Surviving a Pandemic: Tools for Addressing Isolation, Anxiety, and Grief

Surviving a Pandemic: Tools for Addressing Isolation, Anxiety, and Grief

From CrimethInc.

A selection of exercises, rituals, and ways of preparing you can use to reconnect with your agency and ground yourself as we face the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The following text draws from our lived experiences of struggle, of growth and of loss. It is informed by the things we have learned from the practice of Somatic Experiencing as well as through doing end-of-life care as death doulas, as nurses, and as human beings loving people in a hard world. This writing also springs from seeing the need for us to acknowledge and face our fears on an individual level in order to ensure that we can build the capacity to trust each other in this new uncertain context. No one knows how to contain this pandemic—and it is more evident than ever that we cannot trust the state. Tending to our mental health can increase our capability to act together.


We find ourselves in a new era in which we must figure out together how to navigate life in the midst of a worldwide pandemic. All of us are experiencing collective trauma as the wave of COVID-19 moves across the world, tearing apart the basic fabric of society. Other living things sigh a deep breath as capitalism falters in this country. This historical moment has opened up the opportunity for new pathways towards connection and mutual aid in both social and economic aspects of our daily lives as we continue to experience the weirdness of physical distancing and the ambiguous loss of what we have known as day-to-day life.

It is a worldwide collective human experience to be moving in and out of moments of stress and uncertainty as we try to navigate life with this virus. At the same time, this pandemic is not a unique event; it is part of the new normal in this global economy. Viruses will continue to spread as long as we go on upsetting the ecological balance of the planet. Yet what we have been through so far could help us to figure out how to build more of the society we want together as we move into the future. While this may feel difficult, it’s important to remember that we do have agency—together, we can build a meaningful life in the rubble of the parts that we must leave behind.

This text is a small effort to help hold each other up in the process of this collective readjustment as we continue to fight in pursuit of the dreams we have for the world. We offer a look at the importance of moving through the many aspects of grief with some suggestions as to how we can prepare for the unknown ahead. We provide several somatic exercises aimed at facilitating our ability to ground ourselves in uncertain futures while also finding creative ways to get connection and expand the imagination in spite of the need for increased physical distancing.

Some of us are in shock. Some of us are anxious. Whatever feelings and mental states you are moving through right now, you make sense. Each of us, in our own way, is undergoing what is known as ambiguous loss. The collective experience of COVID-19 began without any sort of closure for our pre-pandemic lives. None of us have a clear understanding of what this means for our day-to-day life. We don’t know how we will make money in the future. Unplanned loss can overwhelm our coping abilities, making normal functioning extremely difficult. We have to figure out new ways to structure our lives. This can leave us anxious and complicate or delay our process of moving through the loss in order to adapt to the changes. In addition, many of us are also experiencing the anticipatory grief of the impending loss of loved ones because of the pandemic. None of us are alone in this.

Because of the way our threat response cycle works as humans, we are having a hard time orienting to what the threat is because the future is so unknown to us right now. We are hyper-focused on our phones and screens, seeking both information and connection to help settle us—to help us obtain a sense of control and imagine a path forward. Yet this does not calm our nervous systems. Our brainstem is designed to locate a threat, usually scanning far out into the distance before moving up close to our present surroundings. In this situation, our nervous systems tend to remain in a heightened state because our present environment is giving us the potential of dangerous information and swiftly changing news.

Our immune systems are deeply interconnected with our nervous systems, and our stress levels impact both of these. In particular, extended periods of shutdown strain our immune function. We hope that some of these tools can help move you towards settling your nervous system, as well as towards the mobilization many of us seek.

Social isolation is a risk factor, compromising our mental and physical health. In this new context, it is very important that we direct intention towards connecting with other people. Using screens and video chats can cause an extreme strain on our attachment system. We must make an effort to nudge ourselves towards facial expression, making eye contact and modulating our tones of voice with others. We must imagine windows where there are walls. It is important that each of us resist the tendency to normalize the fear of others, which we already experience so much in this individualized society. Implementing these practices can help us avoid fear-based interactions with friends and strangers alike.




Consent

One way that we can reduce stress and harm to ourselves and each other is to practice good consent when interacting with others. For example, take the time to figure out what you want your personal boundaries to be when you interact with others. Do you need to be six feet or more away from people? Do you need them to be wearing masks if they want to talk to you? Do you feel comfortable sitting next to someone? Is touching toes acceptable? If so, under what conditions?

Ask yourself questions like these and make your feelings known to others. This will help to prevent people from accidentally crossing a boundary that they weren’t aware that you had. It can also help to reduce the kind of self-policing that can happen when people feel scared and uncertain, enabling everyone involved to be able to trust that everyone around them is being thoughtful about their boundaries and needs.


Exercise: Self-Hug with a “Vu” Sound

Self-touch is a useful tool, especially right now when we are getting less physical contact. Stress and shutdown responses can affect our digestion. Making a low “vu” sound encourages our nervous system to downshift towards a more balanced state, bringing a sense of cohesion to our organs and body. This particular sound comes from the lower trunk part of our body. When we focus our attention on feeling the sound as it comes from below our diaphragm, it helps us to reset.

There is a great deal of difference between a forced breath and one that arises spontaneously. Instead of taking an intentional deep breath, allow yourself to make a full exhale, and as you do so, notice the quality of settling as your body comes into balance.

Try to pay attention throughout your day to notice when you let out a deep breath, a sigh. This slow, audible exhalation is an everyday experience of resetting the body and mind. We spontaneously sigh many times an hour as our nervous system resets and regulates.

Place your right hand under your left armpit, close to your heart. Then place your left hand on your right shoulder. Notice the warmth of your body. Invoke a sense of containment. Pay attention to see if you feel any sort of ease settle in your chest, or if you get a spontaneous deeper breath or a natural breath that comes back in. Then, when you’re ready, slowly inhale and, when you exhale, let all your air out slowly with a “vu” sound, like that of a low foghorn. Repeat this three times slowly. Imagine your brain moving down into your pelvis, like an ice cube melting, flowing down to help regulate your nervous system. And finally, just be curious about what you notice. Has anything shifted? Is your attention more available?




