Mexikyou Day 3 - Danger or delusion?

Now playing:
SubaHibi OST - Tractatus Logico Philosophicus

I'm quickly getting over my nausea, but right now, my mind is on my mental illness—or illnesses, plural, heh.

I don't think it's a secret to anyone who's been following me that I have, among other things, some flavor of schizophrenia. I don't think it's worth the time to try and argue if it's plain ol' schizophrenia, or schizoaffective disorder, or maybe schizoid or schizotypal personality disorder, or whatever other salami-sliced psychological term. For the purposes of this post, the relevant detail is that I occasionally suffer delusions, especially paranoid delusions.

They used to be quite severe, to the point that I'd genuinely suspect cars were in active pursuit of me on the road if they followed me for even just a couple of turns. I've gone to great lengths to get my physical, mental, and emotional health under control since the beginning of the Kyou Era, and that's worked wonders to tamp down their frequency and intensity. Even still, however, they're very much a part of my life to this day, and they can still manage to sneak up on me and color my thoughts, feelings, and behavior without me realizing it.

I'm sure you see where this is going, heh:
Do I actually need to leave the States at all, or is this whole stunt a mere product of paranoid delusion?

To be sure, I don't think my thought process was unfounded. Things are genuinely getting dire in the States—particularly if you aren't a cishet WASP, though I expect even a lot of them will end up suffering—and from everything I'm seeing, the situation is only going to get worse before it gets better.

At the same time, however, aren't things getting worse everywhere?

We've committed ourselves to a global economic disaster even in the best case scenario. Far-right political movements (with adherents so delusional they make ME sound sane) are on the rise around the world. The post-WW2 international order is falling in on itself like an underbaked cake in real time, and behind it looms the specter of greater and uglier war. And that's making no mention of how everyone seems to have given up on trying to keep climate change under control, with clean energy projects being actively shut down and coal usage ramping back up even as CO2 emissions break records... but I digress, heheh.

With the situation in the States, my thought process was as follows:

1. Project 2025, the playbook of the ghouls in power, explicitly seeks to make any kind of "pornographic" or "obscene" art a crime.
2. My art and that of my community absolutely falls within those crosshairs.
3. I, being the kingpin and sponsor of the biggest event that's spearheading the growth of this "obscene" artistic community, would make for an easy and obvious target.
4. Eventually, there'll be a turning point where a bunch of people try to flee all at once, and if I wait until then to make my escape, I'll be Fucked.

Naturally, I don't want to get black-bagged and throw into a prison or "detention center" in god only knows where, if not extradited to some remote corner of the Earth that's thousands of miles from anything or anyone I know...

...and yet, is that not what I'm doing to myself right now, by going into voluntary exile in Mexico without anyone else here to help, support, or accompany me?

Sure, it's not exactly the same, since I still have full autonomy and agency over my actions here rather than being imprisoned, and can still make my art and run my events, etc. But now that I'm here and mulling it over, it's hard not to feel like I've sort of done my enemies' work for them by turning tail and fleeing—doubly so from the angle of "the cruelty is the point," considering the intense isolation and loneliness I'd be facing if I were to stay here.

My thinking was that, in leaving early, I could keep all of my plans in motion without any fear of disruption or persecution, and that I could theoretically have a place outside of the country where people could escape to. At the same time, however, I've gone to a lot of trouble to make sure my legal identity and such fly well under the radar, and I've made a point to ensure I can trivially pass as a cishet male WASP as needed. I did both of these things very deliberately to sidestep any trouble while residing in the States, and to date, they've been effective.

Thus I wonder:
Am I actually in any danger of being found and captured in the States, or am I just being paranoid?

I'm beginning to believe there was more paranoia at play in my decision-making than I'd originally thought—which is par for the course with my paranoia, since it's often hard for me to notice its presence until after the fact.

I'm also considering how so very, very many people I know in the States are struggling, including my would-be partner, and how I could offer much more than mere words, game nights, and the occasional bank transfer to them were I there in person to support them. Hell, that notion of having a space where I could let my friends crash and lay low would be much more realistic if they could reach me with a mere car or bus ticket rather than having to travel across borders—not to mention how buying property to have a place to shelter my friends would be much easier in a country where I already have a well-established credit history, heh.

To be honest, it feels like I've done nothing but try to talk myself out of Operation Mexikyou ever since I landed here. At the same time, though, I was so stressed and exhausted when making all of the arrangements, and pushing myself so hard to ignore my fears and anxieties, that I wasn't exactly thinking clearly. But now that I have a quiet moment, everything's coming under close scrutiny...