Do you want people to think like you do?

I intended my first blog to be about the hypocrisy surrounding the slogan 'my body my choice', but something more pressing is before me. I’ve spent the last week managing the gamut of emotions around loss. The kind of loss that drains the smile from a face, makes the body energy wilt and a heart so heavy, it’s hard to imagine feeling good again. There was no physical death, it was the ending of friendships and deep family ties. Luckily, there are some willing to agree to disagree and love me anyway. Also luckily, I have work that demands a presence of mind and a tenderness of heart. Patient interactions last week were especially powerful and a reminder to stay the course because people need me to be exactly who I am.

I’ll share my experiences because I know I am not the only one going through this. Maybe this will bring comfort to others who feel shunned, isolated and alone. Family and friends are drawing lines in the sand - directly and indirectly. Long time friendships ending. Realizations that what I thought was temporary and somehow able to be worked through now seemingly out of reach. Acquaintances, once bonded over like-minded desires for freedom and autonomy to be ourselves, increasingly becoming contentious and disapproving of anything outside their zone of comfort.

No one has actually asked me what I think or why I think it. I’ve tried to offer that information eight ways to Sunday to those who were once closest to me, but no one will hear me. No one can see me. They want me to fall in line and think and act the way they do. It seems too easy to label anyone questioning the narrative as a selfish, crazy, conspiracy theorist anti-vaxxer spreading “mis”information or a trump-humping fascist Republican or an anti-feminist christian who wants to burn books and make everyone pray all day. It seems easy for some to castigate another human being's experience if it doesn’t fit the stories they tell themselves. It might be easy to make fun of others for the way they live their lives or what they are willing to fight for. But here is the problem. MOST of the people this is happening with are NOT horrible people. To dehumanize those who think, feel or see differently might make it easier for you to ignore their existence, but it doesn’t make it or them go away. I’m still in here. I still hold every deep belief that has made me who I am and probably who everyone thought I was. As a self-proclaimed tree hugger from a very young age, I care about clean water, air and food. I think the top 1% should pay their taxes. I think women should choose whether to grow a baby inside of their body or not. I think all humans should have the choice of what medical interventions they take into their bodies. I think nature gives us all the tools we need to heal and there are people who have demonized that since the beginning of time. I think ALL human beings, regardless of skin color, religious beliefs or sexual orientation should/could live in peace and harmony upon this Earth.

For the record, I am not a Republican (I also no longer identify as a Democrat - they lost me over their fear porn campaign and their deep love for big Pharma). I am repulsed by Donald Trump and anyone associated with him and I HAAATE the fact that those same people are the only ones giving platform to the Doctors and Scientists speaking out against what might just be the greatest public health FAIL of all time. I am not anti-vaccine and I don’t listen to Fox News. I also no longer listen to CNN or MSNBC, PBS or NPR - they are all the same, propaganda machines. I believe Rittenhouse is a murderer and I will stand with Black Lives Matter until black lives actually DO matter. White supremacy is terrorism and Trump did not win the election. Biden is just another old white man, and it’s disgusting that he is our president. A woman should be President, but here we are. I have no idea if Hollywood elites drink the blood of children, but if that bullshit is true, I will be first to say wow, that sucks. Right now, I believe it to be complete fucking horseshit and a convenient distraction from the bigger issues at hand and probably placed there by the same people who don’t want us actually paying attention to what is REALLY going on.

There are enormous problems to solve and none of them are being solved because we are not working the problem. We take to social media and lambaste the differing viewpoints with statements like, do your research, follow the science, boycott “mis”-information. Hate speech YES, monitor that shit. But there are actual Doctors and Scientists being shunned and ignored because they dare to speak out and I for one am curious about the information they hold. Read RFK Jr’s book, The Real Anthony Fauci - you cannot tell me you think the CDC, NIH, WHO, Gates, et al are on the up and up and that the book is filled with mis-information. This is a Man who has worked tirelessly advocating for CHILDREN’s health and well being.

On Friday night, I was sitting with my husband Tracy catching up from his week of travel. I was emotionally drained from the intensity which included a panic attack earlier in the week. I could feel a lump in my throat and mentioned that when I got through my work week, I was going to need a good cry. We set out to watch some mindless TV and a little while into it, my plans to have a good breakdown at 5 o’clock on Saturday were foiled when I could not hold the tears back. Tracy is an expert at letting me cry, often ready with a tissue, or a soft caring word, sometimes even a good laugh. This time he just let me weep. When I finally caught my breath, and was trying to process and explain my feelings to him, he asked me, “is it that you want people to think like you do?” I thought for a second and replied, “NO, I want to think like THEY do. And I can’t”.