Exercise: Extending Your Gaze

In our modern situation, and especially with the sudden need to care for each other with physical distancing, we spend a lot of time in focal vision, in which we move focused attention from one object to the next. It is helpful to extend our peripheral awareness and gain a greater sense of physical perspective as we adjust to the context we each find ourselves in. Staring at screens, or even at printed material, is a fairly recent human invention. Before industrialization, the vast majority of people did not spend so much time looking at things so close up. We evolved in the savannah. Human evolution brought us out of the trees to stand upright. It’s good for our system to be able to see over long distances, even in the cityscape. Focusing on the point of furthest contact gives us a more softened and expansive consciousness, while still maintaining a sense of awareness. The goal is to enter a state of relaxed alertness in which you are able to access a wide range of responsiveness in any given moment.

To begin, let your eyes go where they want to go. Allow your eyes to wander slowly. Take a moment or two to do this; be curious about what you notice. Then, begin to look for the thing you can see that is the furthest away. It might take a little effort to adjust to looking in the distance, but take a moment to play with that. What’s the furthest thing that you can see right now? As you find that object, notice how your eyes soften, how the muscles in your face relax. You may notice that you naturally inhale or exhale more deeply.

Next, slowly extend your arms out in front of you and move them outward to the edges of what is just within your peripheral view. Once you have found that spot, turn your palms in and slowly wiggle your fingers. As you again find that object at the point farthest away from you, notice your eyes soften. Allow your eyes to rest and tap into a deeper sense of centering. Notice how you can hold relaxed vision and pay attention to the movement of your fingers at the same time. In this place, you are in balance with a relaxed alertness, ready to respond to threat from an underlying state of calm.




Exercise: Face Attention

It’s important to make space to express feelings of agitation, rage, and grief. The goal of this exercise is to legitimize and tend to these feelings, giving them permission and expressive release. When we engage our facial muscles, it helps to downshift and regulate our nervous systems. This enables us to communicate better and read others’ faces better too.

Begin by directing your attention to your face. Slowly scrunch up the muscles in your face until they are as tight as possible. Hold this for a moment, then release the muscles. After a few natural breath cycles, move to widen and extend your face outward. Open your mouth and stretch your cheeks. Hold this for a moment and then rest. Move back and forth between these states several times.

Then, when you are ready, focus on any feelings that want attention and movement. Begin again to scrunch up your face, bringing awareness to your eyes and nose; scrunch harder, letting the anger know that it’s OK for it to be there. You may experience a spontaneous settling breath. Next, use your eyes to direct a piercing glare. Grit your teeth slightly. Allow any sort of rumble or sound you feel within you to make its way out of your mouth. When you are ready, let your face to return to a neutral state, allowing your eyes to soften. Repeat a couple times, if needed.


Exercise: Progressive Balancing

Our bodies can get stuck in habitual patterns in which some areas are extra tight or tense, while other areas can become absent from our awareness altogether. In order to shift these states, we have to become aware of them. An excellent way to do this is to create and release tension intentionally. This exercise brings attention to what your nerves are usually doing unconsciously, enabling you to begin to shift those patterns.

From a standing position, with your eyes closed if that’s comfortable for you, begin to tense up one area of your body, then another, allowing yourself to breathe. For each part of your body, count slowly to eight while you hold the tension forcefully. Then slowly release the tension as you exhale, imagining that that part of your body is expanding or taking up more space, as if all of the cells that comprise it are growing. After the next breath in, exhale for a count of eight, imagining that that part of your body is relaxing—melting like butter. Go through the process of tensing and relaxing each area twice. Be sure to allow for a few natural breath cycles between the two states.

Start by tensing your neck and throat. Many of us hold tension in our necks, sometimes keeping rigid as a consequence of trying to control situations. The neck is a great place to gain back some ease. After doing this twice, rest a moment. Second, tense your shoulders, arms, and hands, as if you are getting ready to fight. Notice your muscles and any sensations of strength in your body now. Feeling your arms can give you a sense of how much space you can take up.
Third, tense your stomach muscles. Many people feel a tense knot in their upper bellies connected to anxiety, while others feel an emptiness or lack there. Focusing on sensing your belly can be a step towards restoring a depth of experience and a sense of quiet at just being. Finally, tense your legs and feet. Lots of us feel separated from our legs; restoring your awareness of them can be a step towards feeling your strength, standing your ground, and rediscovering your power to charge or flee if need be.

After all this tensing and relaxing, do an extra swinging movement to discharge any excess tension. Stand and turn your upper body from one side to the other, as if you’re looking first over your right shoulder, then over your left, gently rotating your whole upper body in the process. Let your arms hang loosely, following the movement, so they swing out in front of you, then knock gently at your sides at the end of each twist. You can relax your knees a little, letting your hips join the turning movement. Feel the gentle twist of your spine as you move. Do this for a minute or two.


Preparing for Every Possibility

This pandemic reminds us that we are never quite sure what is going to happen. As we confront uncertainty, it can help to give us a sense of our agency to address all the things that we can control. Even if these preparations do not become necessary for years or decades, you may feel more grounded having made them.

Dealing with Loss

The ways that the pandemic and social distancing have destabilized our lives have already given rise to a painful sense of loss for many of us. Whether you are dealing with the changes in your life or mourning the passing of a loved one, it can help to use ritual to structure your relationship to these feelings.

Here are some ideas for creating ritual around loss:

  • Light and burn candles at a planned time.
  • Read poems aloud. Record them to send to each other.
  • Host bonfires and share stories. You can still do this while maintaining a safe distance and wearing masks.
  • Choose objects with which to create an altar for remembrance or transition, so that people can gather and witness together.
  • Develop a memorial ritual honoring your loved one, like picking a bouquet of flowers, to observe on special days or whenever you wish.

