De-prioritizing caregiving, intimacy and relationships drives burnout & despair
Care makes our movements sustainable + Intimate relationships make life meaningful
These are some big realizations that have come after years of me & folks in my life trying to figure out what we NEED to make life WORTH living. What are the things that will make us want to wake up every morning? What will make us WANT to be ALIVE instead of just “get by” each day? What will make us WANT to move thru the pain or grief just so we could also experience joy? What motivates us to exist beyond the fight against oppressive systems? Who are we when we don’t focus on & center oppressive systems? What beautiful, regenerative, healing, joyful things do we need to feel alive?
For majority of my life, I’ve neglected, deprioritized & swept aside things like my intimate personal relationships in order to make room for the “more important stuff”. I’ve chased milestones/ success/ academic knowledge/ growth for the sake of growth, set ambitious goals and often focused on what I considered to be the more “intellectual” pursuits in life. At the same time, many of the political movement spaces I organized within operated with these exact same principles… and this took a serious toll on me & the people in my life (including the communities we were organizing in). In many activism spaces I’ve been in, the priority was productivity & constant mobilizing to respond to capitalist/ state violence without dedicating time/ space to actually get to know each other deeply so we could forge intimate, life-giving relationships. It was not sustainable. Many times, it all crashed & burned. When I was ablaze, when WE hit our lowest points, we had to ask “how can our lives AND political movements be more sustainable & regenerative instead of just falling into cycles of productivity followed by burnout?”
The personal really is the political. I’ll start today by sharing two anecdotes/ stories to show that in both my personal intimate relationships & in my roles as a political organizer— I’ve arrived at the exact SAME lessons. Many of our community members & ancestors have been echoing this for eons. Honestly it was all right in front of me but it took me a long time to truly ‘GET IT’ so I want to take you on this journey with me to hopefully relay how profoundly transformative prioritizing relationships, love & care can be.
1— What I learned from my friends & partner calling me in
Over the last few years, I’ve had many dear friends intermittently raise red flags about how unsustainable it was for me to prioritize work or organizing over my intimate relationships. Sometimes, it was just by them communicating their needs in our relationship & asking to see more of me when I was “busy” all the time. Other times, they urged me to observe the toxic, abusive nature of my past romantic relationships which was apparent to them while I was hell bent on “making it work” (mostly because I didn’t want to slow down, step away from my daily hustle to reflect on how I’ve been socialized under oppressive systems, the harmful patterns that were embedded into my core identity & rely on community to help me understand/ move thru it). This wasn’t a binary “I used to never be there for my friends and now I am” story. In the depths of my heart, my community & friends were all that I cared about yet these systems crushed my desire to live. In my most painful moments, work captured me because my whole life (from migrating & facing state sanctioned violence to how it shaped my family dynamics) I felt like I had to constantly prove my existence was worth something, anything… & this was contingent on me non-consensually participating in a rat race that framed my kin as less worthy (competition).
I also told myself I had “no time for fun or rest” because the planet was on fire, so many communities are aflame & I “had to” spend every waking moment DOING something about it. The critical mass for this realization was building & it all came crashing down a few months ago when my partner sat me down. He told me that after we moved from Chile to the U.S., gradually… he started to feel disconnected from me.
In this convo, my partner said: “Even though we live together and share a lot of time & space together, I feel like you’re not fully HERE with me. We spend a lot of time doing things together, throw ourselves into various activities, spend time hanging out with friends but in all those moments we’re not actively engaging with each other on a deeper level to cultivate intimacy. You come home & I know you’re exhausted but instead of slowing down to do more healing things together, you do more… tasks. When we eat while watching TV, we’re passively existing together which is a form of comfort that I value but we don’t intentionally slow down to be present with each other & have emotional conversations.”
And he was right but I pushed back defensively explaining that I had worked hard to detach my identity from capitalism. I didn’t overwork myself at the hospital anymore, I didn’t take on unnecessary research projects, I didn’t even care to be successful or desire to ‘climb the ladder’ in academic medicine anymore. I came home early so we could do other things that ‘mattered’. He said “Yes, but you’re always doing something and that’s not the same as taking time to have fun, do something nourishing or be intimate & vulnerable with people.”
Side note: Knowing what you are NOT isn’t enough without a simultaneous exploration & practicing who you could be. It’s not enough to be ANTI-racist, ANTI-capitalist, ANTI-fascist, anti-oppression, anti-imperialist… all that still centers oppressive systems and not our communities. What are you actively FOR? What beautiful things do you believe IN? Who are you & what do you care about when you take away oppression?
I took a second & it hit me like a profound ocean wave. I had detached my identity from work or individualistic capitalist metrics of success, but I had found other ways to stay stuck in “productivity mode”. I found other ways to “stay busy” doing the “real work”. Instead of medicine, my time outside work was consumed by political organizing, writing, 1 on 1s, educating, intellectualizing the problems of the world that we needed to fix & so on… Subconsciously, I continued to deprioritize the “soft” things in life. I really thought, hmmm how would cooking together, spending time laughing & clowning around or practicing feeling our emotions deeply together possible be THE revolutionary work that will liberate us? I really was out there tryna take down capitalism/ colonialism with more colonial approaches.
