I don’t know why I’m posting this. Maybe I’m hoping for some epiphany or for someone to point to a way out I’ve missed though I’m certain that’s not going to happen.
I’m watching the Nazis rise again in my country. I never supported them. Not now, not in earlier incarnations that lead to this. They rose anyway.
I got out of homelessness. I got a college education, though admittedly not in anything useful. I’ve never committed a crime aside from speeding. I’ve always played by the rules, even when they were unfair to me. I believed we had to cooperate with eachother, debate, struggle along to arrive at something more honest, a compromise that would better serve more people in the long run. But that only works if both sides are playing the same game by the same rules. The Nazis aren’t. I bettered myself as best I could. They didn’t. And they are winning.
I know what’s coming next. I understand that great violence is coming. I fear I will not survive. I fear my friends will not survive. My siblings and nieces and nephews will not survive, or worse, the young will grow up in such chaos that it becomes normal to them to operate that way. That safety and respect become nothing more than stories from a primitive culture that existed long ago.
I’m gay. Im liberal. I’m an atheist. I’m outspoken. I’m poor. I’m honest. These are traits that are not desirable in the new country forming around me and they will be punished.
I’m not changing myself to make Nazis comfortable. They are just going to have to kill me. And they will.
Recently a friend was concerned about me and invited me out with others. We were out at a gay bar. A petition was going around gathering signatures to fight Ohio’s plans to reinstate a ban on gay marriage. They won’t stop there. I know they want us removed. And they have many ways of erasing me quite effectively. It ruined the evening seeing another loosing game being played. Ohio didn’t listen to its voters before, and America sure as hell won’t let them start now. I’m watching these people play the game as if they are setting things up for a victory tomorrow. People are already being disappeared. These people won’t be around to fight this tomorrow.
I signed the petition anyway. I might be wrong. Maybe this little bit will help if I am wrong. But I also felt that by increasing my visibility even this much, I’m increasing my risk. It is foolish to expect my state or country to handle opposition respectfully. But compliance with the regime just makes it more difficult for those strong and brave enough to fight back so on behalf of them, I signed my death certificate. I won’t likely win, but I won’t make it easy for them to silence me either.
When I lost my last job I lost health care and lost my psych meds and treatment. I went through withdrawal while working a retail job that wasn’t actually paying the bills but I had to keep trying. Now I have a better job and health coverage again but I cannot afford to go back on medication. RFK has already stated what he plans to do to people receiving psych medications. If he simply takes those meds away, I’ll go through withdrawal again and will likely lost my job as I’ll be unable to function while my neurochemistry readjusts. I literally can’t take the risk to better myself. My family and friends have noticed. They are worried. I can’t even see a therapist because I can’t afford one. Besides, the Trump regime has expressed opinions on enslaving people for that too.
I got a small windfall from this years tax return. I spent it all immediately on little tech project distractions for myself. I use them as puzzles to put my focus into. I dare not hold onto enough money to buy a gun while in this state.
I cannot survive like this much longer. If my country doesn’t kill me, I might do it myself just to get away.
I can’t afford to immigrate to another country. I have no money. I have no unique and in-demand skills. I only speak one language. And I’m an American in 2025. No one would want me in their country anyway and I can’t say I’d blame them for that.
I can’t keep stalling. I don’t know what to do next but doing nothing will most certainly lead to my demise.
As someone who’s dealing with similar things but has found some ways of coping:
My therapists and I talk about the idea of “queer joy” - that living in itself is the Revolution and fight. Showing that you are resilient and strong gives lie to what the fascists say about people like us.
Things that I have found help me are speaking up more. If I think my life is to the point where I am terrified to this point, I might as well go out swinging.
Art is another thing. Art is antithetical to fascism - that’s why they love AI so much. Get some cheap acrylic paint from Walmart or a sketch book and just show that your life has meaning. Fascism is a negation of life’s meaning - a desire towards death. You can oppose it by choosing to live.
I'm not OP, and I'm not an artistic person, but at one of my lowest points, I found pleasure in learning graffiti. The culture, the do's and don'ts, because I also wanted an outlet, and I've always colored between the lines. I wanted a voice, to be heard, and to say "I AM HERE" at the same time.
I'm a nobody in the graffiti world, but its a hobby anyone can do (but should not do).
Graffiti has a lot of meanings. When a spot gets covered by layers of graffiti, it's a message to the local government saying "do something about it" such as abandoned vehicles or neglected buildings. Graffiti can bring attention in a good (artistic) or bad (challenging authority) way.
And sometimes, it just means "look what I can do"
I like “a trans person peed here” as a message in men’s bathrooms. Trans men are especially invisible, and I think that is in part because we are so counter to narratives about transition. (That’s why the alt right have been co-opting feminism - to try “self hating girls who don’t understand the problem is the patriarchy” as a faux progressive narrative as an explanatory tool for us.)
Regressive ideologies require flattening people to stereotypes. When you live outside of those stereotypes - which we all do, because human beings are all inherently three dimensional and complex beings, even the shitty and hateful ones - you challenge those ideologies. You testify to their wrongness with your body and “soul.”
