The older I’ve gotten and the more I’ve learned, the more I’ve ultimately kept my political opinions to myself on social media. I’ve been trying to do it even more as election season kicks into high gear. I’ll almost never admit to my preference for candidates unless asked because people can become hostile if we disagree, as though not being a friend makes me the enemy. As I became of age to vote, my upbringing concerning politics had been less than stellar and surrounding the years of 18, it at times became downright hostile to discuss. After I voted for Obama in the 2012 elections, I pretty much ignored politics thereafter. It wasn’t until I married someone whose opinion I valued and respected that I took an interest again. I married a history buff with knowledge in government, legislation, and international politics. Since he was military the state of international affairs impacted our lives so it was something we kept tabs on so we knew if we’d be looking at pointless paperwork days or impending deployment days. When we got married our political views were wildly different. I was an obnoxious, bordering on socialist democrat. Let all the immigrants in without fuss! It’s our fault they’re displaced! Free college! Free healthcare! Free everything! All republicans are evil! The democrats can do no wrong! Why is everyone so mad at Hillary Clinton? She didn’t REALLY do anything wrong. Absolutely we should implement gun bans!

Turns out growing up and being exposed to the real world changes people.

I’ve lived in a very liberal state: California. One where I had an attempted robbery on my home while I was pregnant and had a small child in the house, living off base in a shitty neighborhood with meth heads and drug dealers because that’s all we could afford despite being given a $950 a month housing allowance and the always present waitlist for housing on base. I was lucky Matt was home that night, but the fact that Quinn was across the apartment and I’d have to get though the assailant to get to my daughter shook me. All we had to protect ourselves was Matt’s giant tank wrench, but if the person breaking in had a gun it wouldn’t have mattered. I’d have been dead before I got to my child. So we went the next day, applied for base housing, went to the local sports store and bought a 12g shotgun we planned to pack with buckshots, and then I promptly waited 12 days to get it because California gun laws are annoying. I’d lay awake for 12 nights, hoping I didn’t hear another sickening thud of boots kicking in my door again. The boot prints I saw every time I entered my home were a constant reminder that I wasn’t safe. Matt was gone all day most days, and some days well into the night. I didn’t sleep until he came home, and even then I didn’t sleep well; flinching at every noise as they rang out through dark walls. That kind of psychological effect stays with you and didn’t fade until I had two men armed with M-16’s within two hundred feet of my home. We got the gun and the next 6 weeks went without incident, but the week after we moved out the same apartment we just left WAS broken into and was stripped of its innards. If you’ve never felt that fear, lucky you. If you have, I’m sorry. Truthfully.

It’s almost like you have to experience something to decide whether or not you have a truly educated opinion on it. Women don’t want men making laws about abortions when they’ll never experience one. People who’ve been threatened at gun point or been kidnapped or had their loved one held hostage while some criminal forced them to empty out their wallet have never said “I’m glad I didn’t have a way to protect myself.” This climate where people who’ve had an entourage of armed security getting to decide whether we get to protect ourselves is absurd. But if I had a security team and was in politics, that means I probably did something to make enough people hate me that I needed one.

But no, my greatest concern on the ground level is how many people can be easily manipulated. By their friends, their family, whatever dumb ass podcast or bogus political website they deemed “good enough”, even though it’s being ran by some nutjob whose education barley reaches high school level comprehension. That they rely on their opinions of their likeminded friends without talking to people whose opinions are different than theirs. Of course they’re going to reiterate what you just said, you don’t talk to anyone who thinks differently. And if you do, you go in with a superiority complex. You’re not listening to understand, you’re listening to form a rebuttal. It’s not possible that you’re wrong, or that you’re not looking at it from all angles. You’re approaching it with hostility, condescension, and your nose so high in the air you’ll drown if it so much as sprinkles. This also makes people whose opinions ARE different than yours not even engage in conversation with you because they don’t feel like being berated, thus the cycle continues and your ego is even more inflated and you feel your opinions are justified.

My advice is branch out. Talk to people. If that person can’t have a conversation without insulting you, berating you, belittling you, or telling you you’re wrong instead of just explaining their point of view, just walk away. Those kinds of people are so far gone that the conversation isn’t worth the energy.

