What's the opposite of peaking

[yubgummy]

I "peaked" a couple of years ago. It was wonderful in some ways to feel like I'd seen the light, that I was finally able to speak reality, etc. But it was also an emotional time - full of anger, despair, feeling lied to, losing friends, you all know the drill.

A close friend is now going through that and it made me realise that I've actually "gone back down the other side of the mountain". It's not that I've gone back to gender ideology, it's just that I've (re-)absorbed sexed reality back into my worldview and now I'm just calmly living my life. My friends know my views, I feel confident in my own perceptions of reality and don't feel a need to align them to anyone in particular. I just generally feel centred and grounded.

Anyone else go through something similar?

I'm not sure I completely follow

I get it. Still worried about the possibility of a totaliitarian reality denying future, but the personal, cognitive dissonance I feel has gone.

I am quite clear.

I’m just discovering “things” this last few years and feeling uneasy.

I’m not sure if I should learn all I can because I don’t want it to become my whole life and the lens I look at the world through. I hate feeling angry.

Its interesting to hear about this “peak” and that you can reach a calmer state after a few years.

@Baaaaaa yes, exactly.

To a small extent where there are things in my power to influence that future not coming to pass I do try to nudge it back towards sanity! But I no longer feel it as a crushing force as I did in say 2019/20 when I was first peaking.

Yip I peaked a few years ago and now I give myself twitter breaks and pretend none of it is happening. I remain a passionate feminist but constant engagement with this issue isn't possible without knock on effects. I come back to it when I feel energised to.

I find it very difficult to disengage from this issue. Even when I do actively try. It's like I can't remove my nightmare vision x-ray specs because it is everywhere. The propagandising subtexts in books, films, programmes, articles, it's in the news. I go to Tesco and I see professionals buying their dinner with their rainbow lanyards on. My child is still being forced to use mixed sex toilets and the other comes home weekly with tales of yet another drag queen assembly. Everything is infected with this. And the worst part is is that it's the tip of an Iceberg in terms of societal changes that are coming down the line.

Unless I completely stopped consuming any kind of current media and devoted myself solely to a solitary hobby like botany it's inescapable. Though even then I'd still be maddened by having to confront the immutability of sex while occupying a space in time where society as a whole has lost its collective mind.

I think once you realise the sheer horror of what's happening, it can be a bit overwhelming and all-consuming for a while. It becomes your default topic of focus. It all gets a bit "And another thing..."

After a while, you accept that's the state of affairs, you do what you can to counter it. Dig when asked to, sign petitions and email MPs, got to protests but it ticks along more in the back of your mind than the front.

Is that what you mean, OP?

I couldn't sustain the emotional intensity of my early reactions to all of this. I was wrung out and stepped back for a bit.

Plunging.

Just actually read the post. This is so confusing in what context is the peaking?

Also what is wrong with mixed sex toilets?

I couldn't sustain the emotional intensity of my early reactions to all of this. I was wrung out and stepped back for a bit.

I can't not sustain the fury. There's loads of awful things in the world and in this country, so plenty of other things that could be campaigned against. But for me, it's just unconscionable that truth about sex is being ignored in schools, sports, the courts etc etc.

I don't think any other social change has been done with so little debate or support.

There’s currently a five page thread on this.
www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4730017-to-think-mixed-sex-toilet-provision-has-proven-to-be-a-flop

Maybe ask on there?

I think what you're referring to is fatigue.

It's easier in a sense now than it was 5 years ago because there are so many people speaking out and tackling various aspects of of the fightback. I feel more able now to take a break from it all when needed.

I associate peaks and troughs with waves. When this wave crashes and breaks against the rock of reality ...what delights will the next one bring?

We do what we can to stay sane of course . I left Reddit and often disable FB and Twitter for peace of mind.

Once you 'see' the full implications of this ideology, you cannot 'unsee' it. This is a good thing but it would be unhealthy for it to totally govern your life. I need to take breaks away from reading and posting.
I subscribe online to a newspaper which now covers these issues from a mainly gc point of view and so reading articles and comments is less frustrating than it used to be, even just 2 years ago.
I have stayed off Twitter but do dig for the legal actions. This has helped keep some inner calm, as in Scotland women have been called upon by the police for posts on twitter. That is so chilling.

Dispiriting? Despairing?

'accepting' what you an change and what you can't....

Peaks and troughs.

If you lived in Scotland you wouldn't really have a choice to put it on the back burner.

TBH as a coping mechanism, I have started 'joking' with my DH that we will be doolally in our care home in 20-30 years' time so it doesn't really matter whether we manage to undo the damage or not....I almost fear more for the children harmed than for women now.
But I suppose like sport, kids is the issue most likely to get the dangers seen. Society has been very slow to realise the implications though.
The best way to roll it back as well as the obvious legal clarifications would be to get 'gender identity ideology' out of schools. Thatcher's Section 28 was a step too far but Trans is not the same thing as gay rights.

I think maybe the word I'm looking for is grounding.

It's not that I don't care about this issue anymore. I just feel so much more confident and centred when I think about it. I sign petitions, write to my MP. I'm active in local politics and have some opportunities in my workplace to influence our DEI policy and I take these opportunities to practically push back against local instances of this. So in some sense I actually am more "active" than when I was overwhelmed and stressing about the latest Twitter blow-up etc.

In the climate threat community there's an movement called Deep adaptation after an academic paper written by Jem bendal I think. It's about accepting we are all fucked as we are, and if there is a future it will be radically different and probably unrecognisable. They do a lot of stuff on grief and accepting what we face losing. Maybe look it up, it's been helpful for me when I feel despair.

Plateauing, maybe?

I'd go for plateauing. An initial spike and a massive desire to find out everything about issues I hadn't realised even existed and to talk about it, but the rest of life has to go on, there are other social issues that demand mental energy, and I spend a lot of time at a placid baseline of, "Humans can't change sex, it's a hard no from me to males in women's spaces, and I'm not going to tell lies to keep friends." I think everyone I know is aware that that's how I roll. And then something will happen that peaks me again for a while.

That sounds nice.

But my kid wants her breasts amputated as soon as she’s allowed to cash out her New Labour Child Trust Fund so nope, deffo not able to relax about it all yet.

Plus I have another child going starting secondary school next year and lots of friends with kids the same age so I’ve got a long slog of checking school PSHE resources and EDI training schemes ahead.

Feeling good about the smidgen of movement re: prisons and the fresh green shoots of free speech that have poked through the frosty ground this weekend tho!

It's easier in a sense now than it was 5 years ago because there are so many people speaking out and tackling various aspects of of the fightback. I feel more able now to take a break from it all when needed.

Agree with this.