Iām sorry for your loss. Even when itās āexpectedā, it isnāt easy.
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So sorry.
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Tl;dr: the racism, sexism, and general playing fast-&-loose with facts means itās victim-blaming garbage.
Better suggestions offered in the article:
3 Alternative Books to Deepen Our Understanding of Trauma
Trauma and Recovery. Judith Hermanās 1992 classic argues trauma canāt be isolated from its social conditions, immersing readers in the feminist activism that raised awareness of the political context of rape and reformed the laws around it.
What My Bones Know. Stephanie Fooās 2022 memoir guides fellow survivors through her healing journey, which includes understanding the context of her Chinese Malaysian ancestry and Asian diaspora upbringing.
The End of Trauma. George Bonannoās 2021 book serves up a controversial take, backed by extensive data, that horrible experiences donāt usually traumatize usāand argues that we are already experts in moving forward.
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Good Lordā¦
I had never heard of this particular psychobabble woo-fest. Kinda wish I hadnāt, but forewarned and all, right? Damn, and the demonization of anyone questioning this shit just reeks of cultish behavior. When science becomes unquestionable, it ceases to be science. Period.
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Yup 
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)Dorothy Parker could make anything bad seem uproariously funny and worthy of utmost contempt.
i take some grinning solace in just that.
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Sure, itās going to be bad for everyone. Thereās a lot of bad I can deal with. They want to eradicate trans people though and if my healthcare gets banned, I wonāt survive detransition.
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Bouncing back and forth between enraged determination and fearful despair, while the weather grows colder. It dipped below zero just on the 20th, as if to emphasize the beginning of our passing into a long, dark, endless-feeling winter, with no sunlight or warmth on the horizon.
Iām trying my best to learn how to live in a post-hope world, where even if we defeat fascism within my lifetime, global warming will ensure humanity has no future. We had our chance to turn things around before it was too late, and instead, the world decided to spend that crucial time forgetting that Nazis are bad, being as wasteful, greedy and short-sighted as possible, and dumbing ourselves down until we live in a post-truth, conspiracy-riddled, AI-slopped, surreal nightmare.
It feels like humanity has been gradually raising a gun to its collective head for my whole life, the dread and panic rising and becoming more pronounced as some of us struggled to throw it away and prevent what was coming, to no avail. 2025 is the moment the bullet makes impact, and the remainder of our lives will be humanityās suffering as it burrows inwards, rending flesh and bone, seeking the brain. We may die before it reaches the brain and ends our species, or it might happen within our lifetimes, but the triggerās been pulled and thereās no going back.
So Iām trying to take pleasure in small comforts, to help, cherish and protect people and to do the right thing, because that still matters in the short term, even if in the long term it makes no difference. I donāt see any other way to stay sane. Iām grateful I never had children who would have to suffer through the dark times ahead, grateful to have grown up in a time that still knew what hope felt like, and grateful for my friends (including you all). Iām going to survive, Iām going to fight, and Iām going to try to make the most of the awful timeline weāve all been dealt. Itās better than nothing, at least for now.
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Iām not so sure about that. May I recommend, for instance, HCRās letter tonight? Yes, it does seem like just as Tromp is releasing all those people whoāve been reasonably imprisoned, so are all sorts of demons escaping now through the opened gates of Hell.
However! Republicans do have a government to run, and many signs point to their likely doing an obviously horrible job at it. Theyāve been in obedient lockstep for Tromp, but heās going too far already for some of them, and others are patriotic enough that they donāt want to see him destroy the US and turn it into a surreal version of 1938 Germany.
I think thereās at least a likelihood of a midterm return of power to Dems to look forward to, and maybe, a lot of stepping on the brakes with Trompās dictatorial efforts. Heāll do a lot of damage, but heās probably less popular than ever, and in mental decline, and I donāt think we can be certain that the US will fall apart and fall on top of us all by four years from now.
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Iām thinking bigger picture than Trumpās administration or the USA. Iām thinking of global warming and other existential threats, about how humanity is continually making new problems for itself while almost never solving the ones that already exist. It may already be too late to prevent the worst damage from global warming, and if so, the resulting ecological damage and mass suffering and death that results (and has already begun to result) will render our planet and our species utterly unrecognizable- a polluted, ruined, unforgiving hellscape.
Letās be more optimistic and assume that itās not too late to begin reversing global warming, and that Trump is ousted in the next few years. Do you see the Democrats putting all of their efforts and energy into fighting global warming? Do you see the US population getting on board with it? The corruption in politics easing enough for serious change to happen? The billionaires and corporations being reined in enough that theyāre forced to comply? The top greenhouse gas contributors around the rest of the world joining in the effort? In 10 years? 25? Even 50? I sure as hell donāt.
This is why hope has died for me- not because we passed any particular date, but because a world that elected Donald Trump twice, a world controlled by fascist billionaire manbabies, a world where every aspect of everything has become so broken and corrupt that fixing it is no longer possible without burning it down and starting from scratch, a world where so many people deliberately get up every morning and choose to be their worst selves, is never going to have the intelligence, the integrity or even the motivation to save itself in time, no matter how badly some of its denizens want it or fight for it. To paraphrase Maya Angelou, 2024 was the year humanity showed me who they are- and I believe them.
At its core, the problem is human nature and our inescapable habit of being superstitious, greedy, cruel, stupid, and short-sighted. Not every human is, but enough are, and societies have been intentionally set up to reward some of them so lavishly and manipulate the rest so easily, that theyāve reached critical mass and doomed us all, themselves included.
