Today is election day in the United States of America. As people read this, their minds will be elsewhere. They will be thinking of all that is at stake tonight and for the days, weeks, months, and years ahead. Someone will win. Someone will lose. America’s unofficial sport will shift its focus. Some will play offense. Some will play defense. The beat that is American democracy will go on methodically until the next contest.
Yet, this is not just election day. Not for me. Not for us. Not for the people who knew and loved you. Today is the day you left us.
As I approach this letter, I do so in the midst of a storm that has fundamentally changed this country. Since late January, our country has lived with the reality of a once in a century pandemic. Since March, many of us have only known the confines of our homes. We have missed birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, funerals, graduations, and hundreds of other little celebrations. Millions of us are without work. As of today, 226,000 of our fellow Americans are dead. Dreams and plans have been placed on the back burner. Our faith in public institutions has been shaken to its core. America has changed.
Little brother, I wish I could say this is the full scope of what ails us, but something just as sinister is waiting in the wings.
Depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and countless other mental health challenges are going unnoticed. I believe a sense of shame is keeping us from having a deeper conversation about the personal battles countless citizens of our country are facing. My sincere hope with this year’s annual letter is simple, yet overly ambitious. I hope to name shame. I hope to talk about what it can do. I hope we can collectively rise above it.
I assume shame is an evolutionary trait. I assume it keeps us from acting in a way that would have a negative impact on our self-interest or the interest of our tribe and community. We feel shame because we feel pride. We have a set of morals and, to a larger extent, a set of community customs in which we operate. To push against those standards is a violation of what we have been taught by our parents, our leaders, and our experiences. Shame is a mechanism meant to protect us.
What happens when you are different?
Shame keeps someone with mental health challenges from seeking help. Shame keeps a closeted-youth from setting himself free. Shame keeps the addicted from admitting weakness. Shame keeps the sexually assaulted with a painful secret. Shame keeps the harassed in their place.
Shame locks us in a box. Shame is our instincts working against us. Shame makes us believe suicide is the only option. Shame makes us believe we can never be our true selves. Shame makes us believe seeking help is also a form of weakness. Shame makes us believe we deserved it. Shame puts us through a game of mental gymnastics where we think harassment was warranted.
Shame puts us in closets of fear. I am asking us to be unashamed about who we are and what we have experienced. Today, on the sixth anniversary of my brother’s passing, I am going to take the first step. I am asking us to break free and want to lead by example.
No one planned for this year. I fully recognize that I am not unique. Yet, I do not know anyone who was as vocal about their intentions. This year, I intended to leave Los Angeles, hike the full length of the Pacific Crest Trail, arrive back in Seattle, find a job I love, and possibly buy a home.
2020 had other plans. The task of leaving Los Angeles was harder than I thought. I had fallen deeply in love with the place and the people I met there. Looking at the crowd who had gathered for my going-away party I was floored by the community I had built. I began the Pacific Crest Trail and four days later I was told to go home out of an abundance of caution due to COVID-19. In May, we buried my father. At the end of June, I began hiking the Colorado Trail but quit because my heart was not feeling it. Since July, I have felt nothing but the sting of rejection in my pursuit to find a job back in Seattle.
I feel alone, isolated, rejected, disappointed, and heartbroken. Now, I do not suffer from depression. I have never made a plan and I have never thought about this world without me in it. Yet, I am suffering from a prolonged period of sadness. Shame has kept me from saying that out loud. My partner knows my pain, but no one else understands the extent.
2020 has been a cascade of disappointment and there have been moments when I have doubted if I was built to withstand it all. I tell you this all without an ounce of shame. This is who I am, and this is the moment I find myself. My purpose in telling you this is two-fold. One, honesty is freeing. Telling the world I am struggling feels like Atlas unbinding himself from the weight of the world. Two, I want you to know I need your help. I need words of kindness, I need job leads, I need to hear from friends and family, I need to be understood, and to know I am not alone. I need to feel as if someone is standing by my side ready to do battle with me. I need the power of community.
In my mind, when the shamed become unashamed and those standing on the outside rally to their side with nothing but unconditional love, honest support, and kindness, then we become more powerful than shame. We become a community of immeasurable power.
As I close this year’s annual letter, Lucas, I wish you would have been unashamed. I wish the opportunity to speak your truth would have been met with the help so many of us, me included, are seeking. Unfortunately, your story is written, but its impact is far-reaching. On a daily basis, it is a story filled with lessons for us all. Thank you for the continued opportunity to learn.
Be good to each other,
Nathan
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