I have always been depressed, but by early 2022, observing the acceleration of climate change from the vantage point of a wildfire zone, I felt I had run out of rope. I had known for about five years that it was too late to do anything about environmental collapse, and that it was likely fascism would come with it. I sensed that my understanding of this fact made me a doomer, someone who did not care about children because I did not have any, a hater of hope, anti-future. I was weighed down by a new and horrible self-repugnance about being a middle-aged white woman terrified that capitalism had come for me — the nerve. But I really did feel a deep conviction that we had all been robbed of our birthright, to enjoy the air, the rivers, the oceans, to see people younger than us grow old, possibly even to grow old ourselves. Perhaps worse than my despair was how impossible it felt to turn away from self-pity, especially since most of the world seemed to want me to do that more than they wanted to witness my sadness. The only solution that seemed to present itself with any regularity was to take my own life.
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