This is not for anyone who is actually at an end of life process, but more for people who have politically motivated despair regarding what is going on in the world right now.

Don’t die. Don’t do any of the things on purpose that would make you die sooner than you have to. Don’t do the fascists dirty work for them. And I am saying this as someone who has spent a lifetime (47 years this April!) struggling with IMMENSE suicidal ideation. Sometimes mainly because of my mood disorder, and sometimes as a result of life circumstances making me consider exiting early. Every time I felt that way, I ended up getting through it, and looking back now I am so glad I didn’t do the [redacted] things that would have stopped my time on this plane of existence.

There are going to be hard times. And we need you here. If you stay on certain social media sites, they are going to push violent bullying content into your feed that will brainwash you into thinking killing yourself is a wise choice. That is bullshit. They are triggering you on purpose. You don’t know if the stranger ridiculing you and attacking you for your identity is a bot. There are MANY bots on social media. We do not have an accurate picture anymore of the sentiment of the actual population.

What if you have more friends than enemies? What if this is an illusion? The actual people who voted in Trump do not reflect the majority of Americans who did not vote for Trump (or maybe even didn’t vote at all because the alternative was still violent and genocidal). There are still good people in the world who will help you.

And yes there are bad people out there, and you do need to be careful. I would recommend taking as much of your life offline as possible actually. Which is ridiculous because I have this overshare blog art project here. BUT what I mean is, don’t organize online. Don’t admit to “crimes” online. Assume Meta is reading everything in your Messenger and willing to hand it to the government, because they already do. Don’t use menstrual tracker apps. Be careful crossing borders with devices, use burner phones if you have to. Find articles that tell you how to lock down your privacy settings and go through everything you can. Delete stuff off your phone. Get used to having sensitive documents in places that can’t be accessed remotely. Go back to paper journals, if you like me have been journalling in Word or other text apps on your computer.

Be super aware of who is giving you information and for what purpose. Don’t believe everything, but also don’t ignore shit either. Be careful with things like ChatGPT and using them for therapy or basically ANYTHING sensitive. I mean ideally don’t use it at all, but also don’t feed it personal information that you don’t want fascists to know. Maintain your critical thinking skills. Don’t get duped into conspiracy theories.

And do not die. I am assuming you are reading this because you want to know what Indigiqueer trans folks are thinking about the world right now. My community, the Indigenous/Indigiqueer community, has dealt a lot with youth suicides. We know the heartache of losing youth who have so much promise and so much to give the world. And as someone who has lost loved ones to suicide, we don’t forget you. It’s always in the back of my mind, what my friends would be doing now if they were still here. My friend Matthew who died that way was so loved by the community and so many people were heart broken when he left and I don’t know if he realized that if things would be different. You matter. You are loved. Even if you think you’re just the crabbiest person no one would love, I promise you someone in your life is going to miss you if you’re not here tomorrow.

I know being hopeful seems impossible right now. But it is reckless to just assume there is no hope anymore. That’s how they win. You have to hope and dream and love. You have to find the small joys to get through right now. Don’t think joy is not revolutionary. Don’t think taking care of your own mental health is selfish or backwards. Don’t ignore your community and who is checking in on you.

I don’t know most of you, and I know I’m a bit more privileged by being in Canada right now. But this shit is coming here too, and the oligarchs who support Trump own most of the social media companies which the whole world uses. So be careful where you engage, what you consume, what you believe and take notice if you start to hate yourself because that means you probably need to change the online/offline spaces you are engaging.

Anyway, if you take nothing else from this blog. Please don’t die.