Hurt people hurt people or become activists

Notes on activism and mental health

Graffiti “I can’t breathe” on Subway recalling George Floyd.

Last week, I started my counseling practice intended to make mental health care more accessible for everyone, but especially for social workers, activists, and young folk. Those identities are who I was when I needed the most care, and I believe it’s particularly hard to find a therapist or counselor when you are any of these things. Young people because they are easily invalidated by older therapists, and social workers and activists because of their unique emotional landscape.

Social workers and activists are different from most people in that they’ve made it a significant part of their life’s work to help others, often at great sacrifice to themselves. Their emotional landscapes involve anxiety, guilt, and depression. Activists need mental health care that validates the sacrifices they make to help others while offering them ways to balance their profession with their health.

I saw a few clients this past week, holding conversations that expanded my understanding of how activism affects our mental health and vice versa. Here’s a few things that I understand and am able to articulate better.

1. People gravitate to activism subconsciously seeking to address their own trauma or wounding. With great empathy and analysis, they relate their pain to a systemic injustice, understanding that it is not only them who experiences some kind of insecurity or marginalization, but all people, to varying degrees. This is a source of strength as well as a continuing source of pain. Activism of this kind essentially raises the stakes of every outcome. If the movement is succeeding, the activist will feel temporarily healed. If the movement is stagnant or failing, they will feel stuck or depressed. They’ve tied the deepest part of their sense of self to their activist work, the part which has been hurt before and needs to be taken care of. This heightened emotional attachment to the precarious work of changemaking easily leads to burnout.

2. When the stakes are this high and movement spaces are made up of hurt people trying to heal themselves through external conditions that are not quite in their control, it’s very easy for abuse to occur. This abuse will range from petty uses of hierarchy (I’m in a position of authority, you’re not) to emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. One of the beliefs that underpin such abuse is the purported priority of the movement, their work that cannot be compromised in any way. When the arbitrary success of the movement is prioritized over everything else, it is easy for people to be overworked, undervalued, or abused. This is what leads many activists to leave movement spaces and never look back.

3. Leaving movement spaces, even temporarily, causes immense guilt in activists. And of course it does. Organizing within a movement gives their life purpose and meaning, and many activists believe that it is their duty to help bring about change. Not doing anything is seen as giving in to oppressive forces, or worse, being complicit in oppression. Underpinning this fear of complicity is the unsaid belief of certain kinds of movements: if you’re not with us, you’re against us.

In order to address the ways that activist culture harms the very people involved in movement spaces, a few things need to happen.

1. Activists need mental health care that understands their context. It’s important that every activist understands why they’re doing the work, not just the surface-level reason but the personal, core reason that brings them to action when most other people would rather not risk it. Because there’s always a risk involved with organizing against oppressive forces and attempting to create spaces of justice, activists should reflect on what makes the work worth it for them. If the reason is somehow tied to a trauma wound, their motivation will come from an insecure place, and this will cause more pain than healing for them. These insecure motivations include wanting to be recognized or praised, wanting to belong to something, or wanting their life to have meaning. This last one may seem dubious—how can a desire for a more fulfilling life come from a trauma wound? It’s great to want to make life fuller by serving others and being connected to a larger purpose, but expecting activist work to fully complete one’s life is a sign that someone is generally unhappy with their life or with themselves. In these cases, the wound needs to be addressed first. When did this unhappiness start? Where is the self-hatred coming from?

When I see activists, I’m listening for their motivation, their personal philosophy. When did they start volunteering for organizations or advocating for a cause and why? What do they feel is lost if they stop doing so? Understanding this is one of the keys to understanding their mental health and helping them heal any past or present psychological wounds.

2. The culture of activism needs to radically change. Abusers need to be held accountable, ‘called in’ so they can address the impact of their actions with the help of their community and make proper amends for the people they’ve harmed. We need to balance collective goals with individual health, not compromising one for the other but understanding that there is a give and take, and this balance will look different for everyone. Importantly, we need to practice being there for each other in unconditional ways, not just because we want our comrades to work together for an outcome. If we stopped viewing our fellow activists and volunteers as tools to be used to achieve revolution and instead treated them as relationships that we are responsible for, we could be healthier and more effective in our work.

Here, the anarchist principle of the unity of means and ends is useful. What we practice in our relationships is what we create for broader society. Undoing injustice requires the most radical care, love, and healing that sees everyone as a part of our alternative future.

What else would you suggest needs to change in the culture of activism? Comment below.

If you’d like to try counseling sessions with me, you can learn more here. And if you enjoyed this letter, please consider sustaining my work by giving me a coffee’s worth of support.