Joanna Fanuko

If You’re a Woman, Or Any Minority For That Matter, You Should “Bother” — You Matter

I sometimes feel like there’s no point to getting worked up. What good is it? “Get mad, you only end up hurting yourself,” is a trope I’ve heard before. “We are so small in the grand scheme, we can’t make a difference,” shuts a person down. “The people in power can’t be stopped,” — wow, even scarier and more dystopian.

But what happens when we change our internal narrative?  And the way we talk to and encourage each other?  Will it make a difference in the grand scheme?  Yes.

I remember being in college and reading Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point.  Maybe it’s one small group, or person — the tip of the iceberg — that makes the Jenga tower fall.  Economically, it may require multiple people working together towards that goal point to reach the final push forward, everything under the water essentially.

If we can work on how we talk to ourselves internally, we can notice first and shift that negative self-talk to something more supportive.  Show up for yourself, and you can show up for other people in a more healthy way.  This can be an especially difficult learning curve for women and other minorities to build who have historically and systemically been taught that they are less than equal to the standard: the white men.  I don’t care how “woke” I sound here; it’s healthy to stay wide awake and I suggest you continue reading if you have come so far and are not easily scared by an observation of the facts.

This is why we should bother.  Get worked up and take up space.  We can support each other when we find common ground in our smaller-than-the-cis-norm voices if we are a collective voice.  An iceberg that makes a difference and parts the sea.

I’m in my thirties and have had a good and substantial education that I have worked hard at despite living with mental illness and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  I’ve shared parts of my story online and want to use this platform to expand what I share and shed light on the realness and connectedness of all of us affected by these things, whether through ourselves or through loved ones or other certain close degrees of separation.

I finished my bachelors at Carnegie Mellon University despite managing the symptoms of PTSD and periods of psychosis.  And I went on to complete my Masters in Social Work at Columbia University while living with my diagnosed schizoaffective disorder bipolar type.  Despite my disabilities, I want to use my voice to create space for the voiceless.

When I was sharing small articles about my symptoms like hearing voices, I would hear from people across the world about how this helped them diagnose a loved one with medical care.  It changed me.  It gave me a reason to be.  Sharing my history of sexual trauma was scary but it healed the pain of suffering in silence in so many ways.

I think we are living in a time, after the Me Too movement, mental health awareness, Black Lives Matter and the transparency of the Epstein Files, that is shaping our culture and our world, for good.  This happens when minorities band together and use their collective voices to say “hey, enough is enough.”  Silence is no longer forced upon us.  If it’s not safe to speak, others are opening doors for you.  We are helping each other.

Of course, there is backlash from the patriarchal systems protected by forced silence.  This shakes their core, and I feel like we can see this in the world news and political climate today.  Wars around the world, steps backward on women’s and other minorities’ rights, particularly here in America which is touted as the Land of the Free and progressive.  While some enjoy the many great freedoms, it’s certainly not all of us.

Still then, why bother?  Because there are more of us collectively supporting equality, goodness and fairness than there are not.  Another trope I hear often that’s much more soberingly positive is “There may be a lot of bad people out there who are louder than us, but there are more of us good ones than them.”

Be loud about it.