How to resist authoritarianism without fully losing your mind
a teensy tiny primer
Today’s newsletter is going to be short (but not exactly sweet). I’m working on posts/content that might be a bit triggering and intense for certain folks, so I am trying to figure out the best way to communicate what I am deeply interested in at the moment without instigating a cavalcade of defense mechanisms in people (I am posting about this stuff as I process it more in real-time on instagram in my stories, if you want to join us there!). Everything I am writing about right now is . . . a lot. And there is so much going on in the news so it’s like a constant cycle of me thinking about intense things like authoritarianism versus democracy, and my slow progression towards naming white evangelicalism as a Christian fascist movement. You know, just fun, silly little things!
So before we start to get into it, I want to write about a few ways I have been taking care of my nervous system as I am researching/writing about U.S. Christian authoritarians and the connections to historical and global fascism, because I think this is a really important point. I have spent my entire life (even in childhood) reading/thinking/writing about intense things and only just in the past few years have I been able to cultivate an awareness of when I am operating out of a super-triggered place versus core beliefs and values1. So healing from trauma, learning how to regulate my own nervous system, and taking responsibility for my own emotions (instead of looking to god / someone else to fix them) has been vital work for me. And it’s been the backbone of this newsletter.
As I pivot to talking more about politics and patterns and authoritarianism for the next little while, it might seem like it is out of left field. But in reality it’s the culmination of my almost 40 years being on this planet and everything I have studied and pondered as I clawed2 my way out of white3 evangelicalism4. But this time around I am committed to doing my darndest to be able to deal with my emotions—especially fear as it is the most commonly manipulated emotion in authoritarian politics.
Healing from trauma, learning about CPTSD, and regulating our nervous systems are actually incredibly important if we want to fight the rising wave of fascism in the US and across the globe. I will be talking about this more in-depth in future newsletters, but fascist movements by and large are democratically elected into power by a lower-middle class base who are incredibly emotionally dysregulated and whipped into a frenzy by propaganda and a fear of the “other.5” So it makes sense that we who want to resist fascism need to do the opposite and hone in on making sure our emotions and nervous systems are not being hijacked by politicians or influencers or media groups that get clicks or votes or likes based off of triggering big emotional responses.
So. Big deep breath in, and here are just a few of the ways I am trying to take care of myself as I am immersed in some big topics and recognizing some pretty awful patterns in U.S. politics.
1). Somatic therapy
This is the main one for me! The single biggest personal expense I have right now is paying out of pocket for weekly in-person somatic therapy. It’s hard to explain what it is, exactly, but it is NOT talk therapy6. It is simply a time for me to learn how to reconnect with my body and listen to it. I had the hardest time finally getting up the gumption to pay/go to this, but now I view it as a lifeline. You can google somatic therapists in your area, or start following some accounts on whatever social media platform you prefer just by searching “somatic therapy.”
I understand most people don’t have access to this, but I am so happy the internet exists and if you google “somatic exercises” you will find SO many people putting out the practices for free. I have been doing this face one like every other day. If you have some daily somatic practices you are into, please share in the comments!
2). Cold therapy
You all are sick of me talking about this! But ice packs on the chest, cold showers, putting feet into cold water, eating ice cream, drinking ice water . . . it’s like a literal chill pill (and increases blood flow to the nervous system, which helps us feel safer in our bodies, which helps when I feel overwhelmed by huge systemic issues!)
3). Pulling back from stressful / chronically dysregulated people
All the people pleasers are going to be mad at me for this one. But resisting authoritarian movements / trying to keep marginalized people safe is going to take quite a bit of energy now and in the near future. We simply can’t mess around and waste tons of our time and energy with people who are not interested in interrogating their harmful ideologies and who walk around constantly in a triggered state (and look to politicians / god / other people to regulate them)7. I think it is interesting that the second I went low-contact with people in my life who are conservative Christians I suddenly was able to have the clarity to look at their ideologies and how dangerous to democracy they truly are. Once I stopped trying to convince/change them, I was able to engage in studying the patterns8. The personal enmeshment can exhaust and trigger our nervous systems to the point where we can’t think or see clearly. (And that’s on toxic family systems9!)
4). Finding ways to be in my body
Taking walks in the woods, dancing and singing loudly to music while I cook instead of squeezing in one more intense podcast, orgasms, microdosing legal recreational substances that take me out of my brain, you know . . . just weird hippie shit. Stuff Indigenous and Black and and queer communities have always done. We need joy and relaxation and pleasure if we are going to do this work!
5). Be weird and be creative
I am using my typewriter to clackity clack out my intense thoughts and then cutting and pasting them on top of other pictures and I’m art journaling and I’m buying weird miniatures of things like spilled glasses of root beer or tiny boxes of instant mashed potatoes and I’m eating tomato sandwiches every day and grossing out my kids and I’m making buttons and making zines (and so are so many other people) and I’m on the hunt for whimsy and weirdness in the world to remind me life is not about the binaries, even fascist and non-fascist are just terms for big political problems and can’t be solved with my two little hands. Human beings are just weird as shit, you know? And I desperately want to be reminded of that so I don’t start to fear and hate any of them—and so I can better stand up to the policies that do kill and oppress people.
What weird and creative stuff have you been doing?And where is everybody at as they are processing our current political system in the US? (And apologies to anyone outside of the US . . . but I also know that watching our country be a slow-moving train wreck is a thing for a lot of people and I am curious to hear your outsider insights!)
