When the System Hands You Humans Instead

When it comes to jury duty, there seem to be two types of people out there — the type that loves the idea of serving on a jury and the type who will do just about anything to avoid it.

I’m a million percent the second type and have been my whole life, despite never having had to report in person before yesterday. I don’t drive, and the courthouse is relatively far from my home. Plus, I’m neurodivergent with terrible anxiety and agoraphobic tendencies, so jury duty is packed with potential triggers I’ve learned to avoid through hard personal experience.

So, when I got my summons in the mail a while back, I tried everything I could to avoid it. I asked my therapist to write me an excusal letter (which unfortunately didn’t come through in time.) I overthought and tried to plan for every little possibility. I rage-snacked. You name it.

But this time the summons stuck, so yesterday morning, I found myself seated in a government building full of strangers and unfamiliar smells, bracing for the worst.

What I didn’t expect was how human the day would feel at the end of it all. Not in a “yay bureaucracy” kind of way, because fuck that, but in a we’re all just doing our best in here sort of way. And that, more than anything else, is what I want to share today, because I think we all need reminders like this from time to time.

Entering the Machine With Dread

Courthouses and legal protocol are designed to make you feel small and insignificant. Cold lighting. Metal detectors. People barking instructions about bags, and belts, and phones. So, as a neurodivergent person with anxiety, I arrived already feeling like prey. I anticipated robotic procedures and poor treatment from cold, cruel people who serve the machine (and like it). I expected to feel like just another cog in a system that doesn't care.

But what I found instead were… people:

• An older woman who sat next to me, pulled out a pendulum, and started divining with it like it was the most natural thing in the world to be doing in a courthouse
• A bailiff with a kind voice and a sense of humor who seemed more concerned with whether we spilled juice or coffee on the carpets than ruining anyone’s day
• A judge and a state prosecutor who genuinely thanked us for being there, acknowledged our inconvenience, and took real time to listen to each person who spoke

Maybe the Problem Wasn't Me: Rethinking Anxiety When the World Really Is Too Much

There’s a really common narrative people love to circle back to when it comes to anxiety. Maybe you’ve heard it.

You get all worked up about something ahead of time, because you're sure it's going to be an absolutely shit show of an experience. A test, a job interview, or maybe just a party. Your brain immediately kicks into worst-case-scenario mode. You lose sleep, overprepare, and stress-eat something regrettable (or, in my case, you stop eating at all). And then the day comes, and… it’s fine. Or at least not nearly as bad as you feared.

And that’s when you get the backhanded pep talk. "See? It was just your anxiety talking. It’s never as bad as we think it’s going to be."

But here’s the thing. That’s never really been my experience.

For me, things usually are as bad as I expect, if not worse. And what’s more, I don’t get used to them. They don’t become less overwhelming over time. I just get better at hiding how they make me feel until I burn out, shut down, or start fantasizing about disappearing into the woods where no one can find me. If it gets bad enough, suicide might even start looking like a great way off the merry-go-round, so yeah. It really is that bad.

And if that resonates with you, I want to talk to you for a minute. Because something's seriously wrong with that whole setup.

When Your Brain Isn't Lying

I used to assume I must just be overreacting. That I needed to “build resilience” or “get out of my comfort zone” more often, just like my mother used to say when she'd get disgusted with me. And I tried. For years. 

I pushed through school even though the noise, the pressure, and the constant need to perform left me raw and exhausted. I took (and kept) jobs that drained me daily because I had no other choice. I tried to do the socially expected things — like have a wedding to which other people were invited, make small talk, keep up appearances — and I hated every minute of it. I hated it all so much, I frequently found myself wishing I were dead, just so I wouldn't have to do it anymore.

And through it all, I kept waiting for that moment people talk about. The part where you realize it wasn’t so bad after all. 

That moment never came.

Because for people like me — people who are sensitive, anxious, maybe neurodivergent in ways they don’t even fully understand — our brains aren’t always wrong. We’re not catastrophizing or "being dramatic," as my mother always used to like to call it. We’re predicting.

The overstimulation, the exhaustion, the inevitable emotional hangover when it all eventually slips sideways? We saw it coming because we already know how much it takes out of us. This isn’t “just anxiety.” It’s lived experience telling us what we can expect because we've already been there before.

Ashes in the Shape of a Flag

I used to really look forward to posting on social media for Independence Day. I had this whole collection of humorous and over-the-top graphics I liked to share as a way of reminding people to make room for fun at some point in their day. But this year? All I had was a Midjourney render I churned out last night, and:

"Can you still hear me?"

