We’re undone by each other
Our feelings are never entirely our own, and we’re so much better for it. Some things I’ve learnt and want to take into 2025!
“Let’s face it, we’re undone by each other. And if we’re not, we’re missing something.”
Butler, Precarious Life: the powers of mourning and violence
I absolutely hate New Years, so much I can’t be bothered to write about it. But its kind of impossible to ignore the moment to reflect and recalibrate. So despite this, I have been thinking about this year, what I’m proud of, what makes me sad. The thread I pull out from it is that I really feel undone by people this year? I’ve just really felt the weight and the joy of that. Its been a precarious year with lots of changes, and that’s tougher when we embrace being undone by others.
“Numbness is a betrayal to humanity. Both yours, and those in Gaza.”
Rev dr Munther Isaac
Feeling the weight of watching multiple genocides through our phone, opening it up to another mourning parent over the lifeless body of a dismembered child, another hospital scortched to the ground with people healing stuck inside, journalists bombed whilst they wait for their wife to bring new life to the world, another historic place of worship flattened, a soldier smashes a childs arms just for funsies. Zionists making lego brick jokes about Gaza, about pagers, frothing at the mouth to tell queers we’d be thrown off of a roof. We witness such pain on the one hand, and people signing bombs and celebrating suffering on the other. But we have to feel it, not in some consuming suffering-porn way, but because if we don’t continue to feel the pain and basic empathy we turn cold to the essence of our very being. If we stop feeling a small part of what Palestinians feel, and each oppressed group, we are alienated from ourselves and one another. Suffering should not be normalised, it is not innevitable.
Who is afforded the ability to grieve, and who is grievable of course remains deeply racialised and gendered. I don’t just want to regurgitate Butler here, but it would be disservice to gloss over this. Palestinians alongside other racialised groups, are not pre political bodies to be dehumanised by zionist colonialism, but rather produced in and through a white supremacist death world that marks them for suffering, disposability and ultimately death. You cannot dehumanise what was never humanised.
The idea therefore of solidarity or empathy fatigue tends to just mean, I’m tired of caring about people I don’t really feel I have to care about. Yes its hard even if its a small measure in contrast to living through it, to watch such evil and pain through your phone. It should always move you to see someone crying over their parents body, someone rushing to pull a child from the rubble. These things should not be normal and cannot become another thing we consume with no emotional reaction.
This isn’t in some sort of wanky self actualisation way, but that in finding others we do find ourselves. Our lives are so deeply entangled with one another’s our feelings won’t ever entirely be our own. We have to, in some way, relinquish the idea we do have control over this. And we’re so much better for it.
This is why I hate the I don’t owe anyone anything discourse. Because actually you do. You owe people honesty, because being honest strengthens our relationships even when its tough, it allows people to make informed decisions, to process change, to understand one another better. You owe people communication, even if thats I can’t communicate right now. We owe it to ourselves to be kind. Kindness not to be confused with politeness or empty niceness or an avoidance of conflict or not calling a politician a twat on twitter, but trying to put our best foot forwards and always have compassion.
Oweing, perhaps is not the phrasing I would use. My point is we are compelled to act with certain courtesy not because someone decided that, but because it’s what makes us human.
I’m certainly sick of talking about my heartbreak, but truly I was undone. To love so fully with your heart makes you vulnerable. I think people sort of expect you to get over heartbreak. But when you’ve imagined your life with someone, they’re your best friend and you have that intimacy, it doesn’t just take a few months to truly get over losing that. I may no longer be weeping daily or convincing myself we’ll find our way back to one another, but loss sometimes sweeps over you when you think you’re past it. I’m learning to see that as strength, to know my huge emotional investment was a gift, it showed me a glimpse of the love I hope will one day last a lifetime. With gritted teeth at times, I can say I’m glad for it.
I’ve been undone by my friends too. I think this article hopefully shows that. I’m undone when I see my family sad or anxious. I’m undone at the GPs or pharmacists when I see a stranger desperate for help or medication. I’m undone when someone shares something traumatic with me. I’m undone when someone puts on our street whatsapp that a cat’s gone missing. Maybe its just me, but I used to run away from that. The weight of my emotions felt like too much on its own to carry. But I think truly experiencing life through one another is beautiful. I’m not saying take on the burden of being everyone’s therapist and never rest or set boundaries, but I want to feel my feelings.
Its taken me ages to write this, I think I want to get it right. Ever since I maxed out my meds I’ve complained about the emptiness in my head - it feels like a mist is sort of just taking up the room where I used to have 4 simultaneous trains of thought. It’s better than the heavy fog of depression that is all consuming, but this general numbness is perhaps why I feel so strongly about the joy of experiencing life and its tumult with others.
In 2025 I want to be kinder to others, and kinder to myself. I want to try to be open to love friendship and being hurt, I never want to grow cold to that. In a system designed to alienate us from one another, to bog you down and exhaust you such that you feel you can only do it alone, I say screw that. We need each other.
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