I think I’m having a bit of an autistic burnout moment over politics. I’m moving a lot more left over the years but just don’t feel like I can do anything. I have 2 years left on a work contract and it would be killer to lose that job, but also I want to help people in ways where quitting might be the best option. I want to learn about politics and history more, but I also don’t want to stress about it because I don’t feel like it changes things that much. Id like a community that talks about these feelings and I feel like this should be that community for me. Let’s just chat about it.
I feel you. My job is also preventing me from putting my limited energy into things I think are way more important, and I’m not sure about what to do about that.
With burnout, it’s helped me to focus on the things that have gotten a lot better without denying the things that are absolutely unacceptable. Straddling past successes and present problems helps me deal with stress, because I know the past successes I live within included lots of the little failures, false starts, and periodic feelings of impotence that I’m experiencing now
Learning about the internal lives of anti-oppressive people from the past also helped me because this feeling of burnout is totally normal in people who were successful in winning liberation, throughout history and across various movements
A new thing I’m trying to do is focus on feelings of care/respect for people who are the most precarious more than I focus on the enormity of harmful systems or hostility for people perpetuating the harmful systems. I find I can maintain more energy when I focus on feeling excitement for how someone’s life (and our lives collectively) might improve if I work to end various oppressive influences rather than if I focus on grief/stress about how folks needlessly suffer (though all these feelings are important). Letting all of the feelings exist has been good instead of focusing exclusively on the lack-oriented ones