"Yes. Now rise."

As you can see by the date stamp on this post, it's July 4th, 2025. Trump's Big Pile of Fascist Bullshit Big Beautiful Bill passed yesterday, and (like a lot of people), I'm more than a little numb about it, so there's not much to celebrate today. Not in the traditional sense, anyway. 

I'm not proud of my country anymore. In fact, I'm genuinely embarrassed by what it's become over the years.

But we're going to take a half-day from work today, order some pizzas, and light the fire pit as planned tonight, regardless. Not because I believe in the flag or feel like celebrating America today. Certainly not because I feel safe or because I think this country is what it says it is. 

But because I need to remember I’m still here. Still me. Still watching. Still speaking. And maybe someone somewhere is still listening.

As my render for today very deliberately suggests, America, for a lot of us, feels hollow now and has for quite some time. What's left is the husk of something powerful, something once full of promise. But inside? Just wind and ghosts. 

I hope better days are coming eventually, but truth be told, I expect things to get a lot worse before they start getting better. In the meantime, all I can do is whatever I can to protect myself, protect the people I love, and be one of the ones who helps however I can.

When You Thought You Could Handle It (But Couldn't)

There are moments in life when you really think you’ve finally got it. You’re managing your obligations, you’ve built coping mechanisms that work for you, and you’ve certainly been through worse, so surely, you can handle this, too. 

Until something makes you realize you've just hit a point where you truly can't handle one more thing. 

It’s a deeply uncomfortable realization, especially for people who pride themselves on being resilient. But it's important to realize these moments don’t mean you’ve failed. They mean you’ve hit a hard limit that you should think twice about pushing past.

And I'm realizing limits aren't necessarily weaknesses, the way I was raised to think. They're information you can use to help yourself... if you choose to treat them that way.

The Moment Something Cracks

Sometimes the breaking point sneaks up on you. It’s not always the “big” crisis you expect. Sometimes it's something as mundane as an extra-tight deadline, a phone call, or some bad news you didn't expect.

For me, it was a jury summons. Something that would be a minor annoyance to most people.

I don't talk about it much, but I've suffered from anxiety and occasional panic attacks my entire life. I'm aware of some of my worst triggers and do my best to avoid or temper them. Others, I'm not as aware of, and they wind up sneaking up on me. Today, I found out the idea of having to show up and report for jury duty in person is apparently one of them.

I've received summonses before, but I've always been excused on check-in and never had to report in person. But this time was different. Instead of seeing that I was excused like usual, I saw that I'd be expected to report in person for the first time ever in my life by 9:30 Monday morning. 

I'd have to figure out how I'd get someplace half an hour away without private transportation. I'd have to spend my weekend front-loading my work week to prepare for the possibility of being seated on a jury. I'd have to basically not go to sleep Sunday night, because 9 AM for me is basically like 4 AM for someone else. And I'd have to do all this on the heels of a solid two months of non-stop stressful events and work overload instead of enjoying a badly needed rest.

And that's when it started happening. 

On Mindfulness and Stress Management

Zihuatanejo - Shannon Hilson via Midjourney

I've been trying something a little different the past couple of days with my self-care routine, just to see how things go. Seth's brother gifted him a one-year subscription to Calm perhaps a month ago or so, and he's really been liking it -- especially the soundscapes and ambient sounds. So I had him send me a pass for a free one-month trial to see if it's something I might like, too.

I've struggled with issues like anxiety, recurring depression, and frequent overstimulation (due to autism and neuroatypicality) my entire life. Over the years, I've discovered lots and lots of ways to cope with those things and keep them in check so that I can actually function on a semi-normal level. But sometimes I wonder how good a job I'm really doing on a deeper level.

I often think I've reached a place where I feel OK about something but still wind up showing clear signs that I'm actually still pretty anxious about it underneath. 

For example, I was supposed to appear for jury duty last Monday. I knew about it a couple of months in advance, so there was this long period over the holidays that felt like some sort of doomsday countdown. And that wasn't too big a problem until I reached the point where it was maybe a couple of weeks away, then a week, and then just a couple of days.

I wasn't incapacitated by anxiety or anything, as I was definitely living my life and going about my business in every way that really mattered. And for that reason, I told myself, "Oh, I've got this totally under control and feel fine about it." But I realized that probably hadn't been the case when I checked in on the county court site the Friday before my Monday summons date to double-check the time.