It really freaks me out that people think body hair is unsanitary. Like y’all are just so brainwashed if you believe that body hair is perfectly normal and fine on men, but on women its suddenly dirty? Use your critical thinking skills for a few damn seconds, I’m begging you.
An important piece of how well-off you are, which measuring income isn’t really going to catch, is how much shock absorption your community has built in.
Some people don’t have an in-person community, of course, and so the shock-absorption available to them is just whatever is in their own savings account and how much credit they have access to and maybe the knowledge that in the worst case they could move across the country and sleep on a friends’ couch for a few weeks but not longer because the friends’ landlord is strict about subtenants.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, upper-class communities have tons of shock absorption – if your home burns down, you probably have a friend who has a vacation home or an in-laws suite or a guest room where you can stay, if you lose your job it was the kind of job for which you get unemployment and you know someone who can get you an interview for another one, if you have a medical crisis you have lots of friends who can bring food and help out, and they all work jobs that let them take off on short notice in the middle of the day.
I’ve been helping a friend recover from surgery this week, and I’ve been thinking about this a ton. I could work from home for three days to be with her; her girlfriend had a spare bed where she could sleep for two because she was supposed to be near the surgery center and her house was an hour away; her girlfriend’s boyfriend could come over to help when girlfriend had to go to work; when her doctor’s appointment was changed to a time when I couldn’t drive her, another friend could take three hours off to do it. That’s a community with shock absorption.
It’s a class thing, but it’s not just a class thing. Doing this sort of thing is one of the things religions do. When I describe what I value about my community, my religious friends tend to go “oh, so, like what my church does”. A poor community where a dozen people from church will bring meals and support after surgery or after a loss or during cancer treatment has vastly more shock absorption than a same-income community where people have no way to coordinate that (and I think the decline of religion has been particularly costly in poor communities for exactly this reason).
And lots of money can’t fully substitute for a community, because lots of disasters (like medical emergencies) are of the kind that make it hard to advocate for yourself and independently arrange all the things you’re going to need.
I don’t know how you increase shock absorption. Lowering the cost of housing does part of it; a spare bedroom is a particularly critical kind of shock absorption that protects lots of people from homelessness. More leisure time increases shock absorption, and cutting the expected work week has been at least partially successful some places. My impression is that Social Security dramatically increased shock absorption, by giving elderly people (who often end up needing community support to remain independent or survive) more financial resources; it’s much easier for poor families to take someone in if they will get regular money towards housing and expenses. UBI would do it too, of course.
Talk to your kids about the issues before you go. Children often want to have a say in politics, getting on their feet and marching is an excellent start.
This should be obvious, but check to be sure it’s a family friendly event that asks people to commit to protest peacefully. Nothing against more active forms of protest, but you don’t want to be responsible for minors at an event where people are likely to be arrested or police may respond in a volatile or aggravated manner. At a family friendly protest you will see other families, and probably unions & religious groups marching together with their kids along.
Apropos of the above point: If you’re bringing teenagers make sure they understand that they are at a peaceful protest and shouldn’t be agitating.
Bring water. More water than that. I said MORE WATER! Marching is thirsty business. Kids over the age of 8 or 9 should be able to carry their own water in a backpack without whining.
Bring snacks. But also be prepared to buy snacks from street vendors if there are any. Those dudes are just trying to make a fair living and you know your kiddos are gonna be begging for churros.
Bring a large zip-top freezer baggie for trash. It’s likely trashcans will be stuffed to overflowing. If you stop in a place for a while to rest or listen to speakers and the kids start to get squirrely, have them each go pick up 5 pieces of trash from people around you. You want a freezer baggie so it doesn’t leak.
Keep an eye open for medics, organizers and protester support booths. It’s just good to know where they are.
KNOW WHERE THE PORT-A-POTTIES ARE!!!!
Hand sanitizer.
The kids will get bored. They will try to listen to the speakers and get overwhelmed by upsetting stories. This is all OK. If they need to mentally check out for a bit and read a book or play with a small toy, that’s fine. They’re little kids and this world we’re in is batshit crazy and they can’t absorb it all. Don’t try to force them to be mentally present the whole time.
They will probably love to sing and chant and dance at drum circles and interact with people with megaphones and such. Let them!
Be prepared to explain in a matter-of-fact manner unfamiliar religious or cultural practices that people express while protesting. Be matter-of-fact about the language and ideas expressed on signs. You may need to give a short history lesson or talk about what unions are. Let the kids know that not everyone at the protest agrees 100% on all things, but that you are all there to unite behind a particular idea.
If your kids are old enough to read fluently, talk ahead of time about whether they should accept and read fliers and pamphlets. Sometimes political pamphlets advocate ideas or actions you may not agree with… same with protest signs. Be prepared to talk about that.
You don’t have to love abortion. You can dislike it. Maybe it even makes you sad. The way you view abortion is up to you. If you don’t like abortion, you can advocate for proper sex education, access to birth control and other things that have been shown to lower unplanned pregnancies. You don’t have to like abortion.
