An Introduction, and Where We Go From Here

Hi, I’m Kelly S. McGonigal. If you’re reading this (especially as an email), you’re probably one of my friends from Facebook. In which case, hi again. You know my deal. But maybe you stumbled across this via my Twitter profile. If so, some of what I say here might not apply to you. If that’s the case, please feel free to come back later when I’ve posted my next newsletter. This one’s more of a personal soft-launch for my friends. Still, much of what I’ll say might speak to you, and if so, please feel free to subscribe for more (more on that later).

As I mentioned yesterday on Facebook (not linking because it was a private post), I’ve mostly left that site. When I joined Facebook in 2008 or so, I loved its potential for writers. Sure, I liked the memes, the family photos, the pictures of everyone’s dinners. (People decry that last one, but as someone who loves cooking, loves food, and loves the cultural connections that food brings, I personally miss that phase.)

But as a writer who’s long struggled to find an outlet that would keep me coming back again and again, Facebook seemed ideal. One of my favorite writers, Michael Ellsberg, was extremely active on the site in those days, and his work always provoked thought and inspired me to dig deeper into my own philosophy. Ever cognizant of the impact words can have (I maintain that saying “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt you” is a gaslighting tactic to minimize verbal abuse), I haven’t wanted to actively strive toward publishing anything more broadly unless and until I knew my motivations were aligned with my ethics. On Facebook, though, I could kind of “workshop” some of my thoughts. I have a small circle of connections there, much smaller than my Twitter following, and the majority of them are people I know personally, either through in-person or other online venues. There, I could express my feelings and perspectives on anything from my family’s cooking to the perils of the police state. I found a lot of people agreed with me. Some didn’t, and some of those friendships didn’t survive, while others have agreed to an “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything” policy on my political posts, and then interacted with my family posts or pictures of my cats.

I understood the decision of friends who disagreed to steer clear of my political posts (although I’ve only recently learned to enforce proper boundaries in the rest of my life, I made it obvious that if someone was going to disagree with me on my Facebook, I was going to continue arguing with them until they agreed or left).

But as the state of affairs in the United States and the planet as a whole has become so volatile, I’ve found it more and more important to speak out on these matters. And when Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, and in that decision made it clear that the Court plans to overturn recent civil rights victories for marriage equality, contraception, and even the right to be gay (or trans) in private, I knew I had to write more. Alas, it appears these days, most people who continue to use Facebook do not seem to use or interact with it the way they once did.

My recent forays into Facebook have brought about a stark dissonance: I watch as the right to merely exist as one’s self is being eroded in real time, as fascism increases its stranglehold on our institutions, our populace, our very thoughts; meanwhile, on Facebook, everything is mimosas and house remodels and vacations and Wordle scores. Don’t get me wrong, please. We all should experience joy and live our lives and share those experiences with our friends. But to focus on that at the exclusion of discussing any real issues, to me, is a luxury none of us can afford.

Still, I understand that for many reasons, many of you choose not to engage in that way on Facebook. For many of us, it appears, we’re there because that’s where our extended family is and that’s how we keep up with them without having to deal with their politics. But I have to choose to extract myself from there. Chalk it up to my cPTSD, or my (diagnosed) ADHD or (suspected) autism (or a combination of the three), but I can’t handle seeing only fluff on a site made in such a way that long-form writing is possible. I want to enjoy all your happy posts, and I do, but not without feeling the discomfort of that dissonance. Slowly but surely, thanks to some excellent trauma therapy (which I highly recommend for anyone who can access it), I’m learning to listen to my body and follow her guidance on what is good, healthy activity for me and what isn’t. Feeling that dissonance does not make the cut. And you don’t need me being a Debbie Downer when you’re sharing your life (seriously, I love you all, but seeing so many maskless gatherings when we are facing multiple airborne pathogens is too hard for me to handle).

Which brings me to my Substack.

First off, no, I’m not expecting those of you who receive this initial newsletter via email to pay to subscribe. Honestly, I’m not sure how many paid subscribers I expect to get. I’m not doing this for the money (although sure, some income would be nice). But I do want to offer an avenue for discourse on my posts, without opening up the comments to everyone. And Substack’s minimum monthly subscription is $5. If you feel like throwing a fiver my way every month to write my weekly newsletters, I’d sure appreciate it, but I’ll be truly shocked if I get any takers on that for the time being.

But Substack does allow an annual rate of as low as $30. If you want to pay $30 a year for the right to opine on my newsletters, go right on ahead! That’s a heck of a deal. There’s also a “Founding member” option of $210. That gets you lifetime access to all my newsletters, both public and subscription-only. I will also publish sneak peeks of my upcoming memoir on my experiences with Alzheimer’s in three generations of my maternal line (which I will address further in next week’s newsletter), and for now that will only be published for founding members.

As for what you can expect from my newsletters, I will offer my insights on life as a mom of a trans kid; growing up as a queer, neurodivergent Gen X kid; my mother’s fight with Alzheimer’s; my family’s work to heal from personal and generational trauma; my perspective as a historian on this moment in which we are living and how our liberation is all connected—that there is no subset of the population we can sacrifice to fascism in order to save the rest of us.

But there will also be pictures of cats.

For those of you who’ve made it this far, I appreciate it. My weekly newsletters will always be free to e-mail subscribers no matter how my Substack grows and develops over time, and I’m so grateful to see that so many of you have already subscribed. I won’t spam you or sell my email list or anything shady like that.

Welcome, and check your email next Wednesday for the next edition of Dispatches from Middle America!

~Kelly