You can also practice ritual on an individual level. This can help give you a feeling of control over your environment at times when that is otherwise hard to maintain. It can help you feel more grounded to focus on controlling things that only affect you, such as the structure of your day, the order in which you do certain things, or the arrangement of your things in a personal space, for example.

Many of us are experiencing a dramatic increase in the amount of time we spend at home with our loved ones. This makes it especially important not to take out our difficult feelings on them. Giving ourselves creative and intentional ways to deal with our need for control, such as focusing on ritual, can help keep us from hurting or conflicting with those around us.




Tools for End of Life Care

One of the best gifts we can give to each other is to prioritize having the difficult conversations necessary to prepare for the unknown. We encourage you to talk with your friends and family about what you would want in case of serious illness. This is a way to increase your self-determination and autonomy even in a worst-case scenario. Write down what you will want your companions to do if you are sick or dying and what you want them to do after your death. Here, we offer some of the logistical aspects of how to do so. Be as specific as you feel you can. It can be an immense relief for friends and family not to have to make such significant decisions for you in a situation in which you cannot make them for yourself. Preparing in this way forestalls the sort of second-guessing that can occur even among those who know your desires best. You are never too young or too old to take these steps.

Giving thought to this can be an important way to prepare for the unknown and to care for ourselves, as well as those we love.

What Is an Advance Directive/Living Will?

An advance directive, also known as a living will, is a state-specific legal document that declares your healthcare wishes should you become unable to make those decisions for yourself. It can describe what kinds of medical intervention you do or do not want—for example, CPR, artificial nutrition and hydration, intubation, or surgery. While the forms vary state to state, you can obtain them online or from your doctor, if you have one. This document can be revoked at any time as long as you are cognitively able to do so; it must be notarized to be considered applicable. The form requires you to name someone as your health care agent/health care power of attorney.

What is a HealthCare Power of Attorney (HCPOA)?

A HealthCare Power of Attorney is a person you select to make all your healthcare decisions when you cannot do so for yourself. You should share as many details with this person as you can about what you want for your care. You can set up secondary and tertiary agents in addition to a primary person. If you want them to make decisions collectively and horizontally, make this clear; legally speaking, your primary will have all of the decision-making power unless you specify otherwise. Make sure that you get consent before selecting someone for this role, as it can be a significant responsibility to give someone who may not feel comfortable making such high-stakes decisions.

Some questions to ask yourself when considering a HCPOA:

Can this person do the job that I am asking them to do? Are they the type of person who can or would advocate for me? How comfortable are they making emotional decisions under stress? How likely are they to answer the phone in an emergency situation? Do they live close by? Are they able to travel to reach me? How well does this person know me? Have I asked them if they’d be willing to do this for me?

Some general questions to ask yourself when considering the uncertainty of the future:

  • What are the things that you feel regretful about that you could resolve today or in the short term?
  • Are there letters that you want to write? Things that you want to apologize for?
  • Write down three experiences you want to start working towards now. Who would you like to have with you?
  • Are there any belongings that you want to make sure a certain person gets when you are gone? Is there anything you want to get rid of today?
  • What should your funeral sound, taste, smell, look, and feel like?
  • If you could do anything with your body when you die, what would it be?
  • Are there life-extension interventions you do not want used to keep you alive? What if you are still conscious and able to communicate?



In the uncertainty of this moment, please know that you are not alone. You are part of a larger fabric of human collectivity that spans time and space, stretching beyond the confines of capital and state control, even beyond the reach of viruses. Whatever you may be facing, remember that those of us that dream of a wholly new world are in this together. Take care of yourselves. There is still so much possibility we can enact.

There are 103 Comments

I'm probably just going to kill myself, but thanks anyway. I've been in this world too long,

I'm tired of being lonely, tired of working around hundreds (if not thousands) of customers on a daily basis during a pandemic, and tired of being in a state of perpetual irritation and disappointment and anxiety.

This article seems to assume that one still has some sort of social circle. I am alone, and extremely disatisfied. I nearly let my car roll over my head five years ago, and it's been five years of struggling for an existence that has only made me feel worse.

I should probably end it today. Bye y'all.

I feel the same way. I am tired of being alone all the time. I'm older, and most of my friends have either died or moved away. I haven't worked in 6 years and I'm almost out of money, I'll be homeless and destitute in about two months. Nothing I do seems to actually accomplish anything, or make any difference to my situation. There seems to be no point in going on.

I've been researching suicide methods for the past 4 months, and have decided on one that I think I can do. I will probably take my life next week.

Even me and my fucked up addictions got way more reasons to suicide, so it's likely you're a more sane person than I am.

There's another, better way to suicide while cheating your own death, and that is "social suicide". Just change situation, get over not just the world around you but yourself, even forget yourself and become a new character... This is way more helpful and rejuvenating. You don't even have to abandon your values and ideas, it's really just about roleplaying, or just not roleplaying if you don't want to.

You can go on a trip somewhere, or else take 'shrooms and trip while remaining there. You can change milieu, or change your way of living. Quit your job and go vagrant. Possibilities aren't maybe limitless but there's still a few available around the corner. Nobody's forcing you to work, and in some places you can just get money sitting on the sidewalk...

over the past couple of years i've been thinking of a way to do that again, i definetly want to do some more traveling, i've even thought about changing my name in order to change what i don't like about myself but that last one probably don't work.

So many adventures to be a had in this world...be a potential carrier of the coronavirus.

Your response and ignorant suggestions only bolsters my intention, and shows you didn't even read my comment. I have no job to quit, and I have no money to change my situation,. and can't afford to go anywhere. I don't know anyone or have any personal connections even if I could afford it. I am not interested in begging on the street for chump change, a fate worse than death at my age.

yet there's probably something you can do besides killing yourself in order to make your situation better, it sounds like you gotta make efforts to talk to someone...i'm just trying to be helpful as people try to do for me in awful situations...of course you can always also kill yourself too, but that's pretty hard...

and it is true that you can never really escape yourself...so someone telling you to "get out of yourself" is only helpful in a very limited sense...

