The Anxiety of It All

This year has been... a lot. I know I haven't written anything since February 2025, but the sad truth of it is that I haven't been able to. Not for lack of time or motivation, no. It's the overwhelming anxiety, terror, and depression I've been stewing in since late January.

1. I am a woman living in a society that marginalizes and seeks to control women. This is done in a variety of ways:

• "Tradwives" - There is a growing movement to return women back into ​slaves "Traditional Wives," women who stay in the home to do the cooking, cleaning, and rearing of the children. A woman's sole purpose is to be a baby-maker and an obedient wife to serve her ​Lord and Master husband's every whim and urge.

  • This means that the education of women is unnecessary. Women's place is in the home, not the workforce.

  • This also means that should said husband become violent towards his wife, she needs to "reassure him" of his worth and to "stay in the marriage" for the children.

    • Children of any age can read the room and know by feeling, if not by comprehension, when things within the marriage are not copacetic. And they sure as shit know when mom is being abused.

• Forced Birth - A staunch anti-abortion stance which reduces a woman's choice by implementing bans without exceptions for rape or incest, and a promotion of pro-natalist policies that all align with a vision that restricts women's reproductive autonomy in favor of childbirth.

  • This means that a pregnant person no longer has autonomy of her own body. She no longer gets a say in what happens to her body; said body is hijacked by laws (usually made by white men), that prevent them from seeking appropriate, necessary medical care.

    • The only "exception" to these forced-birth laws are if the life of the mother is in immediate danger of death.

      • When mother's life is at literal and immediate risk of death, healthcare professionals in these forced birth states either prioritize the life of the child over that of the mother, or wait to the point that the mother is beyond saving to act because they fear lawsuit reprisal from their state's government.

Do not tell me that the movement and the lawmakers responsible for these devastating laws are just "protecting women."

2. My partner is Brown, which has become the ultimate crime in the States. He has always had to deal with racism, but in the last eight months, things have gotten much worse. Just from what I've witnessed with him:

• Fear of ICE

  • Despite being a natural citizen, ICE doesn't seem able to, let alone care to, differentiate one type of Brown person from another (AAPI/Hispanic as an example). Not that that should even be a thing, but here we are. Brown is Brown, so these folks have automatic targets on their backs, no matter where they're from.

  • Travel is made far more difficult because of going through US Customs and Border Patrol, especially when USBP doesn't know what US territories are.

    • Yes, there is a story to that, but it is not my story to tell...

• Harassment and assault by white people using various forms of aggression with increasing vitriol and far more frequency.

3. We are under Military Occupation in democratic-leaning cities across the country:

• I live in a city that is under the Occupation of the US Government. Military occupations of cities/states within one's own democratic country are illegal without factual, evidence driven cause.

  • The Man who would be King Dear Leader has taken it upon himself to fabricate reasons to hold Democratic cities/states hostage by forcing an unasked for, unwanted, and illegal military occupation to stop the "crime epidemics."

    • Yes, you read that correctly.

  • His evidence for justification for "emergency" occupation of these democratic strongholds is... crime reports that show consistently, across the board, that crime has been, and continues to, decline since the Biden administration.

    • So he's been deploying the military to occupy US cities and/or states for no justification other than that these places voted against him in the last election. Apparently "going after [his] opponents" includes the citizenry that "does not like" him.

So, can we get real and just acknowledge that the "leader of the free world" is actually a fascist fucking dictator?

ANXIETY

Yes, it's gotten worse. Soooooo much worse. My mental health took a nose dive around March and has continued to plummet over the last several months. My anxiety level got so high, I was having daily panic attacks. (Yay Xanax!) What, do you ask, helped me get over these daily attacks and the constant feeling of "What next? OMG, what is going to happen next to make me even more afraid for my family and loved ones?"

That answer is easy: DRUGS. Well, more specifically, very potent, physician-prescribed medications to pull my mood out of the Mariana Trench and gently place me in a below-sea-level locale, which is definitely in imminent danger of flooding, but will not immediately kill me by drowning, pressure, and/or the Benz.

Finding a therapist is a different story altogether. The good ones are only able to take on new patients few and far between. The really good ones have waitlists going two-three years out, and that's with the assumption that they don't retire prior to, or just after, your first appointment. The very new-to-practice ones mean well, I truly believe that, but they are "babies" and don't have any practical, real life experience in the art of "shrinking," having only just completed their education and done practicals in a controlled environment. This means that they care a lot and try really hard, but are not yet fully equipped to deal with your shit.

I discovered this when going through a service through my Primary Care Physician (PCP). They paired me up with someone with some experience with ADHD, but no experience whatsoever with Bipolar Disorder. Also, when she found out I am an amateur filmmaker and director, she spent 48 minutes out of a 60 minute session telling me all about how she used to do theatre in high school and is able to imitate the famous people and characters with aplomb.

• To be fair, her imitations were good, but trying to pitch me on the idea of casting her in one of my projects, instead of tending to my disastrous mental health, did not go well with me, so I broke up with her. (Okay, fine, I ghosted her. I just couldn't deal with one more thing.)

So yeah, that's where I am right now.