It’s been… quite a year.
My husband thinks I’m experiencing some degree of secondary trauma, which seems plausible to me.
Aside from the pandemic, and the constant low-grade anxiety that produces, in July I accompanied my friend through her family getting violently evicted from their home of 30 years. I have been accompanying a student who is experiencing pretty acute mental health crises on a regular basis, who came out to me as trans this fall, in a school and family context that is pretty hostile to LGBTQ identities. All year long I have been emotionally supporting another friend through a trans-continental move and divorce. And then there’s the shared collective trauma in my passport country due to an autocratic and abusive head of state, the whole election season was incredibly traumatic – and we’re still not out of the woods there yet.
Yeah, it’s a lot to carry.
My one new year’s resolution this year is less Twitter, more meditation. I’m running on empty and staring down the barrel of the second semester, wondering how I’ll survive mentally and emotionally. I mean, I’m functioning, and doing pretty well all things considered, but as soon as school got out for the holidays I pretty much collapsed. This week I started working on stuff for January and after a couple of hours I just have to take a nap. So, energy is kind of bottomed out.
I spend and spend and spend myself, so I have to find more ways and means to recharge.
How are you doing?
Movable Type 