I’ve had a ‘Feet first into hell’ or a ‘Fuck it, we ball’ mentality since like my second year of high school. It sort of developed from initially getting dragged into the drama, debate, and forensics (oration) club and getting thrown in the deep end of the field of debate and eventually developing my skills at spontaneous commentary oration (glorified bullshitting) and through just years of having to do public speaking I’ve gotten over being an introvert wallflower. On the physical side, I’ve been run down into abject physical misery several times and had to push through to keep going. That gave me a sort of brain shut-off switch thats like running on an automated machine to to as its told such as jumping off towers or out plane doors, zipping straight down wire lines in almost-freefall, letting myself get drowned like a rat in a metal cage, etc. I guess this isn’t very helpful advice now that I think of jt.

Communism is a hammer e will use to crush our enemies with

Early in transition I found myself practically paralyzed with fear. Cops had ran me out of my hometown harassing and repeatedly arresting my first boyfriend for being gay and to make matters worse I got news that one of Trump’s 3 letter agencies had noticed me for something nonpolitical (first term). My brain was breaking I was so overloaded with fears of the unknown, being taken away or locked up.

So I concocted dangerous or life threatening ways to peer over the edge just to show myself that, “see, it’s not so bad? You do all this crazy shit and nothing happens! You’re fine! Better than fine!”

I’ve carried so much drugs to confront riot cops and got caught in a kettle with a shirt that said “410 billion dead cops” on it. I’ve gone running on jetties and onto rocks in December on the Maine coast and almost been swallowed by the icy sea. Open carrying multiple drugs into a federal law enforcement building through multiple layers of security. My car goes 0-60 in just over 3 seconds, I’ve done so much life threatening stupid shit just to practice white knuckling it. Given the middle finger to someone pointing a gun in my face harassing me for being trans at an Atlanta gas station in the middle of the night. I used to take acid and then leave myself trapped in public places unable to leave until I sobered up, forced to confront the general public for four to eight hours. There’s more dumb shit where that came from but those are the highlights.

Reckless, regardless, I’d just throw myself into or create unsafe situations that would force me to sink or swim. I would try to provoke a panicked adrenaline rush until it stopped being easy to make myself feel that way. I used to be scared to be outside in my own front yard and a decade later I feel bulletproof.

it’s made me a worse person

Not really, you’re just a person and its understandable that you might feel this way when faced with the situation we find ourselves in. Beating yourself up is unlikely to help.

I’m kind of in the same boat as you are but I have found that taking smaller, less daunting, immediately actionable steps renders a lot more progress than larger leaps. You’re the best person to decide what those small steps are but they can be things like attending a low intensity protest (recurring ones can be a safe bet, even if you have to travel a little way to get there), volunteering with local orgs (leftist or otherwise, food panties feed people, regardless of who runs them), or attending leftist educational sessions (some local socialist groups do teach-ins, not sure how common these are elsewhere).

Some may disagree with this, but being especially kind to the people around you is an anticapitalist action. Under capitalism we are in an alienated, adversarial, and competitive relationship with everyone around us. Stuff like stopping to help a stranger who’s car broke down, engaging with a service worker as a fellow human being or handing out cash to homeless people are all small actions that make a difference and would be commonplace in a more cooperative society. This kind of practice makes it easier to break the social norm of “minding your own business” which keeps a lot of people from taking action at all.

You’re never really going to remove fear, its more about getting used to it and doing things anyways. Activism is supposed to be something you do your whole life. While there aught to be some urgency to get out there and do your part you don’t need to become an antifa supersoldier by this time tomorrow.

Good luck! you can do this!

Edit: you’ll never participate in organizing “alone” you will find yourself with likeminded people. If being among strangers is intimidating then its not unreasonable to bring a friend or an acquaintance.

There are real, impactful things you can do as a leftist that would be very unlikely to lead to reprimand or violence. You can:

• provide childcare/other care/cleaning for someone who needs a break
• volunteer with existing community orgs that do good local work even if they are not “leftist” enough for you. You’d be surprised who you meet, and who else is not shouting their beliefs from the rooftops.
• teach a skill
• organize to buy things in bulk and splitting them to provide cheaper prices to all participants (lower food costs for example)
• organize a group of people with diverse skills so that they can help each other, without exchanging money.

Honestly, volunteering with existing “above ground” orgs is really my top suggestion. It teaches you invaluable lessons about organizing, sustainability, and cooperation. It makes real impact to local communities and helps you meet your neighbors.

I think there are a lot of expectations that flashy protests or action is where change happens and that it’s a sustainable approach for an individual. They are important, for sure, but they don’t get the washing done! And they wear you down. I’m speaking from 20+ years experience.

