Is anyone else just like WTF right now? (Patreon)

Trigger Warning: Burnout, Politics, Mental Health and those Files

I’m gonna be real with you, the last few days have been hard. I’ve written through grief, burnout, and creative blocks, but this? This hit different. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, that right there tells you the state of our country. I've been grumpily dissociating through everything up until now.

As someone who’s worked in psych, who’s met certain people in power, and who spends most of their time building fictional worlds that feel safer than our own, it’s jarring to watch the veil lift on some of the darkest corners of reality. And I say that as someone who has researched torture at length for my books.

The testimonies. The files. The absolute inhumanity of it all. I’ve been gutted. I haven’t been sleeping. I’ve been crying at my desk. I’ve been trying to focus — and I am working — but yeah, I’ve been staring at a wall more than I’ve been staring at my screen.

I debated whether to share this with you at all, but if I’m always asking you to trust me with your time, your support, your attention, then I owe you honesty. Just based on some of your social media posts, I know you are feeling it, too. So I wanted you to know that you're not alone in this if you are questioning your own reality right now.

I don’t want to spiral into the details of what specifically has pushed me to the edge but after years of working in children's psych I can tell you I am horrified by the depths of depravity in people. I'm sure some of you have seen the posts filled with details and maybe even heard the interviews, but if you haven't, that's okay too. 

I only saw them (against my will) thanks to the lack of a trigger warning on a video that I can never unhear. I try to protect my peace while still staying informed, while still doing what I can to help, but the tism in me cannot stand the injustice of it all. I want to rage, to burn, to set the Mulvaney's loose on them all.

But that's not what this is about exactly.

What I will say is this: If you’ve been feeling it too (the grief, the rage, the helplessness) you’re not alone. And if you’ve been wondering why your brain doesn’t want to cooperate right now, why you feel hollow or frozen or haunted, I see you. 

I’m still writing. Still creating. Slowly. Stubbornly. Because I believe that stories are a kind of rebellion. A kind of healing. And I know that readers need that now more than ever but holy shit, guys. If a man unzipped his skin and a lizard stepped out, I wouldn't be surprised at this point. I'm just...I don't know what I am, honestly. 

Though you might not believe it from everything I just posted above, I do feel that something better has to come next. It has to. And I mean it. I feel a shift coming. A huge one. But what comes before that, I don't know. If you want to vent, feel free. If you want to ignore this, please do.

I wish I could end this on something profound that makes everything better, but I just don't know what that would be. 

Stay safe out there.