#activist burnout

[whereserpentswalk]

Activist burnout isn't a moral failing of a community, it's not people being selfish. It's a natural result of how human minds work, and you can't expect communities to out-moral human psychology.

When people are exposed to the same upsetting thing over and over again, either it fucks with their mental health and makes them more depressed and anxious, or alternatively it makes them apathetic and desensitized. Neither of those things are good for a movement, and those are the ways humans are going to react to constant upsetting messages. You cannot avoid this by telling people to just be better people, you cannot use higher reasoning to make an entire community's emotions work in a fundamentally different way to how human emotions normal work.

Every successful movement account for the fact that people can't be at 100% all the time. Movements that ask for a level of extreme and undying anger, burn bright and die fast, it's a useful way of organizing a very immediate response, but cannot be done for something larger scale. If you give people, the ultimatum of either being at 100% or 0% all the time, they will choose 0% because the alternative isn't possible for most people.

If you're constantly showing the same disturbing images over and over again, they will lose their effectiveness quickly. If I see a post detailing the horrors of the current genocide, I'm probably just going to scroll past it, because it's all things I already know, and I've seen it so many times there's no emotional reaction, and this is how a lot of people are with posts like this, because you can't ask people to have the same emotional reaction to the same information hundreds of times over.

You can't stop activist burnout by being a better person because burnout isn't a choice, it's a psychological response. If your activism doesn't account for the material reality of the community (in this case being humans with human minds), then that's on you for organizing badly.

Also, if you need to hear this: you are not a bad person for experiencing compassion fatigue, it's literally part of being a person. Don't hurt yourself.

#196 #my thougts #free palestine #palastine #activism #activist #protests #activist burnout #burnout #mental health #compassion fatigue #praxis #leftism #leftist

[cheryltz]

marginalized creators have been out here sanding the edges off our work for fear of pissing off the institutional powers (or refusing to, and being squeezed to the margins, ignored or reviled)...and then here's these white cis het liberal men who hear "hey, dude, I think your thing got ... a little racist? over here? like, let's talk and maybe we can fix it, because I'm sure you didn't intentionally..." and then they Freak The Fuck Out and how dare you and their FEELINGS are so hurt and they're just not COMFORTABLE around you anymore because you're so MEAN and I just ...

I just ... am so done. With trying to gently lead them toward the better world they claim to want. With trying to patiently educate the beneficiaries of the status quo into remembering that the rest of us are human.

I'm just going to go retire to my bubble of like-minded queers, and periodically socialize with the, like, three white cis het guys who've managed to drag themselves out of that cesspool. And the rest of y'all can do what you like without me.

#activist burnout

[mewsmash]

clap if you know the dread. anyway it frustrates me that the term activist burnout got turned into a joke because people used it to mean "im white and it makes me sad when black people talk about their problems too much :(" rather than like. the actual mental toll it takes to be a marginalized person and have every aspect of your existence politicized and have it always feel like a joke and inconvenience. im so exhausted from having to beg the system for my life and right to autonomy. i don't want to be a political talking point anymore

#sad emotions #me when im sad #activist burnout

[catversary]

how to cope w the intense mourning i feel after any kind of political action where having the dream of utopia is too unbearable to even consider. It's too painful to come to terms with what capitalism and imperialism has done to our world and society. It's too painful to dream of a world without capitalism because it therefore shows EVERYTHING capitalism has taken from us. I feel like grieving a life I never had because i was robbed of the choice.

#activist burnout #maybe #personal

[tikattu]

someone had the nerve to dm me the following on twitter when i started sharing news about gaza: "stick to art this makes me uncomfortable".

as it should. it's a genocide. it is far more important to spread awareness of what's happening in palestine than to be mindful of your feelings and "stick to art". i refuse to turn a blind eye to the massacre and do nothing because god forbid the news of it ruin someone's day. you and i are incredibly lucky to be in this position. these people are going through hell every single day. this is the least i can do to help. ( actually here's a list of actions you the reader can take. mostly for people in the US, includes a list of protests around the world )

don't come crying to me about how i participate in this, fuck off and block me. maybe do some self-reflection while you're at it.

#as for real burnout that israel hopes to happen to activists: remember to take breaks but do not stop talking about what's happening #avoid useless doomscrolling but keep yourself updated with actual news. #because if the burnout hits many and the talks die so does the pressure on politicians and the flow of worldwide information #and do not lose hope

[wild-at-mind]

Not reblogging it for reasons, but I really agree with that person on here who said people are reframing depression and generally feeling shit all the time as a good thing because of the horrors of Gaza. There are people on here heavily implying that you feeling bad and finding it more and more difficult to live with yourself is actually an appropriate response to war and genocide. In some way, it might be. But the thing is, where does that lead? Does it lead to decisive action in accordance to your values, or to nihilistic stewing and self isolation from your community?

The post went on to call it anti-recovery culture- I don't know if I would call it that, because I get why people don't like recovery culture, especially in relation to addiction, but mental illness also. I think that's something I'm not qualified to speak on. So I wouldn't call this anti-recovery culture. Instead I would call it pro-burnout in activism culture. Do you honestly think people who are the most productively working in their communities and participating in actions to help overseas are feeling like this? Or do you think they have learned to use self-accountability and community support to reign themselves in when they begin to burn out emotionally, and rest and recuperate their mind in order to come back stronger? Ask yourself, is that wrong of them to do, because they should be feeling bad, because after all that is the appropriate response....does it mean they don't care, because they don't spend all their time feeling shit? Or perhaps, the truth is, they do care, and are demonstrating it all the time, but they also understand that them feeling shit literally doesn't help anyone. Why can we not talk about or acknowledge this?

