thebibliosphere:

I try, when talking about certain things, not to talk from a place of panic. Speaking from experience, panic spreads like wildfire and can just as easily burn down the thing you are trying to protect just as readily as the thing you are trying to protect it from.

The people in charge know this, and are relying on you being frightened of them. Wilful obedience would be better, but fear is also a malleable thing they can work with. It helps people to bend, thinking it will prevent them from being broken. Except the people trying to make you bend, don’t give a single fuck if it breaks you. Control is more important to them, control and the continuing illusion of power. Anyone else that gets smashed under the wheel of their authority is considered *gestures vaguely* negligible and acceptable damage.

So while I understand the inclination to run screaming in circles over certain recent events (trust me, I do it often enough myself) it is vital that you don’t let it own you. Fear is a vital part of our survival instinct, but only if we know how to use it. It lets us know, much like pain, that something is very wrong and we should do something about it.

And you don’t have to be fearless to be brave. To quote our dearly beloved Space Mother, Carrie Fisher, “stay afraid, but do it anyway.”

(And I know it’s hard for a lot of us, I really, really do. There are some days my clusterfuck of mental health issues are just so bad I can’t uncurl from the fetal position long enough to stay hydrated, let alone fight the good fight. But even on those days merely existing is an act of rebellious defiance.)

So you see, I’m not trying to be blase when I talk about certain things. Just because you don’t see me visibly screaming in terror doesn’t mean I’m not doing it on the inside. By remaining visibly calm, I am in fact trying to help other people to not be afraid. To give them some sense of understanding and feeling of control over the situation so that in turn they might be better equipped to help me and others like me, to fix this shit.

Acknowledge your fear. Let it pass over and through you, breathe it in and hold it in your lungs, then let it out like fire.

You do not need to be a ray of sunshine to be the positive change you want to see in the world. Sometimes you can be a very small, very afraid flicker in the darkness. Just don’t let that flicker go out.