve been beating myself up a lot lately. 

These relationships or situations were all mistakes, probably. But they were not “wrong”. I didn’t “do the wrong thing”, neither by initiating or staying in those relationships, nor by ending them. I made mistakes and learned from them. I made mistakes because I was learning. I was experimenting, exploring, getting to know new aspects of the world and of myself. And as I was doing so, I tried out different things, and some turned out to not be “good fits” for me or to be things that I wouldn’t have done if I had been at my baseline, feeling really well (i.e. comfortable, confident) with myself. 

Those relationships or situations proved in time to be mistakes. But I wasn’t necessarily wrong about trying them. I learned from them, and hopefully won’t make the same mistakes again in the future. And in the meantime, hopefully I can extend myself some forgiveness for my mistakes.

My people — Queering relationships

Four guys in a picture. Four smiling young men. The fifth is the one with the good camera and photographer skills, taking the picture. 

One is Russian of Ukrainian ethnicity; one is French with a German surname; one is part Italian, part American, part English, part German. They’re different heights, different builds; they have different jawlines, different facial hair. But they all have something in common, they all exude a similarity that comes across vividly through the photo. It’s a commonality that goes beyond the similar backpacks, the outdoor gear, the helmets on their heads or hanging at their sides. It’s a kinship that exudes from their smiles — a liveliness, a wildness, a quiet yet triumphant confidence in their faces? 

They’re climbers — we’re climbers. 

And they’re my people. 

These are my people — the thought kept presenting itself spontaneously to my mind, kept bubbling up from my heart to the surface of my consciousness, throughout the long weekend in Moab for my French buddy’s birthday. 

Apart from me, not one of them is, technically speaking, queer. They’re four cis-het white males. And yet, our relationship with each other is definitely queer. 

“You queer relationships”, my closest nonbinary friend said to me as we chatted a few days ago. “It’s apparent even in your relationships with your climbing buddies, the way you all do masculinity together”. 

It was one of my local non-climber friends who noticed the silent yet clear similarity exuding from the photo of me with my climbing buddies. His comment about that similarity and my nonbinary friend’s comment about how I queer relationships have been, for me, two of the most validating and affirming and spot-on comments I have received recently. They really touched me deeply and made me feel seen, really understood. 

Yes, I queer relationships and within the climbing community I have found fertile grounds to build and maintain queer relationships (with “non-queer” men) that fit my nature and that meet most (albeit not all) of my relational needs. And that’s because there’s an intrinsic queerness or an intrinsic, albeit probably mostly unconscious, tendency to queer relationships, to rewrite relational rules, within the climbing community, with outdoor climbing partners. Whether these cis-het men realize it or want to acknowledge it explicitly or not, there is deep love between them. (My climbing buddies actually talk explicitly about how they care about each other — that’s love.) 

Despite the fact that my climbing buddies are not queer men, while I am, they are my people and I am one of them: and I think they will always be “more my people” and I will always be “more one of them” than I will ever feel with the persons in the gay men’s chorus or within a group of queer folks or among queer men. That’s because I am a climber. And yes, I’m also queer, but somehow I can be more myself as a climber and queer person with my climbing buddies than I can be with the persons in the gay men’s chorus or within a group of queer folks or among queer men. I think that’s because outdoor climbing partners share a passion, a drive, a lifestyle, which is precisely what leads us to go on adventures and climb outdoors together; and from this follows a spontaneous, intrinsic, deep queer intimacy and/or queer love between us — regardless of our genders or sexual orientations or “significant others”. And this is something that I cannot find, I cannot get, with the persons in the gay men’s chorus or just any group of queer folks.

The big horrific bill

Reposting a message from One Colorado:

“While most of us were sleeping, Colorado’s Republican Representatives voted for the U.S. House budget bill that proposes to slash over $700 billion from healthcare and Medicaid, harming hundreds of thousands of Coloradans to help subsidize tax breaks for the wealthy and big corporations. 

While this bill is being presented by the far right as a money saving solution for our country as a whole, do not be fooled. 70% of the bill’s tax benefits go to the top 5% while increasing costs for the bottom 40% of Americans. Let’s be clear, this bill does nothing but harm and is an attack on all of us. 

The proposals included in this sweeping bill would cut billions of dollars from Medicaid and other social services programs. This bill will add more administrative hurdles and barriers to the 1.1 million Coloradans covered through Medicaid and cost Colorado money it doesn’t have. In addition to adding punishing administrative barriers to an already complex system.