2— When our movement spaces start to operate like companies or colonial institutions
Organizing collective A: The one where I couldn’t hang as a comrade
A few years ago ago, I tried to join an abolitionist group mobilizing around police & prison abolition at the local city level. I was new in town & desperately needed community. I showed up to their general meetings & each time, I felt like a stranger. I tried to talk to people but they seemed to be focused on “getting things done”. It was highly structured. They dove into their meeting, hammering thru all the agenda items on their list, assigning tasks to folks… folks who to me looked exhausted, dissociated after a long day of work, drained & depleted but pushing onwards. We would go for hours without breaks for food/ H2O/ bathroom, if you needed to step aside to take a deep breath even, you would fall behind because this org was “productive” as hell. At the end of meetings, people were far too tired to engage in deep conversations & even after, there was no effort to coordinate communal hangouts so I didn’t get to make friends even though I spent a lot of time completing tasks with people. I didn’t know anything personal, intimate or deep about them- there was no space for that or a foundation to build on. It wasn’t how they operated. They had many committees, assemblies & processes put in place for coordination & decision making. But there was no culture of care or intimacy.
They had “mixers” that felt like a means to an end— they’d talk about building relationships to further their campaign agendas or want to build “cross-community solidarity” to build momentum behind a targeted initiative. I got added to many signal chats that would constantly organize, share political education blurbs & brainstorm strategy. I’d volunteer or respond to calls to action when posted.
I felt like I was only useful in so far as I could take on tasks or serve as a body at protests. My life itself didn’t feel valuable outside what I bought to the table as an “organizer”. Most of them never cared to ask me about my life, background, experiences, journey or never tried to just hang out with me JUST for the sake of sharing time/ space together (not to “get work done”). Eventually many people, especially newer organizers, started dropping out & pulling back from the org. I’d observe some of them join with a fervor, take on a bunch of tasks, burn out & then just drift off eventually. Meanwhile, the org kept focusing on expanding & recruiting more people without being able to sustain folks that joined. Shortly after I left the space drained & depleted… the org itself dissolved.
“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change…I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives here. See whose face it wears. Then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices.” - Audre Lorde
Organizing collective B: The one that made me who I am today
I started organizing around two issues in my earliest days as a new migrant in the US: 1) abolishing the school-to-prison pipeline and 2) Palestine. I was a member and then on the coordinating board of two orgs- the Incarcerated Youth Tutorial Project and Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA. We did incredible work together. We enabled transformations (I’ll save talking about it for another time) but most importantly, we loved each other deeply. I wasn’t best friends with every single person that ever joined these groups but we intentionally created a culture of care & would balance organizing campaigns/ initiatives/ events with just spending time together. We would spend late nights working over chai or chat over froyo or persian ice cream, spend hours laughing together, sharing pieces of our past with each other or crying in each others laps & mourning our collective grief.
I didn’t just learn the foundations of community organizing from the more experienced, older organizers who served as my mentors… they also cared for me. They would model community care, joyful militancy & radical accountability by cooking with me & for me. They’d pull me aside to talk about the things that hurt my heart & always make sure I knew that their homes were open to me even if I was in a crisis in the middle of the night. Collectively, they felt like a glimpse of home to me… in real time, they created a communal safety net. They would vulnerably share their aches with me or even reflect on their past “fuck ups” so I never put them on pedestals & learned from their mishaps. We kayaked, hiked, wrote, & camped together. We worked thru relational conflicts together & sometimes there was no good ending. There was a lot of heartbreak. It was messy but I was organizing with my best friends.
I remember the first time we brought up a resolution that called for UCLA to stop using student fees to fund or invest in companies actively upholding Israeli apartheid, settler colonialism & the occupation of Palestine. It took SO LONG to build up to that one ~13 hour long student government meeting when they voted against us & shot it down. I remember us wailing, crying, or numbed out, huddled in a circle on the grass outside the building holding each other. I didn’t know what lay ahead for us and I didn’t know if I could do this again & again & again… The point of the campaign itself wasn’t to make “UCLA better” but to shift public opinion on Palestine, raise widespread awareness & to build cross-community solidarity. I remember passing out & when I woke up, I showed up to the next org meeting to plan next steps only cuz I cared about Palestine & I knew my friends would carry me thru it all. I wanted to see my friends again because this was our fight so I would go back no matter what. We can’t do lip-service to words like “community” without pouring in the time/ energy to intentionally build it. 2 years later we did pass the resolution. But it wasn’t a means to an end, the means itself was the point. Being with each other made it possible for those of us in our respective diasporas to find solace in each other while reimagining & rebuilding a sense of “home” together.
Our collectivist, decolonized approach to organizing was also framed by the cultural fabric of what it meant to honor Palestine. Honoring Palestine meant honoring our collective bonds & loving each other deeply. That is what has kept the vision of a free Palestine alive & fiery no matter what hell Israel rained. Love for Watan/ homeland, love for community, love for the day displaced Palestinians can return to their homes… love. Organizing for Palestine was incomplete without cultivating a deep admiration & respect for Tatreez (embroidery) & Dabke (traditional dance). In many of our political movements centering the Global South, the focus on art/ music/ dance/ food/ communal traditions is woven into our organizing approaches because engaging in these collectivist, cultural practices is how we all keep Palestine or the borderless South Asian homeland alive— we live & practice the values of the homeland in community every day.