But what you can’t do is disrespect somebody for having an abortion. You can’t take away that choice from women because you don’t like it. Your emotions are not somebody else’s responsibility. Your emotions aren’t more important than anyone else’s bodily autonomy. You don’t have to like abortion, but you have to respect other people’s rights and that includes the right to safe, accessible, abortion.
A lot of the time when people give advice intended to relieve anxiety, they suggest doing “relaxing” things like drawing, painting, knitting, taking a bubble bath, coloring in one of those zen coloring books, or watching glitter settle to the bottom of a jar.
This advice is always well-intentioned, and I’m not here to diss people who either give it or who benefit from it. But it has never, ever done shit for me, and this is because it goes about resolving anxiety in the completely wrong way.
THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO when suffering from anxiety is to do a “relaxing” thing that just enables your mind to dwell and obsess more on the thing that’s bothering you. You need to ESCAPE from the dwelling and the obsession in order to experience relief.
You can drive to a quiet farm, drive to the beach, drive to a park, or anywhere else, but as someone who has tried it all many, many times, trust me–it’s a waste of gas. You will just end up still sad and stressed, only with sand on your butt. You can’t physically escape your sadness. Your sadness is inside of you. To escape, you need to give your brain something to play with for a while until you can approach the issue with a healthier frame of mind.
People who have anxiety do not need more time to contemplate, because we will use it to contemplate how much we suck.
In fact, you could say that’s what anxiety is–hyper-contemplating. When we let our minds run free, they run straight into the thorn bushes. Our minds are already running, and they need to be controlled. They need to be given something to do, or they’ll destroy everything, just like an overactive husky dog ripping up all the furniture.
Therefore, I present to you:
THINGS YOU SHOULD NOT DO WHEN ANXIOUS
–Go on a walk
–Watch a sunset, watch fish in an aquarium, watch glitter, etc.
–Go anywhere where the main activity is sitting and watching
–Draw, color, do anything that occupies the hands and not the mind
–Do yoga, jog, go fishing, or anything that lets you mentally drift
–Do literally ANYTHING that gives you great amounts of mental space to obsess and dwell on things.
THINGS YOU SHOULD DO WHEN ANXIOUS:
–Do a crossword puzzle, Sudoku, or any other mind teaser game. Crosswords are the best.
–Write something. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. Write the Top 10 Best Restaurants in My City. Rank celebrities according to Best Smile. Write some dumb Legolas fanfiction and rip it up when you’re done. It’s not for publication, it’s a relief exercise that only you will see.
–Read something, watch TV, or watch a movie–as long as it’s engrossing. Don’t watch anything which you can run as background noise (like, off the top of my head, Say Yes to The Dress.) As weird as it seems, American Horror Story actually helps me a lot, because it sucks me in.
–Masturbate. Yes, I’m serious. Your mind has to concentrate on the mini-movie it’s running. It can’t run Sexy Titillating Things and All The Things That are Bothering Me at the same time. (…I hope. If it can, then…ignore this one.)
–Do math problems—literally, google “algebra problems worksheet” and solve them. If you haven’t done math since 7th grade this will really help you. I don’t mean with math, I mean with the anxiety.
–Play a game or a sport with someone that requires great mental concentration. Working with 5 people to get a ball over a net is a challenge which will require your brain to turn off the Sadness Channel.
–Play a video game, as long as it’s not something like candy crush or Tetris that’s mindless.
THINGS YOU SHOULD DO DURING PANIC ATTACKS ESPECIALLY:
–List the capitals of all the U.S. states
–List the capitals of all the European countries
–List all the shapes you can see. Or all the colors.
–List all the blonde celebrities you can think of.
–Pull up a random block of text and count all the As in it, or Es or whatever.
Now obviously, I am not a doctor. I am just an anxious person who has tried almost everything to help myself. I’ve finally realized that the stuff people recommend never works because this is a disorder that thrives on free time and free mental space. When I do the stuff I listed above, I can breathe again. And I hope it helps someone here too.
(Now this shouldn’t have to be said but if the “do nots” work for you then by all means do them. They’ve just never worked for me.)
This would’ve been great an hour ago
If your anxiety includes rapid heartbeat for no reason then it may help to exercise! It helps for me because I’m focused on whatever moves I’m doing and breathing, and it gives my heart rate a reason to be that high so that I can start the slow cooking down process and (hopefully) bring that heart rate down with it. Look up a quick cardio workout on YouTube or something and just do it in your room!
This is so, SO true.
All ‘doing something relaxing’ ever did for me was give my brain MORE free time to FREAK THE FUCK OUT.
I like how this boil down to grabbing something then tell the brains weasels to GO FETCH YOU PIECES OF SHIT
I mean.
That’s basically it tho.
I have a go-to book for this purpose. It’s a history on a topic that is interesting but emotionally neutral to me, and complex enough that I have to pay attention to get anything out of it. Also not so fascinating that I can’t put it down once my brain chills out. I’ve read it cover to cover several times now.
Thoughtfulfangirling 