Also, if you have reading or listening recs, I would love to hear them! I have my own small library I am building up, but let’s make this a space of communal learning and exploration. I currently just subscribed to John Ganz’s substack and whooooooo boy. It’s exactly what I need and I would LOVE to have some folks to process it with!
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To be clear, I think it is fine, necessary, and normal for people to be dsyregulated and triggered in our society! How could this not happen to us when we absorb SO much content and SO much information every day? I am interested in learning how to regulate so I don’t STAY triggered constantly and can be more in touch with my body and my core values.
The last public piece I wrote as a Christian, and you know what? I am pretty proud of that: https://www.christiancentury.org/article/critical-essay/good-white-christian-women-nazi-germany
Now it seems funny that people were really surprised and dismayed when I deconverted publicly from Christianity this last winter. But in 2020 I wrote this: https://religionnews.com/2020/09/23/how-a-sean-feucht-worship-service-convinced-me-i-am-no-longer-an-evangelical/
Whiteness and Christianity seem to be two big overlaps in the dysregulated lower middle class fascist base . . .
I mean, I also talk to a regular ol’ therapist too! And they are the literal best! But at least my insurance covers some of that. BTW, my therapist took off the month of August and I am SO looking forward to chatting with them and explaining that I have decided to go all-in on researching how to fight fascism!!!!!! Bet they will love that for me!!!!!
Look babes, I have tried for almost 4 decades to do this. Logic doesn’t work with fascists! It’s time to move on and organize resistance movements that will keep authoritarians out of power and give more rights to the people.
This is one of the reasons I think Lindsay Gilbert’s work on Emotionally Immature Parents is so important. I believe Emotionally Immature people are the most susceptible to fascism. I bet there is a hefty overlap for people reading this right now that the people in their lives they would identify as emotionally immature might be Republicans/people who are drawn to authoritarianism. Similar how you need to learn to self-advocate, set boundaries, and move on from hoping our EI parents will approve of us, that seems like what we need to do with the Christian fascists in our lives!
Fascism often “focuses on the family.” No, really, I’m serious! They are obsessed with getting people to submit willingly to a father/authority figure and believe kids can be trained to become authoritarians in childhood. They also know that if one person in a family is an authoritarian, the psychological and emotional ties keep the other people in the family in the same system (or at least keep them quiet from protesting it).
This sounds like an oddly specific rec for a niche group, but it is NOT: everyone should read Refusing Compulsory Sexuality by Sherronda J. Brown. You think "a book specifically about Black asexuality? That doesn't sound very useful to antifacism" but it is, I promise it is. Resisting compulsory sexuality from an intersectional lens will have you thinking about allllll the ways we are forced into the authoritarian boxes, even to the most intimate parts of our identities. It is mind-blowing how all of this is so connected, down to cisheteropatriachy being so crucial to fascism because of that last footnote with reproductive control. It's all a huge system.
Daily journaling has been helping me keep a pulse on my inner voice. I decided at the beginning of this year to write at least one word every day from the space where I authentically feel, just to get to know myself. Initially I tended to poetically play on an image. Recently my journaling has turned toward narrative, where I’m getting to know a magical inner landscape, and if I’m in a dysregulated state I wind up in the cabin of an old crone who compassionately talks things over with me while brewing and serving medicinal tea.
I recently started daily yoga for mild low back pain (now gone, yoga and different sandals were just what I needed) and was surprised how good it felt to move my body in strange, unfamiliar ways. It feels like it helps me more fully inhabit my strange unfamiliar self, so I’m continuing the daily practice. I love how it can be adjusted to meet my energy levels: yin for sleepy or exhausted days, vinyasa for high energy days.
A phrase I’ve adopted that helps me return to my body when my 4-year-old or husband trigger dysregulation is “I welcome the stranger.” I think it came to me while journaling one time, that stranger-welcome is a more poignant metaphor for my life than neighbor-love. As my daughter moves through her own mysterious desires and barriers welcoming her as a stranger helps release my impulse for control. As my husband remains firmly in a faith I’m shifting away from (and sometimes reacts with discomfort to my shift), regarding us as strangers--with different inner worlds, triggers, processes for managing our triggers, is helpful and refreshing (this, btw, doesn’t resolve the looming question of whether our marriage will survive, but it’s a helpful frame to regulate myself as we navigate a bumpy patch). It just felt so freeing one evening to realize when I sit at the table with my family, we are coming together not only as a family, but as three strangers! After reading your piece I’m now wondering if allowing us to be strangers to one another undermines the fascist agenda for the family.
Most importantly though, welcoming the stranger is welcoming my strange unfamiliar self. Being undiagnosed PDA and CPTSD (how was i to know? I grew up in Such A Great Christian Family!), as well as aro-ace, I’ve spent most of my life distancing myself from my inner reactions in order to participate in life and society. Welcoming the stranger allows me to say, “I don’t know why I feel trapped when I play with my daughter, or why rage is suddenly shooting through my body, or why I obsessively plan for divorce every time my husband misunderstands me, but I’m allowed to feel this way! There is internal coherence to my nervous system response, that doesn’t fit dominant narratives, but is allowed! I’m allowed to be a stranger in this world, and carve out my own path to safety, and love in more authentic ways!” All of this is contained in the phrase I whisper to myself, and helps me return to my body with compassionate curiosity, which facilitates my return to parenting or conversing from a more regulated state.