When Self-Care Turns Into Fascism

“Fascism begins not with violence but with silence — and if self-care replaces collective care, healing becomes complicity.” Ana Mael 
Fascism starts in the ordinary, not the violent. Ana reframes fascism not as sudden authoritarianism with guns, but as a slow erosion of empathy: disinterest, detachment, and normalized silence.
Spiritual bypass as complicity. She names how “stay in your frequency” or “not my circus, not my monkeys” become spiritualized excuses for disengagement. Instead of tools for peace, they function as shields against responsibility.

Self-care as cult. She critiques the commodification of “self-care” when it eclipses collective care. When people are “too busy healing to notice the harm,” wellness becomes a trap that isolates and depoliticizes.

Transcript

And fascism does not begin with guns.

It does not begin with guns.

It begins with disinterest.

It begins with people saying,

It's not my business.

It begins with spiritual influencers telling you to stay in your own frequency or someone who would say,

Not my monkeys,

Not my circus.

Okay.

And by the time the surveillance begins,

The bans are signed,

The silencing is normalized.

It's too late because we were too busy healing to notice the harm.

Too busy with our self-care to practice collective care as well.

So we need to do both.

Collective care is missing.

So self-care becomes a new religion.

It becomes a new cult.

Okay.

Too busy with our self-care to practice collective care.

So self-care has become the new religion.

And the price of that religion is our humanity.

And this is not a good religion.

This is not a good church.

So I'm not saying don't do self-care,

But don't do self-care as your way of avoiding responsibility as a human.

Okay.