If passed, this bill will have sweeping impacts that will be felt across Coloradans, especially for seniors, those on disability, and our immigrant community. It blatantly attacks bodily autonomy, cutting access to gender affirming and reproductive care. 

Among the amendments added to the bill late last night was a ban on the use of all federal Medicaid dollars for gender affirming care including surgeries, puberty blockers, and hormones. This ban would apply to individuals of all ages.

”

Trust: the most fundamental form of love

We were swinging freely almost twenty meters above the ground. The 9-mm climbing rope went through the two rappel rings at the top, 100 feet up from the ground, a “free-hanging rappel”, i.e. a lowering technique where there are no walls around or adjacent to you: you’re lowering from what is basically a hole in the “ceiling”. In this case, we had just rappelled from one of Moab’s greatest arches, into a huge space that amounts to a very wide, and beautiful, open cavern: a unique opportunity to swing. So we each took turns: one of us belaying, one of us swinging, and the third taking the video. The swinging consisted in tying oneself into one end of the rope through one’s harness, just as if one were climbing, while the belayer was holding the other end of the rope (which, in this case, was running through the two rappel rings over 30 meters overhead). The person swinging scrambled up the inside of the wide open cave as high up as he could before reaching a ledge from which he jumped off after ensuring the belayer had him tight on the rope. Basically, a huge, human forced (& damped) pendulum. The swings are huge: you’re swinging almost twenty meters above the ground on a rope length of almost sixty meters, high up into the air, blue sky and red rocks all around you. A mistake from your belayer and you could plummet to the ground or crash into the rock wall. 

I did this on Saturday with my French climbing buddy and another close buddy of his who is now also a buddy of mine — another lovely cis-het guy that I can add to my list of fun, trusted, solid adventure buddies. 

I wouldn’t have done this with just anyone. I knew I could do it with these two guys because I knew — I know — I can trust them blindly. And the reason I know that I can trust them blindly is because I know — I see it, I feel it — that they care: they care about each other, about me, genuinely, sincerely, fiercely even. 

These are the people I will entrust with my life because I can, because they have my back, always. Not only in words but in actions, with their actions and their behaviors. These are the cis-het men who treat me just like one of them; who won’t say or do anything to out me; who have my back if someone comes along and says that “you need a penis to be a man” (which happened on this weekend trip); who share food and water bottles and cans of beer with each other; who tape each other’s injured fingers up and teach me how to tape my own; who respect my moments of fear and give me the time and/or encouragement I need to overcome those fears; who act vulnerable and explicitly affectionate with each other, thus allowing me to be my authentic self with them — with all my quirks and vulnerabilities and even my cockiness. 

My friends are solid. All of them, regardless of gender, geographical location, or interests & experiences we share. We all have our moments of checking out or messing up but the times we show up for each other outweigh those lapses by far. The consistency in the ways my friends show up for me, time and again, in different circumstances, over years and geographical distances, is what allows me to trust them. The consistency between their words and their actions is what allows me to trust them. 

And I think trust is for me the greatest, deepest, most fundamental form of love: if I can trust someone, then I can be my whole self with them, my authentic self, even my most vulnerable self, because I know that won’t scare them away from me. And this effectively allows, inspires or pushes me to be my best self. 

As Mt. Joy sings in “Highway Queen”:

“… 

I want you to know I’m behind you

… 

And I want you to know nobody’s leaving

Honey, I ain’t scared of your demons

… 

That’s just what makes you a real thing

”

Friendship: “Highway Queen”

This is how I feel about, or one way I would describe, true friendship:

“

Well, there’s only a few pines left by the highway side

And they all whistle as the wind rips straight through your pride

Baby, it’s only your eyes and mine

And this darkness that grows in time

Oh, ‘cause you left home on that airplane running

And never looked back but you can tell it’s coming

My highway queen must be hiding something

And I want you to know I’m behind you

We could slow it down, honey, let it find you

And I want you to know nobody’s leaving

No, I ain’t scared of your demons

That’s just what makes you a real thing

(Mm, mm-mm)

Well, the stars pulled up about a quarter to nine

And you were lying on my car, you were taking your time

Baby, it’s only your hands and mine

In this world, you’ve come so far to find

Oh, ’cause you left home on that airplane running

You never looked back but you can tell it’s coming

My highway queen must be hiding something

And I want you to know I’m behind you

We could slow it down, honey, let it find you

And I want you to know nobody’s leaving

No, I ain’t scared of your demons

That’s just what makes you

That’s just what makes you

That’s just what makes you a real thing

Oh, we both left home on that airplane running

We never looked back but you can tell it’s coming

My highway queen must be hiding something

And I want you to know I’m behind you

We could slow it down, honey, let it find you

And I want you to know nobody’s leaving

Honey, I ain’t scared of your demons

That’s just what makes you

That’s just what makes you

That’s just what makes you a real thing

”

[Song “Highway Queen” by Mt. Joy]

Wonderful validations & liberating clarifications

Last night, I went to the birthday celebration of one of the more outgoing & friendly people in the gay men’s chorus, joining folks at a queer club. 

