Mutual Aid, Mental Health, and Community

    As of recent I've started helping with a mutual aid group in my city, Food Not Bombs, and although I'm very new to it all, it has made a clear positive impact on my life already. Becoming an active member of something where I can make a genuine impact on others, as well as find a sense of community, is one of the best things I could've decided to do both for my mental health, but also for finding motivation and inspiration. People are meant to help one another, share experiences, and take action together, not stay isolated from each other.

    The way that a large portion of American society is structured, it can be very hard to find any sense of community, let alone find people that are willing to take political action with you. For example, the closest store to my apartment is about ~30-45 minutes away on my bike, and I'd have to cross an eight lane highway, and the closest public place without an expectation of spending, is about an hour walk. On top of that the people in my area (generally suburban, upper middle-class types), tend to have hyper-judgemental and paranoid mindsets. For example, think of those suburban moms who won't let their child go trick-or-treating because they're convinced that someone will be lacing candy with fentanyl, or the parents of children who would glare at me and shield their children from me as I walked past before I was able to pass as cisgender, because they genuinely believed that trans people were out to "groom" their kids. These kinds of mindsets, as well as the base infrastructure here in the United States, make it almost entirely impossible to find any semblance of community outside of cities or mutual aid/community events. These things make it so easy to fall into a feeling of complete hopelessness, like there's nothing that you as an individual can do, so why even try. Even if you understand these issues, and logically understand that it isn't hopeless, it still sinks into your brain. I have noticed that the more time I spend in more car-centric areas, the worse my anxiety becomes, the harder it becomes to talk to people, and the less motivated I become to take care of people around me or invest in creative projects.

    Specifically when it comes to motivation and inspiration, I think one of the main factors in finding these things is being able to use these tools for a group or community effort, or being able to make something that will genuinely brighten someone else's day. An example of this from my life would be with baking. I've always loved to bake and I've been wanting to improve my skills with it for a long time, but I could almost never find the motivation to bake my own recipes from scratch, but after making and bringing cookies to give to people at a mutual aid event, I suddenly feel more motivated than ever to bake more things, and to improve at it. It made me feel incredibly happy and much more confident in myself than usual to see them be gone within 20 minutes, and to hear that everyone loved them. Another aspect of mental health that I think events and groups like these improve, is anxiety. The isolated and paranoid nature of American society can make you feel increasingly anxious about the world around you, about being in public, or about talking to others, but being able to sit and talk to people, help them when you're able to, and contribute to community efforts will do wonders for issues with anxiousness and self-confidence. Becoming more involved in community and being able to contribute is not only necessary for self-improvement, but also necessary to maintain a feeling of hope and sanity. We aren't supposed to be alone, and we aren't supposed to suffer by ourselves.

    I hope this doesn't come across as preachy or condescending in any way, it's just something I have noticed over the past month or so as I've been getting more active. Through taking part in events and being more connected politically, I've become a lot more motivated to take action, create, and better myself. I don't feel hopeless anymore. There is a better future possible, and I think it's important to remind yourself that things don't have to be this way, and that it isn't a lost cause.

TL:DR helping when you can makes you feel good and mutual aid is cool and awesome