totally agree, thank you for voicing this. i know my own weirdnesses are largely what drive me to be an activist (as they equally were what drove me to be an artist and geek —contexts which I now apply to social change practice), and i know how hard any form of mental health battles are in any context. to throw ones own vulnerabilities into movements made up from passion and pain in equal measures can be a huge risk, and we have to take care of ourselves as much as each other as we walk this path. but, yeah, if you suffer from the cruel disease known as ‘empathy’, i find there’s no other option. i cannot sit comfortably in a world where such imbalances exist, and i cannot block them out, pretend they don’t exist. so i find my own ways to protect myself and contribute to the movement. for me, that security is buslife. i wish everyone could have such an ‘easy’ option, but at least my bus is often a quiet space for others to share when required x