Wow what great questions. I should probably write a whole essay about this.

I think, if you are worried that your social network will reject you or judge you for dialing back your activist committments… that it is a really unhealthy activist community and environment. I almost used the word “toxic” there, but I really hate the way that word is often used. I don’t think anybody involved is nefarious. But I think the social norms in a lot of activist spaces are very, deeply, upsettingly fucked up and have no sense of how ableist, manipulative, and consent-rejecting they are.

Activist spaces, in my experience, are filled with a lot of traumatized people. People still actively being re-traumatized on a daily basis by the horrors of the world. They see fires all around them, all in need of being put out. They can’t seem to escape the reminders of it. So they think they can’t ever stop fighting. And they get mad, sometimes, at people who do stop fighting or have limits on how much they can fight.

We all deserve so much better than that. And activist spaces that view people having needs and limitations with scorn or rejection… are doomed to be spaces that are not just or accessible for people with disabilities, people with mental illnesses, people with chronic illnesses, people who are struggling under capitalism, and people with caregiving responsibilities.

I think, for me, the answer was to stop trying to impress or placate people or live up to their standards. I know that I do a lot — in large and small ways — to fight for my values. I try not to care anymore whether it looks like “enough” to people on the outside. It has lost me the approval of a handful of very charismatic, very manipulative and guilting, very over-committed activist types. But mostly? It hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be. A lot of other activist type people have shared with me that they feel the same exhaustion I do, and are relieved to see somebody dialing back to a level more appropriate to their health and their strengths.

So that might be an unsatisfying answer. But for me that’s been my answer so far. I chase after the activist opportunities that fill me with joy, and purpose, and excitement, and I avoid the spaces that are driven by guilt and manipulation, no matter how well intended. I let people be disappointed in me if that’s what they are hellbent on being. And I try to check in with myself and listen to my own sense of what is right. Each of us is the best gauge of what we can and should be doing. And each of us fails to get enough credit for all the really hard, unseen, small work we do daily. It’s fucked up for anybody outside of us to keep score.