Immersed in something poisonous, unable to escape.
As you trudge neck deep in the mire, looking for a rope, looking for others who at least have their neck above the stuff, you begin to realize you’re all sinking, struggling. Most people have already succumbed to madness in the inescapable frustration of trying to cope and hold out. And you can feel it seeping into your pores.
As osmosis begins, you feel yourself succumbing to the poison. You try to start validating yourself. You talk and talk and talk. You sing your favorite songs to yourself. You chant mantras.
But slowly, the poison works at you, confusing you. And soon the wails of others are doing the same in an insumountable clamor. You’re not looking for them anymore. You can’t help them.
I’m moving again.
I wrote most of this post about six months ago, but now that I am finally moving, I am updating a few things and posting it.
After living in the Midwest for a year, in a smaller area, I am finally leaving.
I’m leaving because I find this area is truly depressing and disheartening, and it's left it's mark on me. Seeing the deeply ingrained racial hatred and homophobia, and the blatant and proud lack of education in the area, I realize how much the social disparity shifts from region to region, in our nation. The decades-late social retardation present in the Midwest is something people in coastal cities have absolutely no grasp on as they wrestle with ideas of legitimizing white nationalism, protecting hate speech, and finger-pointing at established academia. While there, I did try to understand the intellectual discussion on all of these things, in light of current events, despite my feelings on them and the area I was in.
But let me paint a little picture about where I have been living the past year. Let me tell you how often people here in the rural Midwest literally view these simple discussions as excuses for their own intolerance and ignorance, and not in the context of current social events going on in larger, more prominent areas. I don't think people realize this. Or call it into account when they are having these discussions. And the people in these smaller areas are statistically the people who put Trump in office, let me remind you. And no matter how you feel about the president’s political leanings, most people are at least aware he’s not the brightest crayon in the crayon box (not to mention incredibly narcissistic). That alone has been alarming to me since I first moved here.
This is why you hear me insist on things like the thought that dogmatically promoting anything is dangerous. For example, let’s make this broad, and consider capitalism. When I get into a debate about this, which many people like to lately—it’s exhausting—it’s not because I'm saying socialism is better. It’s because when you promote an -ism as something that is never wrong, large communities will pop up promoting versions of that -ism that are destructive, especially in poorly educated areas of the world. People in these areas really do believe:
capitalism = 'merica
And they will let themselves be told anything as long as the message has the "freedom" and "America" and "capitalism" trigger words. Except God always has to agree. That's very important.
Most people in the smalltown Midwest literally think of capitalism as something they don't already have, and as something which will bring back their old coal jobs and stop the encroachment of progressive values.
Those old coal jobs are gone. If they ever come back, capitalism will mostly employ robots, and probably not Hoosiers, unless they are engineers or some other type of professional. To me, that sounds great. But that isn’t what this trade-based town has in mind.
Also capitalism technically is a progressive idea. Free markets give birth to progressive values. So something that could be helping these people is simply being used and marketed as a crutch by people who want to gain power over them, and as an excuse for their own dynamic slump. But people here value traditionalism and community. They aren’t competitive at all, they are contently poorly informed as consumers, and are entirely intolerant to criticism. Which makes the patriarchal area (and I hate this word—knowing as a cult survivor what systemic control looks like—the US in general doesn’t fit the "patriarchy" bill... but the Midwest certainly does) a breeding ground for misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia. The truly unholy trinity.
And getting back to the original point, ultimately they aren’t capitalistic in any sense at all. Their culture truly isn’t. Their work ethic is high, but poorly executed and it simply screams "work hard, not smart". And ultimately, it is clear many people literally don’t even realize what they were asking for when they ask for capitalism, or when they elected our current commander in chief.
This is the type of thing that is so disheartening, compared to what I would hope. You would think people would just see needs and strive for them. A few rich and powerful elite hold sway in these towns, except there it is easier to spot, and easier to see the abuse of power. To me it’s so sad to see people being used like this. Their basic needs being used against them. And it has been even harder to be immersed in, especially being who I am.
I came here planning on leaving six months later. Then a financial crisis hit and I got inadvertently absorbed into the economy and air of this place. I have mostly written for work here. But I often just find myself writing a lot in general just to reassure myself.
I find myself reciting my mantras.
Conservative. Liberal.
Those things literally have no meaning left when it feels like people are literally only one way here because there is no other option. Products of an environment. Boyfriends and husbands literally do gaslight and abuse their wives and girlfriends in the realest and honest of ways, and odds forbid you try to say anything, or you act and try to help. People think it’s normal. It’s as it should be. Even victims eventually turn around and plug themselves back in to this virtual world of their abusive relationship.
My best friend and roommate here says this whole town is an abusive relationship. And it’s true.
I grew up in a cult that was like this even despite the surrounding area, so I recognize it. The misogyny. The internalized misogyny. Women passively fight back with the only power they have left. Then labeled crazy, manipulative, self-centered because there is literally nowhere else for anyone to go but inward as they are artificially open and then hollowed out. No were to go. There are shelters, but no real safe spaces against the real instigators and the judgement. It’s an air that’s breathed in around here.