You're replying to someone online that you never even met.. it's not was easy as you think to ascertain your situation from a few lines of text. I was only suggesting that there are other avenues to survive than work, but if you aren't working then I'll just withdraw what I said.

If you can't afford to go anywhere, then hitchhiking still works in some regions. Try to find some cheap rubber gloves and mask, put them on, then that will improve your chances to get a ride. Or else, there's train-hopping that should work as usual.

In my view, if I get to be in a sorry situation, I'll look at all the practicable options and refrain from value judgements based on aesthetics and even morals. My life is more of value than the spectacle of life imposed to me, that would make me not wanna do the thumbs up routine by a road. And also I avoided many line-ups at the supermarket for getting dumpstered foods in the same condition than off the shelves, even under the shutdowns.

I find this very triggering and am probably going to an hero tomorrow as well. I think I'll leave the latest Kevin Tucker podcast playing so when they find me they will blame him. Thanks crimethinc.

Thnx CrimeThinc!

***GroupThinc

better?

Yeah, I'm also feeling suicidal again today. This is now the whole of the first fortnight followed by about five times since. If this keeps dragging on then I will do it. I was already living a miserable life before. Now it's non-stop anxiety and frustration, no joy. No point keeping going if we're stuck with this.

& Also I have the same reaction as other people here... reading stuff like this makes me more depressed and suicidal. I mean, thanks for posting it here Anarchist News, we need to see all perspectives, I don't really bother avoiding triggers anyway. But shit, why are anarchists coming out with this.

The system is killing us by socially isolating and threatening us, on top of already having destroyed our support networks and sources of joy. Then it displaces the problem onto us by saying it's a resilience deficit or lack of the right coping tools etc. You know, there's one modeller saying there will be 800,000 suicides because of this., in America alone Way more than the covid deaths or the lives supposedly saved.

I'm sure these tools are great if used ALONGSIDE living in an autonomous zone, effectively fighting the system, being in nature, having worthwhile projects, etc. If they're used INSTEAD then they're a band aid over a gaping wound. Or taking paracetamol for lung collapse. If people took mental health as seriously as physical health then there would be no lockdown. Ditto if people took physical health as glibly as mental health.

Know would WOULD make me feel better right now? Riots. Smashing some stuff is great for relieving feelings of powelessness and frustration.

what your saying is practically exactly how i felt several weeks okay, and this ultra-mainstream therapy piece by "CrimeThinc." is just the way they are dealing with this authoritarian nightmare right now...

predictably as normal, there's also lot's of people who are facing starvation just because germaphobes/altruists are trying to control the outbreak of a virus...

oh, and you're gonna get your riots and breakdown of the social order, maybe very soon...i just want to say I'm sorry that the existent has made your life feel so shitty and stagnant...it does the same for me on a regular basis as well.

fuck the haters on this site who never did anything but talk shit on the efforts of anarchists who try to change the world. that's super weak. nietzsche would spit on you. get your act together.

Serious, I don't even see anyone else in the @ space trying to help people not kill themselves, and this bubba is all like "this iz ultra-mainstream therapy". Like, what, did the crimethink send you a bill, whiner? No? Then what's your beef? Don't you have any bigger enemies to beef with? Soooo dumb.

react so strongly to people insulting or not liking anarchist projects, when people like you just sit on here all day and just call people out for not getting with the program. Did I say that I have an issue with the people in crime thinc.? No, I just said i think their project sucks, and overall it's just rehashed liberal activism, the stuff above is just cheesy that isn't very helpful for me. It's important when people are bummed out to try reach out directly and be compassionate instead of spew out a bunch rhetoric and flowery words. Why should they (crimethinc.) even care if some people on the internet don't like their project?

It's like my god...you're a hater too, and so is the first sock puppet above you, and fuck both of you too. So much aggression and hostility on this website that goes way beyond someone saying "crimethinc. sucks". Just go on calling people who don't agree with you fascists, it's amazing how anarchists seem to try to create spaces where people do that to each other. Most of the time here I actually try to sympathetic, and if i just state my negative opinions about any of the articles above the anarchy henchmen pop out the wood work and attack me personally.

I agree with "fuch the haters" and also I'm the one who threw a few ideas and reflections to suicidal troll as of why and how to avoid doing a very bad mistake.

I mean... I understand why some people would wanna off themselves, and some of these causes make sense. People are free to kill themselves if they want of course, since that's their lives (not society's lives) and their bodies they're destroying, and I got no weight in their choices. But whatever they do will not be my fault, and their undoing will be their own choice.

Tho I'm pretty sure this commenter was just trolling. Lotsa (somewhat) cunning shitposters on this site and occasionally on the irc too. And no btw even if I may sound or write like one... Newsflash: I am not an idiot. You can't troll a troll.

are either very dumb or that you are a troll? How is it even possible in the U.S. to determine whether someone who posts about how they want to kill themselves is lying or not? Why are you playing these dumb polarizing games instead of trying to be nice when practically everyone is losing their minds over a semi-inflated state of emergency? Why is it my duty to not have a beef with crimethinc. when they've been essentially writing the same types of anti-capitalist propaganda for 20 years? Poor them!

The thing i generally hate so much about anarchists in general is the assumption that rebellion and criticism are somehow good based on the idea that "it gets banned and people are always covering things up", that actually makes the cyberbullies and the trolls do their manipulative work so much more easily. Having a subculture based on the idea that rebel identities are necessary plays into the divide and conquer strategy that the real capitalists/fascists have been perfecting for god knows how long.

I also have gotten very bothered how i read anarchist stuff that i do like, and the people who either published or wrote it don't even want to engage in conversations about it, they sound like such "courageous individuals" to me. Yet I guess being bothered by that is a sign that I am sheep who doesn't possess the sacred knowledge of the anarchists.

