Thread:

Lately, I have noticed a shift in things. I have observed anger, hopelessness, hostility, discontent, and nihilism. I have watched comrades spiral into darkness and then disappear altogether.

I have seen this before when studying burnout, as such, I feel an urgent need to address what I think is happening & I hope this can serve as a jumping-off point for healing.

I want to take some time to talk about burnout. Organizing of any kind, whether it's mutual aid, or antifascist organizing, or jail/court support, or union organizing - we all have the capacity to overcommit ourselves. I'm worried about us. So let's talk about it.

I want to start by indicating that I'm going to reference @VikkiReynolds5 frameworks here. She is a powerful voice in care work & does great work in Canada fighting political deaths related to opioid ODs. I like Vikki's framework bc it's accessible & even pulls from queer theory.

Burnout is a bummer for a lot of reasons. It can be so brutal that it takes us from the movements and work that matter to us. Our burnout can also impact the comrades we organize with. Our burnout can also impact the communities we are trying to serve.

These are 3 reasons why avoiding burnout & focusing on collective healing & accountability is really important.

First, when we're in organizing spaces, i think it's necessary to understand what our collective ethics are. Why are we organizing? What matters most to us?

Vikki says:

"Collective Ethics are those important points of connection that weave us together as community workers. In most of our work these collective ethics go unnamed, but they are the basis for the solidarity that brought us together and can hold us together."

Collective ethics are about community. If your affinity group or organizing group hasn't identified it's collective ethics, here are some questions you can work together to answer:

What are the ethics that drew you to do this work? What ways of being in this work do you value, hold close, maybe even sacred? What ethics are required for your work, without which you would be unable to work?

What is the history of your relationship to these values and ethics? Who taught you this? How have these ethics shown up in your life and work?

What ethics or values do we hold collectively?

How do we do this work in ways that are in accord with our collective ethics?

How can the holding close of our collective ethics foster our sustainability and transformation across time?

Once we have consensus w our groups, we can begin to think abt collective care. this is the part that addresses burnout, but instead of relying on isolation & individualism - we can create our own networks of support to hold ourselves & each other accountable.

Collective care involves a handful of different things including:
-Being accountable to collective ethics
-Building solidarity
-Sharing responsibility for support
-Recognizing the role of power
-Sharing successes and failures
-Sharing healing

With these things in mind, we can be intentional about leaning on our organizing community and relying on each other, practicing radical honesty, and allowing ourselves to be vulnerable enough to address burnout when we are noticing it in our comrades.

So, how is burnout showing up? Vikki Reynolds identifies the sweet spot of care work (or in our case, any organizing or community work) as the Zone of Fabulousness. When we're in this ZoF, we are kicking ass, sustaining, being productive, able to feel good about ourselves, etc.

In the ZoF, we are boundaried, we are preserving the dignity of the people we are serving & the people we are organizing with, we are creative, empathic, engaged & maybe even enjoying what we're doing. Burnout occurs when we slip out of the ZoF. Vikki calls this 'zone slippage.'

We can zone slip in two different directions. One direction is called enmeshment. when enmeshment happens we see things like:

-Feeling Like a Hero/Savior
-Feeling Responsible for Outcome
-Working Too Much
-Infantilizing those around us
-Punitive Interactions
-Taking Work Home

Enmeshment is just that, becoming so into the work that we start to tell ourselves that we are the only people who can do it, others are not capable, etc.

The other kind of zone slipping is called disconnection. Disconnection can look like:

-Feeling Victimized
-Making decisions outside of consensus or feeling burdened by collaboration
-Avoidance
-Lower Compassion
-Punitive Interactions
-Invalidating or our comrades
-Disengagement

Neither enmeshment nor disconnection are healthy, but can happen when we're not being mindful of our capacity to do the work, not relying on the support of our comrades, and not allowing others to be honest with us when they notice changes in us.

Working in community with others involves revisiting our collective ethics, making space for collective healing and accountability and being approachable. It means noticing when our comrades are zone slipping and pulling them back in with compassion and radical honesty.

We're working to build a world with all of us in mind, but we're also organizing to survive the world we currently live it. This work takes a toll on us. We deserve networks of support to help us sustain. The point is to reframe our work in ways that are more protective.

Check out Vikki Reynolds ( @VikkiReynolds5) video here for more words from her specifically and share it with others. https://vimeo.com/277787561 

Tell your comrades you love them.
Tell them again.

my comrades @JessStohlmann & @deseraestage have an amazing podcast called @suicidenstuff where they interviewed Vikki Reynolds. https://suicide-n-stuff.com/post/642746401413120000/suicide-n-stuff-episode-38-with-vikki