You say - they think of me as a pervert or mentally ill or unfit in all of the different ways they try to call someone inhuman, but I am not and I will show them this. I will make them kill me if they want me to stop showing them that they are wrong. And if they do kill me - it is their failure. They are so pathetic that they must negate me to make their argument.
The challenge is building up the bulwark against despair. Art calls - but it’s not just paintings and graffiti and sculpture. You can extend the idea of performance to your life, to say, this is the story of human resilience through hard times. It sucks that it has to be told, but I will speak so that others can learn from it.
No one really even listened to the queer survivors of the Holocaust until the 1970s and 80s. People were so afraid of speaking up, because there were still consequences for being gay. We can make sure that there is so much evidence that they can never say nothing happened. Killing yourself gives them what they want, means you give in quietly.
It is god damn fucking hard. This is a type of battle for our souls, and each day you make it to the end of is a victory. Find as many small joys as you can and know your work is honorable.
I never understood the demonization of non-conforming sexualities. It’s as sensical as saying “if you like sour cream and onion pringles more than the original pringles, you are dangerous.”
It’s less opposition to the “sex” directly, more of a threat towards power structures. Regressive ideologies need hierarchies. How does a gay/lesbian couple fit into serial sex pest Bill Gothard’s very very popular “umbrella of authority” model?
Queer relationships hint at the possibility of relationships that aren’t husband-father and child-wife - egalitarianism. Also the possibility that other men view them the same way they do women.
Sex is also not really supposed to be “enjoyed” in these ideologies. Men are helpless creatures who can’t help themselves, women are passive objects that must remain virgins until they are married and sex dispensers for their husbands afterwards. The concept that sex is something that people do together for mutual shared enjoyment is alien to them. Queer and feminist spaces have always threatened to bring the day that “sex will be good again” - ie, that there could be a future where sex (the verb) is disentangled from power structures associated with sex and gender, and we’re all just doing it because we’re adults who like to feel good sometimes - which denies some of the cultish control associated with making a bunch of rules about who can have sex with who.
The homophobia is connected to the sexism, and the sexism is fundamental to their self image and value systems.
The closest thing I have to art skill and desire wise is my little 3d printing projects. One of them I like dusting off every now and then is making a home server that fits inside an old power mac g4 cube. I release the designs online when I’m done. It’s isn’t emotive but it is a puzzle with a set of decisions I get to make about how things work. I creat a problem I can solve.
I don’t think I’ve released the latest version as I’m not entirely happy with how it works. I also created a small tower for an old rockpro64 but again, it’s incomplete so unreleased. There are issues with the software for it I haven’t ironed out yet so I can’t fully assemble it and ensure it’s able to properly regulate its temperature yet.
It’s a weird little puzzle I’ve created for myself but with that I have some control over something in my life.
I am not an artistic person, but I am creative, and I think you're probably similar. I'm not great at CAD, 3D printing, or embedded coding. But damn is it satisfying. I've made a few neat things here and there, but the best thing I've done combines all three.
That in itself can be the reason to live today - improving that design.
When I say “art” - I am trying to mean something broader. Human expression, things we do which aren’t immediately about survival or the approval of others. Music, hobbyist programming, sports… It also does not need to be “good” or express a “skill.” I am a god awful painter, but my shitty paintings are still valuable to me.
The idea is that we are the universe experiencing itself, and we can make new experiences. Your 3D printed art projects bring value to the world - far more than fuckers like Trump ever will. Trump deserves to be suicidal. Not you.
Thanks but what we deserve is irrelevant to reality. Without some sort of consequences this will not change and he’s shielded himself from consequences.
He won’t change, and bad things will happen. We can’t control the story, but we can change its meaning.
I’d like to point out that your 3D modeling is a skill. The economy is shit and tech is especially in shambles, but after this clears out I think the fact that the younglings can’t find their “my documents” folders bodes well for future job prospects.
Struggling with despair and mental illness is hard. I think sometimes it helps to remember that this struggle isn’t a failure on your part. This is hard and unfair. You can enjoy those little tech projects, those are valuable and worthwhile. They bring value to the world and you enjoy doing them. They also are job skills - nothing wrong with spending a weekend soldering a kit together. I get guilt complexes about money, but there are lots of rich spoiled fucks who make worse financial decisions and feel zero fucks. This isn’t to say go crazy and be irresponsible, but you don’t have to pay penance for an impulse purchase.
Try to love yourself even if the world is full of hate.
I’ve met me. I’m not really compatible with most people. I’m loud without knowing it. I freely discuss heavy topics and bring things down without being aware. I misread the room. I’m a lot.
Those are all minor character defects in a person who is probably much more complicated than that. None of those things are really wrong, just social faux pas, and that’s all about how other people react to you. Most people are wrong about many things, and their impression of you can be one of those things.
I get it, I can see myself in your comments, but it’s very liberating to stop caring what people think. Things are fucked anyway, so now is the time to tag a bathroom. Do fun things that make you feel good and don’t hurt other people.
For a good time, log into any computer at $formeremployer using $backdoortheystillprobablyhaventaddressed does have a nice ring to it.
100%. Fighting for justice is a reason to be alive, and creative exploits the part that makes it fun.