A credit card sized card, stamped with the words All Feelings Are OK, with 6 different Japanese coloured emoji stickers showing different emotions on it.
I made this card back in October at a mini-manifesto workshop run by my friend, local artist Daisy Hunter. I made it to remind myself I don’t have to be ‘strong’ or ‘positive’. That I don't have to 'fix myself’. I am allowed to feel what I feel. I am allowed to feel my situation.
Back in early November, I had been trying to feel better, more positive, less hopeless. I was feeling like it was my duty or responsibility to resist the emotional impact and distress of drawing on the social care system and having my move from emergency accommodation, to a permanent, accessible to me flat delayed. I wish I didn’t feel extremely distressed and low like this, but it’s not wrong.
Resilience can become a way to internalise our reactions as personal failure in coping. The knock on impacts are hard and they hurt. Not being able to do my uni work, bursting into tears from pain and stress. The more I fought to try to carry on, the more I tried not to let it affect me, the more it did. Because I expected myself to carry on as normal, to try harder, that they shouldn’t get to ruin my life, take away the money for storing my belongings, stop me studying etc. I felt angry, exhausted, out of energy to fight or try, everything seems pointless and hopeless. But that was only hurting me more.
Resistance can look like grace to myself, to let myself prioritise rest, instead of seeing it as giving in or giving up. Letting myself grieve how unnecessary it all is, and the sadness and pain. To honestly tell each other how it hurts, to ask for and to give care and kindness is resisting our dehumanisation.