#i don't want to make out like i'm some amazing activist- absolutely am not talking about myself here #but i think they key thing is activism is best done as a group and one of the group's important functions is caring for one another #if you see an activist framework that encourages people to isolate from others it's not leading anywhere good- avoid #please do not let these ghouls trick you into thinking your depression and shit feelings are the right thing to feel #or that it's wrong to not want to have them any more #as that other post said: no thought crimes and also no thought activism #it's just thoughts and they don't do anything without actions and guess what makes you unable to do actions? (depression) #by the way i wish there was a better word than burnout to talk about this because it's so associated with work and capitalism #but it's a thing- i have seen it through my environmental activism group over the past 4 years #one woman just cut ties with everyone right down to her best friend and disappeared- we know she is alive but that's it #i miss her. but she had all the tools to avoid burning out and she didn't use them- at the end of the day you can't MAKE someone stop #oh yeah finally the above attitude to mental illness also puts you in a vulnerable place for conspiracy thinking #PLEASE do not become like my dad who listened to his mental illness too hard #and went from a leftist to a horseshoe theory conspiracist #guess how much activism he does now?! (hint: it's 0)

[raavenb2619]

New profile picture, and I’m maybe slightly back from the dead. Don’t anticipate I’ll be super active but if I have time and energy I might be. 

#life got busy and i got activist burnout #original

[hag-lad]

I’m gonna vote, of course I’m gonna vote, I’m not stoopid, but god jesus fuck I am so motherfucking jaded, I seriously do not want to fuckin vote today ugh. I’ve never felt less interested in an election in my life, I have done absolute zero research, I’m literally just gonna go down the DSA voter guide and let them think for me, I can’t fuckin be bothered man.

#local politics used to be like My Thing I knew all the measures and props and knew all about the candidates #but I don’t know jack shit this time and it feels v weird to be so in the dark #my burnout from politics has lasted way longer than I thought it would. I’m still very worn down from caring too hard for too long #I wonder if I’ll ever go back to activist life. I can’t even imagine it atm

[ryanthedemiboy]

After 7 years of burnout I can finally send political emails again. I am so happy, i've sent like six in the last few days. That's what I was able to do in a year for a while.

#pacing yourself as an activist is so important #you think you're fine and then suddenly you're not #burnout isn't teehee i made an oopsie! #and it doesn't go away after a weekend or after a vacation

[imsosocold]

Teaching kids about social inequality and an uncensored version of world history is necessary. So is encouraging them to do their own research on topics and help out others in whatever ways they can.  But it’s also important to remind them that there stuff they won’t  be able to do due to the positions they’re currently in and that they don’t have be activists 24/7.   

#social justice #activistism #burnout #guilt #social issues

[notsouniqe]

Trying to advocate for equality made me a burnout at 22.

#lgbtq #equality #burnout #feminism #activism #political activist #lgbtqia

[gouinisme]

did they HAVE to put an incredibly stressful political moment during my exam season like come on

#tf when u have a tp in half an hour but ur heart is racing from activist burnout #i dont even go to protests that often but i'm just scared all the time now and thats taking a toll on me

[silverislander]

weeks of not wanting to write and tonight i want to write Everything. i cant do that come on man

#like. i want to finish the ghost hunting fic that is actually genuinely coming to the end now (only took over a year. for less than 10k) #i want to continue the One With The Fancy Party #i want to write cal and the boys partyhopping and doing crimes again #i want to write this one original story ive had stuck in my head forever abt an old knight and the tragedy of having chosen ones #i cannot do all of these things. i cant even do all of those tonight lol #levi.txt #ill probably do the knight story. and maybe the fancy party if i get distracted #thats the one im most fired up abt rn #its had a sad premise forever now but i finally feel like it has MEANING bc i know how it ends. and its not going to be sad #yes its abt knights but its about community and sacrificial lambs/moral scapegoats and activist burnout #theres hope. its just not where theyve been looking to find it

[henpeckedho]

Also that's mostly all I'll be posting about SCOTUS for a while. It's a big, scary thing coming down the pipeline. And I'm exhausted. I'll do letter writing but honestly otherwise I'm out of this fight. I got nothing left to give at this point.

#i won't mind reading about it #i am just not going to be yelling about it or anothe anything #I've ''just one more issue" myself into severe activist burnout #I'm coming out of crisis mode and that means crisis mode for everything

[trans-cuchulainn]

i do think there is a degree to which certain kinds of Instagram activists have convinced themselves that traumatising themselves in solidarity is a useful form of activism. "I'm having nightmares and crying so much I want to be sick because of all these videos of dying children but I can't look away while people are getting hurt" I mean don't you think you'd be able to help more if you weren't having nightmares and crying all the time?? don't you think this is a one-way trip to burnout? don't you think maybe increasing the amount of trauma going around is counterproductive? I dunno bro there's something to be said for bearing witness but there comes a point where you gotta look hard at yourself and go "am I helping, or am I just making myself suffer so I don't feel guilty for not suffering while somebody else is experiencing bad shit"

#and they try to drag other people down with them #BUDDY I AM NOT USEFUL IF I'M HAVING A PANIC ATTACK #vicarious trauma is not like. a useful form of solidarity. in my opinion #personal

[yenniferbodied]

#free palestine #free gaza #activism #activist #burnout #bds boycott