Oh and another thing...yes, such clever shit posters on here, actually changing the nature of the shit posting on here would actually be very simple for the people who run the website, and it would even be easier just to get rid of the comments entirely and instead funnel the bystander curiosity through a different medium. Those poor genuine people who want to use a toxic forum for anything else other than trolling! I feel so sorry for them!

Are you confessing that your dumb trolling campaign is just lame activism to get the comments eliminated?
Try harder, you'll only break yourself.

given how many of my completely innocuous and tame posts get deleted on a regular basis, why would i even believe that? Are you even paying attention right now? Thecollective is very dedicated to never get rid of its nonsensical set of rules for what goes up on this site and what doesn't to the point that anons are often convinced that comments rarely get deleted.

However, i would love it if people on this forum stopped bickering so much about me in particular, and maybe learned how to talk about politics without throwing in so many bogus strawmen.

how dare you criticize those who are trying (and failing miserably) to change the world! how dare you burst our delusional "revolution is imminent" social media amplified echo chamber! and how dare you criticize our amateur hour mental health fluff piece! hate on the haters! anarchistnews bad, Groupthinc/It's Getting Delusional/Subpar Media forever! why don't you take a leaf out of Kevin Tucker's book and get with the winning program and join our social media movement?

I hate crimethinc! I love anews trolls. They're the only smart ones on this dumb planet. Why can't crimethinc be more like them? I want a crimethinc that never left the basement!

I have read Heidegger, and I SPIT ON THOSE ANARCHISTS WHO PONDER SUICIDE. SHAME ON YOUR LACK OF DASSEIN !!!

with aragorn's! death the general quality of radio shows on this site has plummetted, so please keep posting funny shit to make me laugh.

Yeah I'll remind anarchists to not kill themselves, no matter what. Your lives, however they are, regardless of how I'd like them or not, are more important than what the outside world makes of them. You are not a statistic or a subject. I don't know who and what you are but surely not a pawn. Only the damn authoritarian dogs visiting this site would want you to kill yourself, as they are awful people who're the ones that don't deserve to live on this planet in the first place. And the answer I give to them is... "you go first".

jeez.
first, wanting someone to kill themselves is entirely different from understanding and not judging that someone a) talks about killing themselves, b) wants to kill themselves, c) does kill themselves.
you, anon, having big opinions about other people staying alive seems weird to me. Yes, i want more anarchists in the world, especially of the type who tend to be on this site, but i have not found kneejerk reactions to be helpful in these kinds of... interactions.
one could argue that too many people sabotage themselves in ways that are more long-term hurtful than just directly killing themselves (cigarettes, alcoholism, etc).
i don't know. i just think it's fucking complicated, and if people are talking about suicide to strangers, talking about it is worthwhile, but getting all intense about the outcome is not helping them make a decision for themselves.
but maybe that's just me.

those are the most important types of reactions to do correctly, no? Those are the kind that matter the most in intense situations. Overall I try to use this forum here to try and make my reactions to people in real life a little better since people on @news tend to be really harsh and aggressive.

On the topic of suicide: not necessarily always a bad idea, but the 2 times i tried to do it, the reality that there were better options seemed to overwhelm my desire to either blow my brains out with a pistol or jump off a bridge. If you are researching least painful methods to kill yourself, then what you are really looking for is freedom from pain and/or suffering...yet most likely suffering, because that is so much worse...

the "best" way to go, according to medical professionals, is to simply stop eating and drinking. shaving omeone to keep your lips moisturized with ice helps. if you find your self wanting to eat/drink, then you probably don't really want to die. otherwise, no real pain or suffering, some hunger pangs and thirst, but they say it is the easiest, most "peaceful" way to go.

but if you have some reliable morphine, opium or heroin, and you know the right dose, that would probably be my choice.

Oh My God No, those zapper taser guns like Anastasia "Dee" used in Battlestar Galactica,!

That's a cowards way, I'm going to heroically run over to an army tank and throw my whining activist ass beneath its tracks! That oughta do the trick and get me my 15 seconds of re olutionary fame.

when someone uses this they are saying it's a reaction from someone "who is not thinking", and often in anarchist spaces i've noticed that any sort of reaction is lumped into "reactionary", in other words right wing...so reacting = nazis.

I don't know, at least 15-20 percent of my comments get deleted on here so i don't know how to put any of this into perspective, apparently i'm the nazi.

no matter what? so you would seriously tell an anarchist to relinquish the one act of complete and total control they have over their own life... to relinquish their true autonomy. wow. are you coming from a "all (human) life is sacred" perspective? i really don't get it.

here's the thing though...studies have proven that people who are going to commit suicide generally just do it, they don't post dramatic posts about it on anarchist websites then spend a couple of days replying to the comments. also, crimethinc are completely unqualified to be giving out mental health advice, stick to the propaganda and leave the mental health stuff to people who know what they are talking about.

could you please back up your facts with citations? It's already bad enough you are speaking in such generalities...crimethinc. sucks yeah i agree, but you are saying they don't know what they're talking about and somehow i'm supposed to believe that you do know what you're talking about?

These fucking credibility attacks..."generally"...haha yeah right...okay the bell curve works.

"also, crimethinc are completely unqualified to be giving out mental health advice"

lol, you have no idea who wrote this piece or what their qualifications are. also, fuck experts.

The qualifications of the authors are LITERALLY THE SECOND SENTENCE OF THE ARTICLE:

"The following text draws from our lived experiences of struggle, of growth and of loss. It is informed by the things we have learned from the practice of Somatic Experiencing as well as through doing end-of-life care as death doulas, as nurses, and as human beings loving people in a hard world"

So, nurses, death doulas, etc. Your qualifications, on the other hand, are that you're an anews commenter, which is literally the bottom of the barrel, intellectually speaking.

And I don't mean the inside of the barrel. I mean the part of it that rests on the floor.

It's written in the exact same style and tone as every other crimethinc piece, you are a gullible fool if you believe that it was written by anybody different this time. You obviously have a hard time distinguishing propaganda, but given that you are an ideologue that is hardly surprising at all.

