THROWING IN THE TOWEL
My towel was in my hand aiming for the bucket… then Tuesday came.
Here’s what I felt:
Emotionally: Anger. Denial. Alone. Depression. F*CK this! No f*cks left. Hopelessness. Hopeful. Capable. Energized. Communal. PROUD! Stubborn. F*ck on!
Physically: Tears. Screams. Groans. Insomnia. Nausea/Vomiting. Heart palpitations. Fever. No energy. Energized. Strong.
I am experiencing all these and more this week, with Trump winning and the Dutch government making massive cuts for SRHR (and a fall cold/flu.)
What about you?
This week's news IS devastating and I am SERIOUSLY devastated by the pain, suffering, and death that will occur directly to women, children, and gender diverse individuals in the US and those in many countries beyond because of the return of the Global Gag Rule.
I moved to the Netherlands, the #2 European country who invested (until this week’s slashes) in global sexual and reproductive health and rights, to focus on the TRAUMA-INFORMED CARE = REPRODUCTIVE EMPOWERMENT movement I’m trying to create.
I’ve already been so struggling to keep myself and Repro Empowerment alive. If you noticed, I haven’t been doing videos etc since the spring, with so many health, relationship, and other crises this year and I have lost momentum. Adapting to the new country, culture, language and making friends and love has been lonely and fairly unsuccessful. All the personal financial, time, and emotional investment I put into my online course and medical conferences/outreach hasn’t returned any revenue. People aren’t rallying behind the movement I’m trying to create. I’m drowning financially to the point of hustling for small service gig jobs and selling my personal items. I’ve poured my life into this effort and it seems clear that the universe is saying “give it up.”
So of course my running out of momentum was turning into throwing in the towel.
Then Tuesday came, with news of HUGE cuts from Dutch gov to global sexual/repro health and the tyrannical rapist dictator returning to office (and a Global Gag rule returning much uglier than ever.) I felt all of the things above. I tried to vent to my friends here, but they understandably couldn’t relate to how catastrophic it felt. I laid in bed crying. Screaming. Speechless. Too many jumbled words. I listened to others talk about how we must have hope and move forward while I mumbled “f*ck that/you, I’m staying sad and mad as long as I want to”
So I gave in to my giving up.
Today I woke up and realized…. DAMN IT… that’s EXACTLY what they (anti-choicers, Right-wing Dutch parliament, Trumpers, MAGAs, brain-washed religious zealots, cheating “family-values” politicians, hypocrifal un-Christ-like Christians) WANT me to do!!!
And I’m TOO DAMN STUBBORN TO DO THEY/COMMON SENSE SAYS.
So funding will be cut….. I never had any in the first place.
So I will get more hate….From people who’s opinion I don’t care about.
If ONE patient has a better experience than me because of me flying around the world on my last dime to medical conferences asking “AND WHAT ABOUT TRAUMA-INFORMED CARE?”, I will die a happy beggar.
Because if we NEEDED Trauma-informed Healthcare (especially sexual/reproductive)... then now in a Trump 2.0, Post-Roe world…
WE REALLY NEED IT NOW.