Exist, Resist, Thrive

The days are becoming softer. Easier in a way. I still have been dealing with grief, but as the light and warmth and sun returns to my part of the planet, I can feel serenity seeping in through the cracks. For a while there, everyday was hard. I have spent hours in mental and emotional anguish, even though my mental health has remained relatively stable since Steve’s death. But I am liking life now. Still, I deal with a mental disability. I like the term neurodivergent. I imagine schizoaffective disorder qualifies as neurodivergent. This term has such a pleasant ring to it. It makes me feel special and seen.

We as a culture continue to struggle to understand mental illness. And people of color and other monitories suffer increasingly so, as our society refuses to make room for us. Spit masks for example. There was an article on the front page in the Seattle Times that I bought around the time of the Minneapolis murders. They are restrictive devises used to subdue out of control “criminals” while preventing the spread of bodily fluids, and they make it hard to breathe at all. The article highlighted five deaths, and all of these examples given, deaths due to the use of spit masks, were people of some sort of minority standing. These minorities, when struggling with mental illness, are more likely to be shot, imprisoned, murdered with a spit mask, and generally misunderstood. When we use a term such as neurodivergent, we improve our understanding that people, all people struggling with mental illness, are either sick or special, and not just an out of control suspect that needs to be apprehended and dealt with. Blacks, trans people, immigrants, gays, any person of color, and other minorities that suffer with mental illness are at much greater risk of being mistreated or even murdered by our system. A system built on anti-black racism and white supremacy.

I am safe, relatively safe, out here on Lopez Island in WA state. There is very little crime, and though rural, we are a generally tolerant and liberal community. I am very privileged in this way. I identify as queer, basically a non-binary bisexual, and I have severe mental illness as well. Because of my caucasian decent, I am less afraid, and I have to deal with much less stigma than other minorities. I also have a family who loves and supports me, and I do not entirely depend on the government for housing. But when my partner passed away six months ago, who identified as a heterosexual male, I felt extremely vulnerable. In a way I closeted my non-binary self for a minute, as the political climate escalated around fear and hatred. I did not totally realize that I was doing this. I wanted to be Emily, and to be Steve’s widow. I do identify as a queer woman now, still very much interested in both women and men, as well as people who fall on the trans spectrum, so I guess this makes me pansexual. Identifying my womanhood, however, has helped me feel safe and included, even if I am non-binary at my core. I believe challenging gender norms challenges bigotry on all levels. I have an increased intolerance these days for people who do not believe in rights and liberation for women, people of color, and all people whatever their sexual orientation, gender, or religious beliefs or lack thereof. As you enter the world of mental health support groups, you realize how many forms mental illness can take. You also quickly learn that we are people, not just with one label, but often people with handfuls of labels that apply to us. This idea that a person has but one box to fill is so inhumane. As we learn to accept people for who they are authentically underneath any physicality or label, we can see how diversity exists in nature and that we deserve equality no matter who we are.

Being a realist, I have to admit that this world is far from fair. I guess growing up in the eighties, I was told that girls were equal to boys, and that we deserved the same treatment and privileges. I grew up believing that as a girl, I was capable of anything a boy could do. This may have simply been the highly educated and liberal community that I was immersed in, in Seattle, and somehow I was unaware that there was another way to see the world. That men, specifically white men, deserved all the power and were very much in control and continuing to oppress this world we live in. So in a huge way, now that I am 47 years old and it is 2026, I am completely baffled at the way the world actually is today. The backwardness of right wing politics, and the overwhelmingly white male Congress. The fact that women, black people, gay people, and immigrants are being caged and murdered daily and not receiving justice. This is simply not how I was raised. I was born fifty years ago almost. Are we actually moving backwards, or have we been backwards all along? As a queer mentally ill woman/person, I have to admit that these truths challenge my understanding of reality. As a schizoaffective, I struggle with psychosis, and I just can’t understand how we arrived here. So, I try to educate myself on differing beliefs. I believe there is an underlying and ultimate truth here. Balance and equality can and want to exist. As we continue to resist, we may find ourselves in the correct reality someday. I do hope this for all of my neurodivergent, black, queer, disabled, etc. diverse and loving community out there. We deserve to exist. We deserve to live. And we deserve to thrive.