Now I’m fairly moderate, though on social issues I tend to lean left. I don’t like radical Democrat’s because they tend to be self-serving. They want to help others, but ultimately they want you to agree with them because the republicans are evil and they, as democrats, know what’s best for everyone. In my personal experience, these are the ones that mask their radical opinions under the guise of “the good of the nation”, not taking into account people they could be hurting or potential ways it could go wrong. But it’s what they want, and they want it NOW. Insert the temper tantrum of a three year old when they don’t get it and the tears when your hurt their feelings. The world is not their oyster. We’re all trapped in the muddy ocean floor together. On the flip side, my exposure to radical republicans has also been absolutely awful. Heavily religious, heavily conservative, heavily oppressive, mostly white (by mostly I mean like 98% of them that I know) and they believe everything that Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and Alex Jones say. They’d rather cut their table in half than to invite their neighbors because it’s THEIR table. If you want a better table, you should have bought a better one. Never mind the woodworker was charging triple what you make and that your job only pays enough for you to afford an end table even though you’ve been a loyal employee for 15 years. But hey, that’s business, baby. No my issue with radical republicans is they don’t even try to pretend that their ideals are self-serving. While the transparency is great (I guess) it makes me detest their selfishness. Their war on gays and the poor and anyone whose not Christian is appalling. I recently found out that I’d been a topic of conversation amongst a republican family because I’m an atheist. Apparently the general consensus is that I’m going to hell for it. Normally, that wouldn’t bother me from anyone else, but this came from family. People who should know that aside from my atheism, I’ve been a good person. Personally, I don’t think I’ve truly done anything worth going to hell for. I haven’t murdered anyone. I haven’t had an affair. I haven’t stolen from thy neighbor. I did hook up with a girl once though, so they can put that in their burn book. If I believed there was a hell, I’d be even more worried. Luckily my biggest concern is paying my bills on time. But the fact that the radical conservatives want to build a government around the Bible and Christianity is particularly problematic for me, because under the first amendment I have freedom of religion. If you’re trying to force me to live under a Christian government, that’s imposing on my freedom of religion. But shouldn’t they be familiar with the amendments considering they never shut the fuck up about the second one????

Stop being brainwashed. Donald Trump is not going to end the world. Bernie Sanders is not going to save the world. In four to eight years, these people will be a footnote in history. You’re destroying each other more than any one singular president ever could. You’re mad because of your political differences, not stoping to think you’re alienating yourselves. Trapping yourselves in a little box, with small-minded, stubborn people. I’m telling you right now, you’re not going to look back on your deathbed and say “I’m glad I repelled my family to the point that they don’t want to associate with me.” Not all Democrats are inherently evil. Not all republicans are inherently evil. Stop letting other people directly influence how you feel about someone or something. This is what happens when critical thinking is removed from school curriculum. Too many people are blank pages waiting for someone else to fill them in. Think for yourselves. Ask someone why they feel differently than you and try to understand. Be logical instead of emotional. Look at facts. Look at numbers. They are the only things that won’t lie to you for gain. Stop reading your friends shitty posts from shitty websites that you can’t even tell if they’re satire, and start fact checking. Decide what’s really worth being mad about and for fucks sake stop letting your feelings get so god damn hurt all the time. Not everything is about you. Pick which things are really worth being upset over. Stop wasting energy on momentary things that “offend” you, and start focusing on things like the fact the Flint STILL DOESN’T HAVE CLEAN WATER. Get it together so people start taking you seriously. If you piss and moan about EVERYTHING, people stop valuing your opinion about things you truly care about because you just come off as unhinged, unreasonable, and your thoughts on a matter become null and void. They think what you’re concerned about is as invaluable as the rest of the minuscule shit you whine about on Facebook. I know there’s certainly people who I don’t take seriously or value their opinions for this exact reason. Stop asking people who to vote for. Stop asking people who they’re voting for. Do your research and form your own opinions from reputable sources. Stop becoming the brainwashed, brain dead, easily manipulated baby dear they want you to be. Class wars were created as a means to have you fight amongst each other instead of directing your aggravation where it really should be.

Anyways, I hope y’all are voting in the primaries. Do your due diligence, take any opinions at face value until you’ve made an informative decision yourself, and for the love of all things holy quit asking your friends who live in the same box you do if you’re right. Open your ears and your mind. Don’t get louder, get smarter. Good luck.

