Clinical support for calling congress

Cognitive therapy has begun

I have a speech therapist now! She is doing cognitive therapy for me. (If you can explain why the professional is called a speech language pathologist but she’s providing me cognitive therapy, I’d love it. But also whatever, she’s helping!)

She asked me what I want to work on – what tasks in my week are hard and could be worked through. I asked her to help me with my (theoretically) daily calls to congress to urge them to support a ceasefire now. Here’s what we came up with:

1. Make a script for myself. It’s easy for me, once I start talking, to start speech-making. Don’t worry, friends and family, I know this about myself and I’m working on it. But this also means it takes a lot out of me to make one call, if I start speaking off the cuff and passionately. So key points are:
   • no aid to Israel
   • ceasefire now
   • this is a racist genocide enacted with our tax dollars
2. i wrote the script out on a card that i keep in my dot journal, so I can look at my script without the distractions of a screen. I also wrote down the names of my three congresspeople or reps or whatever, and the US president (along with the limited hours that the White House comment line is open: tues/weds/thurs 11am-3pm).
3. I put the screens away and call my reps with the script in front of me, and some chocolate that I will eat as soon as I’m done, to keep body and soul together.
4. I reduce distractions (i.e. if I need to eat or drink or use the bathroom first in order to not be distracted by messages from my body, I’ll do that).
5. And then I call. And then I eat the chocolate.

Two things to call about

One is of course the urgent need for a permanent ceasefire and end to Israel’s genocide and ongoing apartheid regime.

Another reason to call elected officials is that right now, CDC is discussing ending the five day (only five days!!) isolation period for covid. Two huge reasons why that’s bad:

• there are already so few policies in place to slow, let alone stop, the spread of covid which continues to kill and disable people
• Ending the isolation period will have ripple effects to reducing the already inadequate labor protections around sick days — if someone is sick, they shouldn’t be forced to go to work and isolation requirements are one way that workers can be supported in staying home (and healing and not getting longcovid and not spreading infection)

I’m happy to share this information because writing things down and explaining it to others helps me remember for myself, and also because I am so grateful to have my clinical care covered by insurance (and provided virtually, after much self-advocacy). I am so happy to share what I’m learning in my appointments with loved ones who may also want support in making the calls without it taking so much out of them.

And if you’d like to send these messages to your elected officials but the phone is not an option for you, please remember that email and snail mail also get counted — and that there are infinite ways to participate in making the world better, and of course many of those infinite ways have nothing to do with contacting your elected officials.

Looking forward to sharing more quilty and crafty content next time — as well as a fun brassica mystery — xo.

kitten helping me sew by lying as close to the presser foot as possible, while a mass of yellow flannel with gold stars spills out from every part of the beautiful sewing machine