The LGBT community here does it’s best to keep its neck above water, but they are definitely more scattered, and often very paranoid with one another. I haven't seen this in any other area I’ve ever been in. And I feel this is a symptom felt from a lifetime of making far too many concessions to other people’s ideas of normativity, even with all the legal battles that have been won here in the United States. Even with gay marriage being federally protected, most here remain deep in hiding.
A Federal USDA inspector here told me about one of her gay coworkers at a food plant in Kentucky, who apparently was her “friend”, but he was facing docked time and possibly even getting fired. She was “keeping her head down”, being LGBT herself, but criticized him for being so openly gay. She lamented that he was a good worker, but that he talked too much about his husband. It infuriated me, at the time, but I tried to reason with her on it.
And this is someone I dated for about a month. Part of an ongoing attempt to find my ‘people’.
My exhausted, beaten people. No matter how much reasoning you do with them, and no matter how much you try to help, most in the community don’t have the will to stand up for themselves. They don’t even see the differences I see in attitude and resignation, having lived in cities like West Palm Beach, Tampa and Seattle before this.
Independence is heavily discouraged here, but not aggressively. No. I believe because of long, hard winters, the north has a strong tradition of co-dependence to boot. So there’s no reason to be aggressive about it. It’s so ingrained that it comes out matter-of-fact. There is almost no hope except in each other—in family—in these areas, I would guess especially in the past. The strong sense of tradition would make sense then.
But imagine how that plays out with the LGBT people that find themselves here? The "community" in these rural areas is largely subversive and in hiding in many ways. There are gay clubs, but that night life is just about the only place people feel they can be just a little open. And the "drag" shows are largely just cis burlesque women in loads of make-up. I'm not much of one to scream appropriation, but to me it howls sadness. In all, the fear and sadness at these places make for some really creepy and presumptuous experiences from people that obviously have to hold back so much of who they are each day. Unwinding for them is like suddenly removing your hand a depressed spring, and it flies uncontrollably everywhere.
At the same time, when I first came here, with plenty of funds in my pocket, there was no way I was taking the chance flirting with a random person outside of the LGBT community, and then coming out. Not when trans people are being shot in the face.
Fuck. That’s right. About a week after a moved here, a trans woman got shot in the face, just outside one of those clubs. She did survive, thank goodness. I just hope she made it out of this area too.
It's so sad seeing how things are here, seeing how people's whole mentalities and worldviews are shooting them and the nation in the foot. And KNOWING how things are elsewhere. KNOWING there are better places with people that... where this... this isn't all they've ever known and all they can see. There are people in this world without the blinders on.
But instead, any unhappy person I get into contact with here just tries to slip those blinders over my head, and I just feel like throwing up. I can't swallow it. I feel like eventually I'm just going to stop struggling and let it come and allow myself to be boxed in and strapped into some matrix style life where I give up and make the decisions that bind me up so I can’t do anything more than be plugged in to this life of insincerity and apathy that everyone else is consumed by around here.
And yes, I wrote that part six months ago. In the months that followed I ended up dating an internally homophobic food inspector, so.
This is all they know. I know better. Maybe its culture shock, I don’t know. And the current situation in the world, the conversations and debates with friends on social media have been terrifying. No help. No release.
My roommate who I talked about earlier, met someone who just moved here and described exactly like that: Culture shock. And that’s the first person I’ve known of since I’ve been here that also has described it that way.
It honestly feels like I'm living in 90s Palm Beach County again. Which is where I grew up. Not the worst of places. There was a strong nod to counter-culture scene in places like California, but wholly misunderstood and, like most things in Florida, mostly for show, fun, and fashion. There was no way I could have come out back then. No way. I was also in a nut-job cult of religious fanatics back then. And this area is like that, living in the past. It's a time machine.
Don’t get me wrong, I find a lot of happiness from family, from my children. This area can be great for that. And of course, Part One to this post was written right here in the Midwest as well. It can be relaxing, if you're here for a short time, you aren't plugged into any social life in any way shape or form, and you just focus on only you and yours. Family alone has kept me going. But it has been difficult. I am so glad to be leaving this area.
Yes, this is somewhat of a rant. It's definitely not meant to insult anyone. So if you feel insulted, I am sorry. The other people who are woke in this area, the couple friends I’ve made, as far as I’ve seen, are simply doing their best. I love you all. But I am frustrated there aren’t more of you around, just as much as you are. And I have to move on with my children. And yeah, being Hispanic with two moms, in a town where the mixture of sneers and silence at open house were commonplace and the KKK was rallying downtown last weekend, this can’t go on. There are so many detractors to their pride and well-being in an area like this. People in general do treat them pretty well--being children--but they don’t bother to show acceptance for their family, nor allow them to show pride for it. And that’s not caring for them. That is hurting them.
So, this is my take on living in the frustration that is the rural Midwest. If you made it to the end of this, here's a virtual cookie.
*hands pixely chewy fresh-baked cookie*
Thanks for listening.