Like clockwork, 5 days before my period is due, I wake up at 3 o’clock in the morning. Again, literal clockwork. That’s always the time it happens. Sometimes it’s a little earlier or later, but always within thirty minutes of 3. The tightness in my chest. The nausea. The heavy breathing that never seems to be enough. With my adrenaline going, I try to will myself back to sleep. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. It all started when one night Penny couldn’t get the bathroom door open, which happens because it sticks, so she woke me up. While I was helping her, Quinn comes out to tell me she’d thrown up in her room. I still remember the date: October 3rd. If you didn’t know, I have a fear of vomiting. Me. Others around me. Every aspect of it makes me want to die inside. So I’ve been suffering with these middle of the night panic attacks since it happened over four months ago. I would occasionally wake up in the middle of the night before that. Not having had a decent nights sleep in 9 years, my body has become accustomed to surviving off the minimal amount it has to and has kept me waking up throughout the night for years even when I didn’t have to. But now every time I wake up in the night, I figure a child is sick, triggering the panic attacks. It doesn’t help that in May of last year I woke up in the middle of the night (and yes, it was 3am) and got sick myself. So basically for the last year I’ve been living in a midnight hell. I’ve never been so fucking tired in my life. Of course this makes me irritable during the day. I’m tired, overworked, overwhelmed, and under appreciated. I get little to no help around the house since Matt works so much, and when he IS home, he’s just as tired as I am.

I’ve been on medication for a while now. Some days it helps, some days it doesn’t. Some days I still want to curl up in a ball in my bed without having a child constantly asking me for sustenance or pulling me in the opposite direction of whatever I’ve decided to try and accomplish that day. While most days are better than others, there’s still really, really hard days. Today happens to be one of those days. Nobody wants what I made for dinner, despite me making an actual dinner with a stove and an oven and cooking utensils. Maybe my kids have gotten too accustomed to chicken nuggets and ramen noodles. But I still made the baked pork chops and the rice and the vegetables even though I know they weren’t going to eat it. They grow out of it though, right???

The combination of de-stigmatizing mental illness and the fact that everyone has one now causes a lot of my issues to become quite the norm. Most people have gotten used to it and don’t notice it. Or notice it and have their own troubles staying above water and can’t muster up the energy to reach out. Or they see and don’t know how to offer their hand. Which is all fine. As much as I talk about the anxiety, depression, and OCD it’s not something I care to discuss on an intimate level. Not outside of my mother, my grandmother, my husband, a few close friends, my psychiatrist, and therapist anyways. Not because I don’t appreciate an ear to listen, because I truly do. It’s just hard to have someone pop in in the middle of it. Most people I talk to have been here for the long haul and have seen it for years. They know just what to say and how to say it. Most of the time I’m just overwhelmed; like I can feel my brain vibrating from the speed of my thoughts racing. Eventually it all becomes too much and I just shut down. There’s too much happening all at once. I can’t finish the marathon, so I leave the race. Unfortunately it ends up with me hurting my own feelings, but not knowing why. That’s as equally frustrating as the thoughts themselves. It’s truly exhausting. I’ve never loved myself more than in my 20’s, but hated being me at the same time. I’m just so tired. I don’t know if it’ll ever get better. I don’t know if there’s a magical pill cocktail that will make me a “normal” person. I don’t know if anyone will ever really understand. I don’t know that I’ll ever really try to explain. There’s no real way to explain it, anyways. Every mental illness is it’s own special blend. There’s never an “aha” moment where you realize that someone else feels the same as you do, because they couldn’t possibly. And if they did you don’t want them to. You don’t want to believe someone feels as horrible as you do on a daily basis because you don’t want someone else to suffer the way you do. I don’t even know who I am without it. “You’re not your mental illness” is the biggest crock of shit I’ve ever heard. You are. Depending on the severity, you ARE your sadness, your rage, your low energy. There’s no shame in it. But there’s also no clarity in it, either. If you have the ability to separate your personality from your mental illness, you’re either well medicated or lucky.

I just need alone time to calm my head. If you have a severe mental illness, I highly suggest not having children. It’s an unpopular opinion, but it’s one I have. Not because I don’t think they have the ability to make good parents, but having constant demand on your mental state exacerbates any problems you have because you don’t have time to deal with it. Trust me, I’ve lived it. I love my kids. No part of me regrets them. I do wonder what I’d be like mentally if I hadn’t had them, though. Would I be better? Would I be dead already since I wouldn’t have to worry about what would happen to them if I died? Would I have a career? Gone to college? Would I have left Ohio and lived somewhere warm that doesn’t constantly cast a dark shadow on my seasonal depression? I don’t know. I’ll never know.

I like to think there’s a me in an alternate universe flourishing somewhere in the sun, enjoying a carefree life. But knowing myself, she’s probably wishing she had my life with a husband and a family, relishing in the love I’ve created with my own two hands and craving the boring stability I’ve been so lucky to have. 

But we always want what we don’t have, don’t we?