CrimethInc's generic texts only sound slightly different in tone even if much large in word count than your usual clickbait article (which I'm certain 95% are generated by programs.

I could read this kind of text as genuive back in like 2010... but today? Either we're dealing with the same 1-2 writers who've been writing the same article for over 10 years, or we're indeed dealing with an AI.

You think 1-2 writers have written several articles a week for 25 years? Like, reporting live from Lebanon, Chile, and Canada all at once? And you want us to believe you, an anews troll, over the first paragraph of the article itself? That's a laugh. You may be a dumb motherfucker, but I'm not dumb enough to fall for your story. Occam's razor, buddy.

And you are the most pathetic kind of gullible fool: a fool who falls for his own lies, even when no one else does.

It's not the same style and tone (some of the other things they publish use a much different vocabulary and voice).

But maybe you just mean that everything is spelled correctly and the grammar is correct. And you want to allege that a program is randomly generating this? Either you are a fucking delusional idiot, or, more likely, you don't actually believe what you're saying but rather, to compensate for your own mediocrity (or to advance some sort of concealed ideological program) you are hoping that we will believe whatever nonsense you spew without further inquiry.

Seriously, if you honestly believe a word of what you are saying, you are the stupidest person I have had the displeasure of engaging with. That's fucking dumb, man.

Since it's humble roots in the mid-90's training on poorly aligned hardcore zines, The Crimeth Inc. ® GPT-2 has always been a harbinger of deep-learning AI, forging steadily ahead to become the innovative triumph of oogle-cloud-based technological achievement that it is today, standing at the top of its class as the pride of ex-workers everywhere. It's safe to say that Crimeth Inc. ® is not just another platform, it's a way of life.

nice mis-gendering / presumption that I am a "he" you oppressive creep. also, love how your comments all mention the mysterious "we", which is kinda a dead give-away as to which workerist hole you crawled out of to valiantly defend your pet projects from the nasty commenters! no dissenting views regarding Groupthinc/It's Getting Delusional/Subpar Media will be tolerated! all revisionist anonymous comments must be countered with great vitriol! forward to the revolution comrades!

Anybody who disagrees with me must be:

A) a nazi
B) a man
C) must live in a basement
D) all the above

double+ good, komrad! the old world is behind youuuuuu!

Good work using identity politics, anews troll! And calling crimethinc workerist... wow.

Nah... the intellectual bottom of the barrel are outlets that do not allow for discussion (either "free" or curated") as this means a total unidirectional and one-sided discourse, and also forbids the development of critical thinking an analysis of the info being presented.

Because these comments are so good for the development of mature critical thinking! Sure!

Most of us have actual existing social circles in which we can debate these things with other people. We don't need to shit all over strangers anonymously like antisocial losers.

"We don't need to shit all over strangers anonymously like antisocial losers." says the anonymous loser.

studies have shown that studies are usually bogus.

why u mad bro?

translation:

why do you care so much if some rando on the internet doesn't like your project? surely you don't expect everybody to march lockstep behind your banner, yes? these things come with the territory. if you're too precious to handle it, maybe being a public project isn't for you? same for anybody else who puts themselves, "out there" so to speak. Anyways from what I saw, the critique itself was pretty tame: "rehashed liberal activism" yadda yadda, wtv, we've all heard it before. big deal. as opposed to some wide-eyed "crimethinc revolutionary" anon talkin about pissing on broken bones LOL! like, damn bro. Por que estas tantas nasty, Padre Nasty? But seriously, that was some pretty ridiculous internet posturing back there. Did you really mean what you said anon? Would you really piss on somebody's broken bones over "dissing" your precious @ pet project? This is largely why Some Nihilists don't believe in or take your revolution very seriously. I, personally, have no doubt that should you and yours ever "take over" or gain any kind of real power (never gonna happen, obv) ... that whatever would ensue next would no doubt be pretty fuckin gnarly and violent for basically any regular person who doesn't consume IGD propaganda like it's being fed to them on an IV-drip.

Tell us more about your fantasy to line up every "non-aligned" or "counter-revolutionary" individual you can find up against a brick wall, O' intelligentsia!

Share your sexual fantasies somewhere else. I'm not even interested in you, let alone putting you up against a wall. Your weird fixation is suuuper awkward.

"Viruses will continue to spread as long as we go on upsetting the ecological balance of the planet."

so when humans go back to being HGs, or die off completely, viruses will stop spreading?

Also, this is another thing that bothered me about the "planet of humans" documentary, "we" upset the balance? Or is there no "balance", and the term "we" can only either talk about real in person group or about humans in general?

Overall I do appreciate the loving intent of crime thinc. over the years, and not everything in this article is bullshit, but it is based on a TRADEMARKED therapy method made by Peter Lavine, which is mixed with a lot of scammy bullshit. Paying attention to your body does not "reset your nervous system", your nervous system is not a fucking computer.

Here's some somatic experiencing for you: life is traumatic, it often really sucks. It would be beautiful and amazing if we could all be a comfort enough to each other so that we don't need to have fucking therapists.

OMG crimethinc shared something trademarked ?!!? They must be trying to make a million bucks!! SUrely that exolains iut

None of this was a big deal until some CT troll started going off about breaking peoples bones and pissing on them for voicing a pretty vanilla criticism of crimethinc.

Self-righteous revolutionary milieu are often a draw for toxic people.

Interestingly, anyone who speaks in favor of crimethinc here gets their comment deleted, but you can spew absolute nonsense and your comment remains.

as the person who wrote the comment about wanting to piss on the broken bones of the pathetic whiner who was complaining about getting trolled in response to their trolling, lemme be clear, I wasn't trying to defend crimethinc,I was trying to hurt that pathetic little troll's feelings. looks like I did! Good thing there's comment police to protect him from me!

Because it was pretty obvious what you were doing. So clever!