The other thing I want to say is that in many cases the people who are doing the things you are afraid of are not afraid, and that’s why they are doing it. That doesn’t make you less. Maybe they hate a task that you are really good at and enjoy doing. It takes a team to make things happen, and everyone is an important part of it.

Two things which I have found effective are mindfulness and action. These two things are useful in different contexts of feeling fear. I find mindfulness to be useful with big picture types of fear, the sort of stuff you lay awake in bed late at night thinking about. Climate change, fascism, existential dread. It’s far easier said than done, but practicing being in the present moment instead of dwelling on things in the future and past which are largely out of your control is incredibly valuable and something I think everyone should do. And it is a skill, practicing it will make you better at it. Meditation is very useful for this. Action on the other hand is something I find more useful for specific fear, fear caused by a particular event, situation, thing, etc. Think public speaking, introducing yourself to someone, standing up for yourself, etc. Once again this is a lot easier said than done, but you kinda have to just do it. Like mindfulness this is a skill that also gets easier with practice. A phrase which I have found really helpful (shoutout to Dave from Shoeless in South Dakota) is “you don’t think your way into acting differently, you act your way into thinking differently”. I find that if I wait to feel like doing something I’m afraid of, I’ll never feel like doing it, but if I simply do it, I’ll realize that I had nothing to fear, or if I did, then it’s something I can handle. This makes sense in a way. We know as materialists that ideas don’t shape and change history, material things and actions do. Why would it be any different on a personal level?

I hope this was a bit helpful and that you can conquer your fears soon. Also don’t ever blame yourself. I think self compassion and acceptance that you’ll fail sometimes is incredibly important in the whole process of facing fear and anxiety as well. Like lots of other things, this is something meditation has helped me with too. Good luck comrade

Working on this too.

One of my big fears is the fear of being disliked. So one thing I’ve simply done is on tumblr, pushing back at the dumbest terfs I can come across. I use every single tactic and attitude my 2013 anti-SJW ass loved.

My persona is literally if Sam Harris had the guts to not punch down for clout.

There’s no silver bullet, you have to practice acting in the face of fear. This is something you can deliberatly practice and become better at.

The other end of it is to not let fear dominate your thoughts in times of inaction (late at night in bed is the classic case). No silver bullet here either, it requires a lot of introspection about what you can control, and keeping things in perspective.

Leftist action can be a properly scary thing to engage with, because it demands real change in society. Not only is there real danger from the forces of reaction, but real change is itself a scary prospect.

For me personally, it really just boils down to setting it aside.

I know how likely car crashes are. I see how motherfuckers are out here trying to straight up murder me for no personal reason and without a care in the world. But I still get in that car and now it’s out of my hands. All I can do is be aware and not be the reason for a crash. But if some absolute fuckhead runs a red light at 40mph over the speed limit and kills me, nothing I can do. That’s scary, but I just don’t think about it.

I’m terrified of death itself. If I thought about it I’d do nothing but hide under my bed completely frozen in a state of unending dread. So I don’t think about it.

Any of the hundreds of people I see when I’m out and about could whip out a gun and shoot me at any moment. I could be scared of that. But that fear isn’t helpful. If it happens it happens. All I can do is be aware of my surroundings so I can react appropriately to any dangers that might crop up and… not think about it.

Thank you for all the responses! I feel like replying to everyone individually would be spam-y, so I’ll just say you’ve given me a lot of information to work with, and I’ll do my best to internalize what you wonderful people have said!

Having violence inflicted upon me made me afraid. Understanding the structural nature of that violence made me realize it will not stop until the structure is dismantled. It does not assuage the fear i feel when i do something. Instead, i do it scared. I can be afraid and do nothing, or i can be afraid and do something. Do it scared.

Systematically breaking down outcomes into all the various possibilities and understanding the chances of them. Then planning around those effectively.

Fear is almost always because of limited planning and the potential of something going badly due to some unknown thing. Properly understanding the various possibilities and planning for them turns something scary into a plan that needs to be put into action. If the points of failure in the plan are potential for execution errors then practice.

I understand this is a very mechanical approach.

For me it was about 7 years working at a 7-11 and being physically and verbally threatened so much I just became numb to that kind of anxiety. I was shot at once, assaulted on multiple occasions and at some point I cannot really pinpoint when, probably after one of my coworkers was murdered I just stopped really caring what might happen to me. I don’t think there really is a specific formula that applies broadly to anyone. As Alaskaball said you kinda just gotta at some point throw caution to the wind.

With anger.