I've been trying real hard to walk the walk on the "put your oxygen mask on first" so our stuff is in order and sustainable before I really buckle down on COVID-related organizing and wow self-care guilt is quite the beast

I definitely felt a lot less guilt coping with a little wine and weed and lots of Netflix when my anxiety was out of control because I could tell myself, "well, I wasn't in a place to get shit done anyway with the panic attack stuff"

I'm now actually effectively managing the anxiety and making sure we're stocked up on essential groceries and medicine and stuff, with a freezer of sick person-friendly food prepared and finances tended to and catching up on my contracting work, guilt's in town.

A lot of folks I admire have pointed out that folks who have experience being close to pain often have better coping strategies & are less anxiety-prone in crisis.

I definitely had a sense of sort of calm drive when all this started and we were getting mutual aid off the ground.

That calm partially had to do with some ADHD/neurodivergence stuff I'd written about in the past, but also just experience in crisis and having gone through enough stuff that felt world-ending that the sensation wasn't novel.

What really set off my anxiety wasn't the personal crisis/fear stuff but the growing realization of the enormity of the secondary impacts of the crisis for vulnerable folks, & the terrifying potential for full-on roll-out of authoritarian fascism as Trump spotted an opportunity.

What I'm realizing was that The Week Of Netflix Nights and Soup-Making Days was about anxiety management in some ways, but it was in a very real way a week of mourning for what I know is being lost, plus preparative mourning for the losses that I see as very likely coming.

I'd been so busy pushing myself on crisis response that I hadn't given myself the space or sleep or time to cry for the loss and also ask myself some hard questions about what I'd be willing to lose to help people, to preemptively mourn what might be lost knowing my answers.

It's easy to look at these turning-inwards moments and see it as wasted time.

If you were raised to value community stewardship and service, it's easy to emerge from these moments and feel guilty for not immediately plunging back in, even if you've forgiven yourself the "waste."

I'm trying to look at that guilt and re-train myself on how to manage rapid response work.

To remind myself that by its nature it takes us at least somewhat by surprise, so we don't go into it prepared and wearing oxygen masks.

Those of us who tend to be good at kicking that sort of work off need to learn to build in time after initial launch to take time for our own processing of stress and crisis, to sit with and prepare for our own needs.

Our movements have to be strong enough and wise enough to proactively create that space for rapid response-oriented folks to step back for a moment and do that self-care without the entire rapid response effort falling apart.

Without self-care, experienced people lose their own life resources and energy and burn out.

We lose the experienced rapid responders we need for the next crisis.

I'm really blessed to be a part of organizing community that's been really running with this Philly mutual aid stuff I'd been organizing on, even as I paused somewhat to do my own turning-inwards and oxygen mask placement.

The folks I'm working with made that space for self-care for me without judgment, even as I tried to convince myself I didn't need it or shouldn't take it, and I'm incredibly grateful for that.

As I tie up the last big proactive self-care ends and start warming up to dive back in, I'm trying really hard to use this to cement in my mind that this was necessary and also only possible because we organized in a leaderful way without the effort hinging on one person.

I suspect a lot of folks who did a lot in the first days of Coronavirus irreality are probably going through there own versions of this, and I hope this is maybe a little reassuring.

Using some of our capacity for mourning and self-care isn't wasteful.

It's necessary.

I'm sending love and solidarity to other folks doing this work, very much including folks who are on pause for a moment to mourn and take care of themselves.

It isn't selfish. It's burnout prevention.

It's how we maintain sustainable movement.

Terrible crises show us who we are.

We need to be our best selves in these moments.

Remember, though:

Being our best selves is largely about practicing radical compassion, very much including compassion for ourselves.

Solidarity, y'all.