Humanity is an unsustainable evolutionary failure, and weāre not going to make it. If global warming leaves any survivors, the past few years have convinced me that humans will learn absolutely nothing and will soon find another way to wipe ourselves out, unable to escape our flaws, traits which may be an evolutionary benefit for individuals but which, augmented by technology, doom us as a species (individuals included). Weāve seen how fragile progress is, how quickly it can be reversed, how itās an illusion of safety that has no long-term staying power against the crises we face. We cannot depend on the arc of history bending towards progress, if only because we are rapidly running out of time for it to bend within. Surviving into the future requires humanity to not have a significant percentage of evil assholes who ruin it for the rest of us, and that flaw seems to, through no fault of our own, be permanently baked into our species.
When I say weāre a failure, I say it not with contempt, but with sorrow. Humanity is also beautiful, unique and wondrous. Museums are full of the fossils of beautiful, unique, wondrous species who didnāt make it, who couldnāt adapt in time. Weāre just organisms like them, with no special status to protect us from the same fate. In the long run, our existence will have been no more significant to the universe than theirs- but also no less. That thought gives me some solace as I mourn for the future.
ETA: I should probably reiterate for anyone who finds this a downer or sees it as giving up, all of this is viewing humanityās future from the widest possible lens. I still stand by what I posted up above- that in the short term, fighting for progress, justice, love and a better world are worthwhile things that matter. I believe that our life and our experiences are all we have, and bringing comfort, safety and beauty to ourselves and others as much as we can is important, regardless of our fate as a species. And if it turns out Iām wrong about our long term chances, I believe those values will be what saves us in the end.
Really, humanity going extinct is something we all know is inevitable eventually- just in an abstract āwhen the sun explodes in 2 billion yearsā sort of way. Itās a different matter to see it from where youāre standing, to realize that however much of a difference you make in individual lives, no matter how much damage you manage to prevent, youāre fighting a losing battle and youāre going to inevitably leave an Earth thatās in worse shape than the one you were born into, because the odds are against you and the clock has almost run out. I think a lot of us were sold a utopian vision of a solarpunk, Star Trek-style future, where weād see the world improve and progress as humanity became enlightened and technology was used to eliminate suffering. Now weāre discovering that itās never going to happen, not because itās physically impossible, but because humanity just isnāt collectively smart or kind enough to allow it to happen in the time weāve got left.
Thatās the hope Iām learning how to live without, and the reality Iām being forced to confront. And I think itās possible to still have a meaningful, happy life while cursed with that certainty- itās just a lot to deal with and itās going to take some time.
Also, sorry this is long as fuck, I swear I made attempts to edit it for brevity. 
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Oh, I see what you mean, thank you for explaining. Yes, my long view certainly doesnāt look much brighter. I hope that spending time looking through yours doesnāt drag you down much during most of your days.
That future does seem nearly as inevitable to me as it apparently does to you, but for me, worsening climate change resembles the fact of my own death; I donāt see how dwelling on it in an especially extensive and despairing way makes sense, since I canāt do much of anything to stop it. Maybe Iām better than I should be at blocking out my awareness, or ācompartmentalizing,ā while also privileged/well situated enough that I can more easily do so. Both my own death and a burnt hellscape do darken the horizon when I look up and over there, but I can make my existence and in some ways those of others more bearable in the meantime, and that still seems worthwhile to me, as does feeling satisfaction and joy at times while primarily on focused on such efforts. I hope that you too somehow have more days during which that happens.
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Iām not good. I will be, butā¦ shit.
Monday I was angry, sad, anxious, stunned, defiant. It was a day I had to work at the office, and it was super fucking cold out, and I was still dealing with some digestive stuff which I donāt think was related to stress. I donated to Transgender Law Center and ordered a BlĆ„haj. I was annoyed about the EO screwing over my passport card application, but realized that this is the smallest of symbolic things and meanwhile immediate harm is being done.
Yesterday it was even colder, ranging from about -4F to 7F. I spent a lot of time writing and rewriting an email to my family ā using the news as a way to update my parents on my gender identity and ask them if they could use they/them pronouns. (I wrote to them back in 2011 before the terminology was there, and it was awkward, and I have not brought it up since.) I realized, this was going to take a while, and instead shot a quicker email to my brother (who is trans) to check in on him. (No answer yet; Iām trying not to worry because heās sometimes slow to answer emails and he may be taking an internet break for very good reasons.) I distracted myself playing Guild Wars 2. I prayed ā one of my gods has the epithet āMother of Mothers and Father of Fathersā and is both a fearsome warrior and a wise grandmother-of-everything creator type. I decided that yes, itās probably time to go ahead and have that talk with my parents, but then started dithering about whether it should be email or in person.
Today I looked over the Goddamn Trump Administration thread here and checked in on a couple of other places. Iām convinced Trump is really a very weak-minded, weak-willed person, a puppet of the Project 2025 people and tech bros (except when he goes off script due to his own senility/drugs/whatever).
Before work, I went through a brief staring-into-space depressive thing, and then a fight-or-flight low-grade panic attack. Not nearly as bad as some of the episodes at work just before the Covid lockdown, but Iām definitely going to stay off of caffeine for a while, and scale back the doomscrolling. I am listening to calming and heartening music today ā Cocteau Twins, Heilung, and some of my own stuff. I want to go take a long solitary walk, but snow and ice from the storm back on the 5th are still around and itās still unpleasantly cold.
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Are you on any anti-anxiety medication? I went on cipralex last year; a very low dose, and it has made all the difference in the world. It wonāt help the real situation, but may help with some resilience.
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