q: how do you keep going?

why am I so insecure? I feel like I only seek out situations / relationships that hurt me on purpose like why do i hate myself / seek out affirmations of my self hatred?

It seems to me that there is a counterintuitive energy in this question. The question signals to me that you're aware of the pattern you have created for yourself, a pattern that perhaps, a younger, more self-destructive version of you has designed. Are you tired of that pattern?

The world, in so many ways, tells us that we are not meant to fit in it, that the natural shape of our peg does not fit into the manufactured shape of that hole - that you are quintessentially broken. I think there's a part of you that has clocked this lie. If you seek out relationships with people that replicate that messaging, are you seeking some twisted version of euphoria? Seeking out relief from the voice in your head that has held out all these years, enduring the messaging, the violence. The voice in your head that says I am worthwhile. I deserve love. Are you seeking out the experience that will finally kill that voice? One more negligent friend, one more cruel lover, one more crushing conversation that will make you truly believe, down to your bones and blood that you are broken? Sorry to bombard you with questions that you cannot answer, but I have to ask one more: what's the fucking point of that?

There are people out there who love you - no reservations. They see the best in you and want to help you reach your highest potential. Perhaps these people are already in your life and you are refusing to believe that they might actually love you. Let go of whatever narrative you have of yourself that centers on self-hate. You've already reinvented yourself once or twice - why not reinvent yourself one more time?

advice for intimacy issues as a child of immigrants?

I know you're good at being alone, at being in charge of your own domain, because when things were tough, you had to hold it down for your parents. You were just a baby and they expected a lot out of you: they wanted you to be their guide to this strange world, but they never gave you anything in exchange: simple, easy love. That kind of simple, easy love that is abundant for us if we open up, if we disable the flight or fight response, if we let someone in - especially someone who has proven they are worthy of your trust.

Everything that came before this was hard. Sometimes, it seems like everything that may come after this will be hard – the future threatens us with its devastation, all of its trials coming at us at once, a tidal wave of trains hurtling towards the viewer. It's easy to think that you will be save from it all on the island oasis you built out of your solitude. I mean, it's nice to know that the oasis will be there when the going gets tough. I'm not saying you need to destroy that sanctuary. But, right now, in the present, I think it will be worthwhile to bask in the affection of your friends, your lover. Let it be easy. It takes courage, it takes a true stalwart heart to let someone support you, to let them in, and to make sure the anxiety about the future doesn't cave in on you. But I believe in your ability to do so. Loosen up the muscles, hug bae, and talk about what's hard to talk about. That moment, that intimate hug, is where the big, easy, simple sunshine of love, can be focused, magnified, and turned into a super heated laser beam, with which you can cut through anything.

Queer living in the polycrisis. How do you keep going?

We're in charge of the world we're living in. It feels sometimes as if we have no power, but we do. We have a responsibility to ourselves, to each other, to people who have died for the sake of a better world, and for the babes who are coming after us hoping to have less of a shitshow to deal with. I think queer people have a calling because the truth of the world – it's beauty and it's horror – is the most obvious to us. Its our job to seek out that truth, to reconcile with it all: that we as humans are capable of so much beautiful creation and capable of so much horrifying destruction, that some of us are born in the heart of the empire and some of us are born under its boot, that we as queer people have so little and are tasked with so much.

We can roll over and give up, or we can keep going. We can hold hands and weather the storm. When the fascists come to take us away, we can hold on tight. We can kick and we can scream and refuse to let go. We can cook dinner with our friends, we can help them move, we can be there for them when shit gets scary. When you have that clarity, I believe the path forward becomes obvious. All you have to do is walk forward.