Now, go back to league of legends, lots of vulnerable children you can fuck with on there

"so when humans go back to being HGs, or die off completely, viruses will stop spreading?"

or, at least move away from mass society as the only freakin model! how much more proof do folks need, that the shit does not work! so many infectious diseases are a result of cramming tons of humans into small areas. other diseases (eg, cancer, autism, etc) are more directly linked with the industrial technology and mindset that both require and are required by mass society. it sucks to say it (at least to those who think their empathy extends to all of humanity), but yes, a drastic reduction in human population is almost certainly necessary if ANY humans are to survive long term. and that's not to mention all the other life on earth that suffer as a result of mass human population. i really hate to generalize, but... humans fucking suck, by and large. that is why i do my best to stay away from most of them - it allows me some joy in life.

SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU FUCKING ECOFASCIST!!! DIE! FRITZI ECOLOGICAL BLOOD BEAST!!! DIE! DIE! DIE!!!!!

Where does autism come from? Is it just a natural result of an alienated society, a real mental disease? I've struggled with this one since people have said I have it. I'm not in so much in denial as confused.

from your parents and vaccines. you should demand your parents let you mooch off them for 1) bringing you into this world, 2) having you vaccinated and 3) giving you autism without your consent. if you wanna make bling $$$ bling $$$$ sue them

I gave my parents, especially farther, a hard enough time for this. Like for a while I became their personal Antichrist.

But hey, you can forgive even if not you don't forget... they grow old and sick under the burden of their past mistakes. So even you were (and I was) a mistake, it's nothing strange to a wider human condition of being the products not the *makers* of our own demise. Even for child abusing parents, didja read that they're in vast majority abused as child themselves?

It's an important distinction to make when growing up.

*even if you don't forget*

I was autistic, it was actually the mom of my douschebag friend in high school who said that at first just because I didn't look her in the eye when she talked to me. Autism, sociopathy, and psychopathy are loose words people apply to any anti-social behaviour.

Its merely a social judgement which identifies and excludes on the basis of resposes to social situations and experiences. It is a rejection of uniqueness.

I'd rather freakin die at 90 in the suburbs from modern industrial induced toxic cancer than as a whining hungry HG being torn and ripped to pieces by a sabre-tooth tiger at 40.

Good, then have a lot of funs in the confinement of senior residences, and I'll go enjoy the harsh and unpredictable freedom of wild nomadic life.

Senior residences will probably become tolerable once fully immersable VR becomes a thing a la "ready player one". Everyone knows this.

If you'd ever read good sci-fi, Philip K. Dick invented that idea decades ago, in Ubik. And then there was the very anti-Spielberg film The Matrix.

storage units? I read that a couple years ago, i don't remember the VR element, but there was that whole thing about going into the past and the past disintegrating...

Hey don't underrate the fantastic singalong and bosanova dancing afternoons we have at the place my children put me in so they could manage the millions of dollars I had.
I actually joined the cha-cha, you know, you form a human chain by grabbing the person's hips in front of you and you snake through the corridors and on every 6th beat you through an arm out and say CHA,,,, or wait, is it every 8th beat? The good thing is you can leave the chain anytime, like when your colostomy bag is sloshing around too much and needs emptying. Then its back on the chain, round and round we go, cha cha cha cha cha CHA, cha cha cha cha cha CHA, ,,that was every 6th wasn't it,,,,6th,,,,,,,yes,,,,?,,,,,,,,,?

I wish all my posts were like this! Thank you!

if the groupthinc crowd doesn't like @news or it's dreaded comment section then why tf does it keep lookin to plug it's project on the site? why not just pack yr bags and fuck off to some tame @-lib shithole like r/anarchism or IGD?

And even if the Collective is posting your shit without you having anything to do with it, so what? any publicity for your project should be good publicity, no? If it were up to me, I wouldn't let any of your fuckin garbage get anywhere near my beloved @news, period. Regardless: don't like @news? well then wtf do you keep visiting the site then, you indescribable fuckin asshole(s)? Nobodys puttin a gun to your head and forcing you to be here.

Also, "most of us actually have social circles in which to debate this stuff", -- Newsflash, dickhead: not every anarchist in the world lives in a fuckin major city with a gigantic shitty urban hipster anarchist social scene consumed by idpol drama. I know it's hard to believe, but there's actually a not-insignificant number of us living out on the margins where the police are scarce and you can still see shining stars... hangin out with more-or-less "regular" backwoods people who couldn't give two tugs of a dead dogs cock about debating your bullshit, but who nevertheless have 10x the fighting spirit of anarchy in their pinky finger than you do in your entire domesticucked city-scene. So yes, some of us will continue to discuss these things on the internet.

Turn and burn, bitch.

(inb4 you presume: my skin color, my gender, my sexual orientation, my living situation, my politics, etc.)

"well then wtf do you keep visiting the site then, you indescribable fuckin asshole(s)? "

i think this does give into a nonsense idea that the internet has a whole lot of decent options...and also that people should be able to control their behavior much more than they really can. I mean i do think it's fine that JZ doesn't want his shit on here...and i also think this is kind of a strange criticism when people are more isolated than they normally are currently, and just can't even engage in a lot of the safety valve type of behaviors that they depended on and were accustomed to.

"hangin out with more-or-less "regular" backwoods people who couldn't give two tugs of a dead dogs cock about debating your bullshit, but who nevertheless have 10x the fighting spirit of anarchy in their pinky finger than you do in your entire domesticucked city-scene. So yes, some of us will continue to discuss these things on the internet."

oh i'm one of those super tuff backwoods people, and actually they argue/complain about stupid shit as well. As someone who's lived in hickville for almost 24 years of my life, they're mostly serious control freaks as well who make a big deal out of "respect", "hard work", and "my property" rather than talk about the real issue at hand.

if i'm also not allowed to complain on here as well, then FUCK, that's it, anarchists have certainly given into the positive thinking self-denialism of a society that claims to be very individualistic but actually just enslaves every single person to an illusory morality.

"oh i'm one of those super tuff backwoods people, and actually they argue/complain about stupid shit as well. As someone who's lived in hickville for almost 24 years of my life, they're mostly serious control freaks as well who make a big deal out of "respect", "hard work", and "my property" rather than talk about the real issue at hand."

