From Boulder Right Now

I thought that apathy was the worst pain I’d ever felt. 

Though uncaring, lethargic, unproductive stillness is still my least favorite swing of the old mood, I’m learning that it doesn’t really hurt. It’s just a kind of absence.

Absence doesn’t feel like anything other than maybe wind blowing through my body’s openings. Apathy makes my chest whistle like my chain-smoking stress habit, but it doesn’t feel like a punch to the gut. 

It’s not pain, I’m realizing. It’s worse, maybe, but it doesn’t hurt.

The real gut punch is knowing that things could be different—it’s the ache of being in one place when there’s another I’d rather be. I mean this in a literal, physical sense–I’d rather not be here in Boulder–but I also mean it in this larger societal sense. 

We don’t have to kill each other. Groundbreaking, I know. We don’t have to undo the tireless work of so many brilliant people by “reentering the social world” too soon or in egregious ways. We don’t have to make it so painfully hard, but of fucking course we do. We make it nearly impossible.

We don’t learn. Why would we?

I live in Boulder and honestly, I would very much like to leave. But, dear reader, I care deeply about this place and the people who live here. It’s my home.

On Monday, ten people were killed at a Boulder supermarket. They were shot, and killed. Their lives ended, and mine chugged on, and we never seem to learn that there’s somewhere else we could be. 

So here’s my floor rant if you care, and maybe even if you don’t. To borrow but hopefully to keep:

In early 1977, Jimmy Carter created a presidential commission for mental health. 

Presidents do performative bullshit all the time, but listen: his action here suggested he was aware of deep-rooted problems in our mental health system. It was fragmented, lacked cohesion, and often failed to meet the needs of our communities—especially those individuals with severe and persistent mental illnesses. Systemic issues were finally being acknowledged in mental healthcare, and this was a pretty big deal.

This commission had an important (mostly symbolic) impact on the American people: It was the first to put mental health in a place of importance. This was big and validating and necessary.

This commission was intended to recommend policies to overcome obvious fuckery in our mental health systems. Its work led to the formulation of the National Plan for the Chronically Mentally Ill, but a system of care and treatment for persons with serious mental illnesses was never created. 

Surprise sur-fucking-prise. The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, signed by President Ronald Asswipe Reagan August 13, 1981, repealed most of the commission and its progress. 

Of course it did. That fuck. 

And so the critically mentally ill and people of marginalized groups were unable to access treatment and were subsequently pushed deeper into confusion.  

A major focus of our current shit show is achieving equal health coverage of physical and mental health conditions – often referred to as “parity.” Moves have been made; but because we continue to press on at alarming rates of environmental and societal catastrophe, mental health policy is not at the forefront of American politics.

And this makes sense. We need to vaccinate and educate our public. We need to keep people from being evicted. We need to recover from the past four years of unbridled chaos. Of course we do! These are the things we need right now. And it is, of course, our own damn fault.

But, dear reader, as the past 2 weeks have made brutally clear, the pressure we put on lawmakers must include mental health reform–it must continue to include gun reform and regulation. It has to.

Dear god I wish it were a nation-wide gun ban. Fucking hell. But if we can’t get there quickly enough to save lives we must advocate for mental health treatment access for all people and ESPECIALLY those who are critically mentally ill. This is absolutely essential.

We must push for this–for both. Less guns and more help.

Less guns and more help, dear reader. 

My rant from the floor is over for now.

I love you so much.

Please take care.

And as always, fuck you Ronald Reagan.