Overall, I really had fun and the night felt affirming and liberating in several ways that are still making me glow now. 

Fortunately, my closest nonbinary transmasc friend went with me and one of my baritone friends was also there (he came to the party at the club especially for me). If it hadn’t been for their presence, the social situation(s) would have been harder for me, in particular the ones on the dance floor, but overall I’m really glad for how things went. 

Apart from the fun and getting closer with some people from the chorus, last night brought me some wonderful validations and liberating clarifications from which I’m still feeling empowered now. I finally not only have a clear sense of the dynamics or “degrees of closeness” between me & people in the chorus, but also got this sense confirmed indirectly from chorus members last night and validated explicitly by my nonbinary transmasc friend who was with me at the club. 

There are three men in the chorus who are friends to me, true friends. 

The rest of the chorus can be divided into three groups of dynamics or “degrees of closeness”. 

There’s a “neutral group”, as there probably is in any group/community with so many members in it: these are chorus members with whom I hardly interact beyond, maybe, a polite “hello” if/when necessary. There’s no hard feelings or dislikes, just indifference or neutrality due simply to the sheer size of the chorus. 

Then, there’s a group of people who, albeit not being “real friends”, are truly, genuinely & sincerely, friendly and/or affectionate and/or supportive and/or jokey with me. With most of these folks, we’re not going to exchange phone numbers or see each other beyond/outside chorus events, but at chorus events they are nice to me in a genuine & sincere way: they don’t necessarily miss me when I’m not there, but they like me genuinely and are sincerely happy when I do show up (& they let me know they are). 

Finally, there’s the hostile group. Harsh and sad as this may sound, it’s real. During my first rehearsals when I had just joined the chorus seven months ago, I remember feeling (& writing about) a sense of hostility I was getting from some of the chorus members. Then things improved at least partly and I convinced myself that I had been wrong. But no, I hadn’t been wrong: my gut knew, as always, my gut had sensed it perfectly correctly. Indeed, last night, thanks also to the dynamics at the queer club (rather than within chorus practice) and the observations of my nonbinary transmasc friend (who has been in queer environments & around gay men for much longer than myself), I know that the hostility I had sensed was/is real. 

There is a small group of chorus members, most of them the femmy/gender-bending and/or flamboyant and/or bottom types, who very clearly dislike me. Some of them outright ignore me, look through me or past me, and avoid saying “Hi” to me even when we’re right next to each other and together with some common acquaintance from chorus. Others say “Hi” to me and maybe even attempt a “How are you” or “Nice to see you” but it’s totally insincere: they are forcing themselves because they “have to be civiil within the chorus family” but it’s not genuine, it’s false and fake. And these are the guys who last night on the dance floor at the club first ignored me & my nonbinary transmasc friend when we moved over to dance with them, and then actively ostracized us by staying in their own circle and turning their backs to us. And for once, this attitude cannot be blamed on my wearing an N-95 mask which might “push people away”: I didn’t wear a face-mask at all last night and, in fact, the chorus members who genuinely like me were extra affectionate and open and easy going with me. The attitude on the dance floor was so bad, so blatant, that it was my nonbinary transmasc friend who commented on it when we left the club last night. This friend of mine not only has more experience than me in queer environments & around gay men, but is also a generally less harsh person than myself; so the fact that they actually commented on the behavior of these chorus members on the dance floor, saying these guys had been “not inclusive, actually excluding us, closing their dance circle and turning their backs on us”, is really telling. And very validating for me. 

There’s lots of social cues I don’t pick up on because of being autistic and there’s lots of dynamics or behaviors I don’t understand in gay environments because they’re still unknown or unfamiliar to me. But I am perceptive and I — or my gut — pick up on things anyway. My gut picks up on things correctly. My gut had told me all along that this group of people (who, interestingly, is the clique that hangs out with the gender-bendy gay guy with whom I had hooked up) dislikes me. 