Glad my friends aren't like that.

my only friend is my mother these days...not saying that's everyone else's fault but hey i haven't been able to figure out how to stop accidentally getting on people's nerves.

I even tried moving to the city but there's too many people and they practically all suck. The last roomate i had when i tried this was some aggro id-pol who would bring up race in conversations and then when the conversation reached a point that they didn't approve of they'd just be like "let's stop talking about race". The D.C. area is filled with that kind of shit, and weird dousche bags with government jobs who won't even tell you about what they do on a day to day basis X-D.

People are fucking crazy and stupid: i'm included in this as well.

he was also complaining that @news doesn't put up his essays? Apparently? Idk, the thing i do really love about this website is thecollective does seem to be dedicated to letting random people use it for whatever purpose they want even if they aren't fully transparent about everything. They at least try to make it that way.

"if the groupthinc crowd doesn't like @news or it's dreaded comment section then why tf does it keep lookin to plug it's project on the site? why not just pack yr bags and fuck off to some tame @-lib shithole like r/anarchism or IGD?"

Good question!

Because as usual they're seeking to use anarchos to work for their cause?

word, I find it very typical MO for that class of @

don't get me wrong, I've definitely come across a few individualist types who were using their ideology to justify acting in emotionally irresponsible ways, usually somebody new to the literature and philosophy. But collectivist anarchists, even the ones who claim to fuck with a bit of the individualist shit, and generally most anarchists with a "strugglismo" mindset... are awful.

in my experience, their tendency is to size people up and assign them a use-value in terms of how productive they can be to "the struggle" and relate to them accordingly. "revolutionary co-workers", not friends. throw in the way they often use idpol to reduce you to some perceived ideological or demographic position instead of a thinking-feeling human individual as well as relegating you to the role of "Straight White Male" acting as some faceless stand-in for other "Straight White Males" who traumatized them in the past... and the result is usually a fucking shit show of abusive behavior that nobody should be involved in.

overall the far-left reduces enemy to "white-cis-male" figures, when talking to them in recent years i generally just try to relate to the points that i agree with them, but then they always still cling to that underlying prejudice. Same thing happened with that DC roommate i posted about before, and she in particularly just had this emotionally nuerotic reaction to things i said that she didn't agree with.

Not that there is zero truth to the judgement to "us" (white male cis types, not necessarily you), but you'd have to be crazy to think that all douschebags fit that description. I've meant so many female and POC control freaks over the course of my life.

When I said

"In my experience, their tendency is to size people up and assign them a use-value in terms of how productive they can be to "the struggle" and relate to them accordingly."

"...and relate to them accordingly."

"...and relate..."

What I meant was:

"...and use them accordingly"

it's called "the politics of being in your '20s, in social media age where everyone is an insecure old teenager.".

. hangin out with more-or-less "regular" backwoods people who couldn't give two tugs of a dead dogs cock about debating your bullshit, but who nevertheless have 10x the fighting spirit of anarchy in their pinky finger than you do in your entire domesticucked city-scene.

whachu talkin about willis? in the backwoods around my ways we argue and complain about the grocery store in town and sometimes we argue and complain about people driving their ricers too fast down the road and the town walker, but mostly about the grocery store. the town walker is this guy that done walks all around nowhereville asking people for jacks (cigarettes). you see some people around here are concerned one of the ricers will run into and done kill him. he's a valuable asset to our small community. without him the stuff to talk about effectively drops down to arguing and complaining about the ricers and grocery store. the ricers cars are loud and they done think they're in a fast and furious movie. sometimes they crash and it is funny because the road is straight for a good while. the grocery store done sells expired food for jacked up prices and when you realize it they don't let you return it. they done put a lock on the dumpster and have cameras point at it. we cant just done be like "bye felicia" cause there is no other grocery store close by. the manager and owners are dicks and the cops are dicks. if the cops are done called and have to drive all the way to our town they gonna be arresting someone for some trumped up bullshit if you don't suck their dicks. i've done been arrested by them many a times mostly for disorderly conduct aka not sucking their dicks. most of the people in town let the cops done fuck them in the ass and sucks their dicks. ain't no one around here got that fighting spirit you done mentioned unless it's about the grocery store or the ricers

if you need multiple paragraphs-worth of instructions to explain how to give yourself a "self-hug", you are a fucking idiot.

not out of truthfulness, but i just burst out laughing. Thank you!

The thing most of you don't know is that if this exact same stuff would be put out in anarcho/radical media in France this would be obvious satire.

it's part n parcel with your standard collectivist revolutionary mindset. Au fonds, the basic idea is that people outside your cadre are stupid and/or can't be trusted with freedom and so require "anarchist intervention" to steer the movement in a way that's ultimately "for their own good", etc. That's usually how it goes. They'll try to hide it, of course, but over a long enough time line, this way in which they see everyone outside their little indoctrinated clique tends to bleed out in other ways and you can occasionally catch glimpses of it... like here in this fluff piece insulting our intelligence.

or statecraft 101...hierarchy always needs to keep everyone outside of the circle stupider and less able than they are so they can remain in control. Daren Brown is pretty instructive in this type of stuff: social engineering, mind control, etc. Maybe anarchist education should more or less consist of education in archism? Everyone in this scene talks about radical education and anarchist parenting, maybe this could be part of it? When is it good to teach children about how nasty and terrible the world is?

What is the new age copy pasta shit? hold myself and say vu? lol fucking crimethinc. this made me lol

i bet crimethinc put more effort into collecting the dandelion seeds, lighting them on fire in their hand and trying to get a satisfactory picture of burning dandelion seeds falling from their hand than this pasta. taking that picture took two people wandering around collecting dandelion seeds, and multiple attempts at getting a good picture of burning dandelion seeds. you can tell it took two or more people to take this photo.

when someone you know dies you tip the 40. i didnt see that mentioned. if anyone is confused i can clarify

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