The System Is Designed to Keep You Too Tired to Resist

Post 2 in the Peaceful Resistance Series

Jun 06, 2025

You are not lazy.
You are not broken.
You are not “just not trying hard enough.”

If you’ve found it hard to care, hard to focus, hard to stay engaged—that’s not a personal failure.
That is what happens when a system drains your energy, your stability, and your hope on purpose.

Most of us have lived in survival mode at some point.
Some of us—especially women, parents, caretakers, the working poor—have lived there for years.

You don’t make long-term plans when you’re surviving.
You don’t march when you’re unsure how to pay rent.
You don’t debate policy when your nervous system is screaming “just get through today.”

And the truth is: that’s the point.

Survival Mode Is Not a Side Effect. It’s a Strategy.

When you're in survival mode, you don’t challenge power.
You don’t organize. You don’t dream.
You just comply—or collapse.

So the more unstable life becomes—economically, emotionally, morally—the easier it is for authoritarianism to thrive.

That’s not a theory. It’s the pattern.

Look around:

Food prices skyrocketed, and corporate profits soared—while politicians blamed inflation like it was a natural disaster.
Medical research that used to be public and life-saving is now privatized and patent-locked—if it’s funded at all.
Corporations bought up entire neighborhoods and turned homes into rentals—then raised rent in lockstep through third-party “pricing tools” (North Carolina’s AG is investigating).
Federal workers are being threatened into leaving their jobs by the architects of Project 2025—who openly admit they want to “scare” civil servants into quitting.
ICE and law enforcement wear masks, raid homes without warrants, and stage daylight abductions—not just for effectiveness, but for spectacle. Fear isn’t a bug. It’s the brand.

This isn’t about isolated bad actors.
It’s about a system built to make you tired enough to stop resisting—just long enough for someone else to take control.

What This Does to the Brain

When your body is in survival mode, your brain doesn't prioritize curiosity, collaboration, or long-term vision.
It prioritizes safety.
It narrows your focus to what’s urgent and shuts down anything that feels uncertain, risky, or emotionally costly.

That includes:

Reading about policy
Engaging in conflict
Listening to someone with a different worldview
Organizing, voting, calling, showing up

Authoritarian systems know this. In fact, they count on it.

Prospect Theory: Why the System Leans Into Loss

Prospect Theory tells us people fear loss more than they value gain.

So if you want to manipulate people, make them feel like they’re about to lose something:

Their identity
Their home
Their children’s safety
Their status
Their place in the country

Christian Nationalists use this constantly:

“They’re coming for your kids. They’re taking your rights. They’re erasing your faith.”

But while you’re reacting to imagined threats, you’re living through real ones:

Medical debt that never ends
Housing instability with no protection
Burnout from working three jobs and still not making enough
Watching loved ones suffer while the system calls it freedom

You’re grieving, even if no one has said that out loud.
And grieving people can’t always fight.

That’s not a weakness. It’s biology.

PERMAH Collapse: Why You Feel Disconnected, Powerless, and Alone

PERMAH is what human flourishing looks like:

Positive Emotion (joy, peace)
Engagement (flow, presence)
Relationships (trust, support)
Meaning (purpose)
Achievement (growth, movement)
Health (safety, wellbeing)

Survival mode strips these one by one.

You don’t get flow when every day is a scramble.
You don’t feel safe to connect when people around you might turn on you politically.
You don’t feel like your vote matters, your story matters, or your dignity matters.

And slowly, quietly, you stop trying.

Not because you gave up—
but because in survival mode, surrender feels like the safest choice in the moment.
When you're just trying to get through the day, you can't afford to think about the long-term cost of short-term decisions.

That’s not apathy. That’s trauma logic.
That’s system logic.

The Inversion of the 12 Utilities: When Systems Are Built to Confuse, Not Serve

In human-centered design, the 12 Utilities are how we evaluate whether a system is functional, fair, and life-giving.

They include:
Availability, Access, Clarity, Security, Speed, Ease of Use, Accuracy, Consistency, Closure, Emotion Evoked, Resource, and Value.

When these are present, systems are usable. People feel safe. Experiences build trust.

But in a fear-based system, the Utilities don’t disappear—they get inverted.

Let’s look at what that means:

Instead of Clarity, we get Confusion.

Language is legalistic, vague, or intentionally misleading.
Policies change without warning.
The truth is buried under noise, loopholes, or endless forms.

Instead of Security, we get Surveillance.

Safety becomes control.
Communities are policed, monitored, or raided—but not protected.

Instead of Access, we get Gatekeeping.

Voting hours are cut.
Healthcare is tied to employment.
Housing is available, but unaffordable.

Instead of Emotion Evoked as trust or gratitude, we get fear, shame, or humiliation.

Instead of Closure, we get constant emotional open loops.

No resolution.
No acknowledgment of harm.
Just headlines, hearings, and history repeating itself.

This is the democracy people are experiencing—not a system of shared power, but a feedback loop of exhaustion.

It’s Not Just the System—It’s the Theology Behind the Tiredness

Some of the most powerful systems of control don’t come from laws or markets.
They come from belief.

Especially the belief that suffering is not only inevitable—but necessary for salvation.

In Christian Nationalist theology, pain is often framed as a test of faith:

You’re supposed to be uncomfortable. That means you’re being refined.
Struggling in this life earns you reward in the next.
Comfort leads to sin. Suffering leads to righteousness.

So when someone is hurting, it’s not always seen as a failure of the system.
It’s seen as the function of divine order.

“If you’re poor, it builds character.”
“If you’re sick, God is trying to teach you something.”
“If you’re being attacked, that’s proof you’re on the right side.”

This worldview is dangerous not because it names meaning in hardship—that can be healing.
It’s dangerous because it uses that meaning to justify avoidable harm, suppress empathy, and withhold support.

When Suffering Is Framed as Holy, Support Becomes Conditional

You may receive food or shelter—but only if you accept a certain faith.
You may get help—but only if you comply with gender roles, family structures, or moral purity codes.
You may be seen as worthy—but only if you’re suffering in the “right” way: quietly, gratefully, and without protest.

This theology doesn’t just exhaust the body.
It breaks the spirit—and calls it righteousness.

If You’re Exhausted, That’s Evidence—Not Failure

If you’ve been feeling emotionally spent, overwhelmed, numb, or ready to disengage—that’s not a sign you’re weak.
It’s a sign your nervous system is doing its job in a system that was never designed for your thriving.

It’s evidence that you’ve been paying attention.

It’s evidence that you care more than you can carry.

And it’s evidence that you’ve been navigating systems that were built—by policy, by profit, and by belief—to keep you compliant, confused, or crushed.