Capitalism devalues caregiving & caretaking
I was born into poverty & my whole life, I was told that my safety hinged on us working endlessly to assimilate into capitalism. I was told that one day I would be seen as “successful” WHEN & if I could pay someone else to make my home, handle all domestic work, clean, grow & cook my food, take care of my household members and care for all my needs such that I would have protected time to focus on “more important” worldly, sophisticated pursuits. Ironically, engaging in these very acts of care gives our lives meaning & purpose.
When I use the words care, caretaking, caregiving, there is almost a default inferior connotation to them that implies that these soft actions are not revolutionary… and that this cannot possibly be the key makings of a revolution. Why? Why do we shrug off care so easily even in leftist organizing spaces? Why is organizing or activism often framed as something you do in the EXTERNAL sphere? Even in conversations around mutual aid, rarely is there emphasis on genuine relationship building (beyond the redistribution of wealth & resources).
Capitalism/ colonialism has structured society to be defined by hierarchical systems that dismisses care while also being reliant on care to function. In a capitalist society, social/ relational/ care work is separated from economic production and relegated to the private sphere or is made invisible to consumers. Care work for the most part is completely unpaid — from reproduction to child rearing, domestic household care, elderly care, etc. Capitalism only views people, the land & every living being as objects that can be extracted from & exploited for profit— in this model, there is no genuine care put in to sustaining life itself. Profit maximization requires the least amount of care to be put in to get the highest yield. This is why our “worth” is tied to our productivity. CAPITALISM TRULY DOES NOT CARE. It is on us to do otherwise.
When you zoom out even further to understand which workers around the world are paid the least (or not paid at all)— it is the people who grow our food & feed us, make our clothes/ garments/ household items, provide caretaking services like pink collar workers in salons or massage parlors, build our homes & societal infrastructure like blue collar construction workers, service industry workers, sanitation/ grocery store workers, teachers, frontline primary healthcare providers, etc. The labor of these workers keeps us alive & this was apparent during COVID-19 with the “essential worker” designation.
This neoliberal capitalist society’s obsession with “self-care” is ironic because we can never care for ourselves. Even if we are using some skin lotion or eating a nourishing meal or sleeping under a warm blanket, all of those things have been made by someone… but their contributions have been kept invisible on purpose. People walk into stores, pick items off a shelf with no direct, intimate knowledge of how those care essentials came to be & instead frame their luxurious consumption of these “products” as self-care. This fragmented, transactional, one-sided consumption where the privileged merely receive care while being ignorant about where that care actually comes from ultimately leaves them feeling empty. The consumer is shielded from the brutality of the production line but also shielded from the joy that comes with reciprocity.
Meanwhile- the “intellectuals” of the world, academics, corporate leaders, celebrities, politicians etc engage in the type of work that is framed as “real” productive work. Most of them are the operators of capitalism and their “work” is to uphold oppression, extract from people & the planet while contributing nothing truly essential to life itself. But the reality is that for the 99% of us (the working class), regardless of what we do for a day job, our contributions are selectively highlighted, praised & rewarded in select elite spaces (like academia or other work institutions) only when they fit the needs of the empire.
I think it is important for us to constantly reflect on the needs, desires, wants we may have and how many of our behaviors or approaches to life (even if we have the best of intentions to take down oppressive systems) are heavily influenced by us being raised by the values of the empire that we may have taken on as our own.
Lessons I’ve learned from the personal & political
If we don’t spend time together or laugh & cry together, cook together, create joy together, mourn together & practice being emotionally vulnerable together… how in the hell will we fight oppression together? If we cannot prioritize caring for each other, being intimate with each other, being soft, & nurturing, how will we be free? Community & connection are medicine. Our relationships are the arenas of our lives where we can already be FREE if we want to (with daily practice). Most importantly, community is not a means to a “greater” end. Our relationships are all that we have & caring for each other + the land itself is THE thing that fills our lives with meaningful contentment.
Our desire to live is proportional to the intimacy of our relationships & how loved & cared for we are. Similarly, our capacity to organize in political movements is directly proportional to the level of care, intimacy, & deep emotional connection we’ve built with the people we organize with. The more time we spend truly getting to know each other beyond the superficial level, the more time we spend practicing being emotionally vulnerable with each other— the more we are able to practice liberation in REAL TIME today without waiting for some hypothetical utopia of tomorrow.
When we default to seeking solace in theory, academia, intellectualism, or focus on “doing more” to be productive, while telling ourselves we don’t have the capacity/ time/ space/ energy to show up in our intimate relationships… the underlying values guiding these choices may not be as liberating as we think.
Always fighting oppression without building care still CENTERS oppressive systems & not our communities. Engaging in care, culture & intimacy centers our communities.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Cosmic Anarchy to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.