Fraught feast / Foul-weather friends

Today: Please join us in a warm welcome for new contributor Amy Kurzweil, New Yorker cartoonist and author of two graphic memoirs: Artificial: A Love Story and Flying Couch; and Parker Molloy, author of The Present Age, a newsletter about the intersection of media, politics, and culture.

Issue No. 210

Thanksgiving 2024
Amy Kurzweil

Radical Breathing
Parker Molloy

Thanksgiving 2024

by Amy Kurzweil

A HAPPY HOLIDAY TO U.S. READERS

Flaming Hydra will publish tomorrow. After that we will be off to enjoy (or endure) the U.S. holiday, and back again on Monday.

Safe travels, and a good holiday to all.

Radical Breathing

by Parker Molloy

The irony isn’t lost on me that I’m sitting here doing box breathing exercises—inhale for four, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four—while scrolling through yet another thread about how trans people like me torpedoed the Democratic Party’s chances. My dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) therapist from “brain camp” would probably gently suggest putting the phone down. But honestly? The skills I learned there feel simultaneously essential and insufficient for this moment.

The morning after the election, my Twitter feed transformed into what I've started calling the Betrayal Olympics. Formerly supportive voices suddenly became amateur political strategists, carefully explaining how Democrats need to “distance themselves from gender ideology” (read: me and people like me) to win back suburban voters. The speed at which some allies pivoted from supportive Instagram posts to suggesting we’re political poison has been dizzying. My therapist’s voice echoes in my head: “Observe without judgment.” 

But how do you observe without judgment when the thing being judged is your right to exist?

During group therapy sessions last summer, we talked about radical acceptance—the DBT concept of fully accepting reality as it is while simultaneously working to change it. No one mentioned how challenging that would become in a world where once-“progressive” spaces have started treating trans rights as negotiable, where former allies debate our “political viability” with the detached interest they might employ in discussing poll numbers or electoral maps.

My crisis management skills are getting a workout, but not in the way I expected. Instead of just managing my own anxiety, I’m using these tools to support other trans friends as they navigate their own, similar betrayals. The wise mind techniques I’ve learned help me differentiate between valid fears and catastrophizing, but they don’t make those valid fears any less real. When I check my emotional status, “betrayed,” “exhausted,” and “determined” all make regular appearances.

The group chat I mentioned here before—the one with my fellow “brain camp” alumni—has become a lifeline. We’re all using our skills in ways our therapists probably never anticipated. One friend recently messaged that she was using her distress tolerance techniques while watching friends quietly revise their use of trans-inclusive language on social media. Another shared how she’s applying interpersonal effectiveness skills to navigate increasingly hostile family gatherings.

In therapy, we learned about building support networks. No one mentioned how those networks might need to become underground railroads of mutual aid and protection. The DBT skills manual didn’t include a chapter on what to do when your existence becomes a political liability.

Yet here’s the thing: these skills, imperfect as they sometimes feel, are helping us survive. When I catch myself spiraling into despair about the future, I can use my mindfulness techniques to ground myself in the present moment. When the urge to doomscroll becomes overwhelming, I have tools to help me step back and reconnect with my values. The crisis survival strategies I learned over the summer have taken on new meaning—they’re not just about getting through a bad mental health day anymore, they’re about persisting in a world that’s becoming actively hostile.

My therapist used to say that accepting reality doesn’t mean approving of it. I’m learning that hope doesn’t have to mean optimism. Sometimes hope looks like doing your box breathing while planning mutual support networks. Sometimes it looks like using your therapy skills to stay steady enough to fight back. And sometimes it looks like a group chat full of people who understand exactly what you’re going through, all of us using our hard-won coping skills to face whatever comes next.

We’re not just practicing radical acceptance—we’re practicing radical resilience. And while no amount of DBT skills can fully cushion the impact of systemic rejection, they're helping us stay grounded enough to keep going. That’s not the kind of victory I imagined when I first walked into “brain camp,” but it’s victory, for right now.

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