At this point, I really don’t care if this small group of people dislikes me and I can even put up with their ostracism or veiled hostility or false friendliness, at least as long as I have some true friends or allies with me. But having got a clarification last night of the dynamics for me within the chorus and the validation both of the ostracism & of the genuine affection felt really liberating. 

Really, really liberating. Liberating and empowering.

A week of strengthening & broadening bonds

This week I’ve been able to see close friends every single day since getting home from Chicago on Monday. That in and as of itself has been lovely; but what has made it even lovelier has been a strengthening or broadening of the bonds with them.

The Chicago trip, just as the Durango trip a few weeks ago, was good for my spirit despite being stressful due to the constant sensorial overwhelm from being in such a big city & having to fly. 

I had a lot of time to myself in Chicago, which is part of what made the trip so good for me but also caused a renewed sense of loneliness, especially as I found myself processing the final conversation of shared closure that I had had with the gender-expansive gay guy the previous week. So as I sat waiting to board my plane at the Chicago airport on Monday, I texted friends to make plans for my return because I knew I wouldn’t get through this week without their support. And maybe it was partly my vulnerable openness, telling my friends that I was feeling lonely or sad and in need of company, that allowed for those bonds to be strengthened and broadened. 

On Tuesday, I met for brunch and a short walk with my oldest climbing buddy. Despite having met three years ago, our friendship really started to flourish only a year later and then to really deepen over the past six months. And now our friendship is so deep and authentic that we hang out even just for chai & chat to catch up and/or support each other with or without exercise in the mix — he’s the cis-het guy who in December wrote to me, “Miss you, bro” and who a couple of weeks ago texted me saying, “Hey brother, I’m in a funk and I need help”. So I told him honestly that I felt lonely this week and his reply when I texted him on Monday was, “I’m here for you”. And indeed, he was. 

On Wednesday, I had a great gym session with my closest climbing buddy who actually changed his plans with his wife to accommodate me since I was in his town that day. And then, after our climbing session, he invited me to join him out for dinner with two coworkers of his (who are also European). 

On Monday and Thursday evenings, I met up with my two closest nonbinary friends, separately, and with both of them we each leaned into our friendship not only emotionally but also with more physical affection, walking down the street with our arms around each other, which I don’t usually do with them (or anyone) but really felt good to me. And with my younger nonbinary friend on Thursday night we went to a concert together, for the first time, and for the first time we danced together. Enjoying the concert together was really fantastic — something I need, the “shared joy”, the “shared fun”. And dancing together, bumping shoulders and/or hips, was such a novelty, and a sweet one. The night out with them, just as our evening out together for Valentine’s, felt like a queerplatonic date, and I loved it. 

Yesterday, I went climbing with my most recent close climbing buddy, someone with whom I’ve had a good friendship for the past eight months. He’s still recovering from a bad injury to both of his Achilles so he cannot lead-climb, yet, and until now he hadn’t even belayed lead-climbing for almost six months. But yesterday he was ready to lead-belay (& I was ready to lead-climb) again and we had a very joyful moment of bonding delight after our first shared lead climb. 

Last but not least, last night I had the fourth “group writing session” since the end of the poetry course. When that course ended this winter, I suggested to the other participants to keep meeting to support each other in writing and half a dozen of them agreed enthusiastically, so now we have our “buddies writing group” biweekly. It’s a really nice group of people and we already have a rapport, an ease with each other coming from having been in a poetry course together for eight weeks this winter. Of the half-dozen people, most of them have been attending the past four meeting a bit irregularly, except for myself and one other guy who shows up every time.

And now, after last night’s writing session with him, I know that he’s really a “writing buddy” for me. I’m pretty open and authentic in an unfiltered way almost all the time, even with this group of people; and we’ve been getting more comfortable and closer over the course of the past four meetings; but last night, as it was just me & him, he also loosened up much more to the extent of saying to me explicitly, “I’m also queer”. He’s a cis man and has talked about his wife briefly/vaguely, but somehow I had a feeling of there being something queer about him — but of course, I didn’t say anything about it and dismissed the idea because he hadn’t said anything. So his coming out to me last night felt really lovely: a very precious moment of bonding, an additional step in getting to know each other and getting closer, and also the proof of his feeling safe & comfortable with me. And then at the end of our writing session last night, he also said explicitly how grateful and happy he is that I initiated these “writing meetings” for us all, how helpful these sessions have been for him. It felt so good to hear that — what I felt was, “Oh my gosh, I really have a writing buddy! …and he’s a queer guy, too!”