Paradox

Often times I struggle with how to deal with the paradox of having power and privilege in some areas of my life (being white, appearing/passing as heterosexual, having a college education, having English as my first language), while in other areas of my life experiencing systematic oppression (being queer and female, growing up in poverty, navigating the bureaucracy of government assistance). How I view myself conflicts with how I actually experience the world around me.

I see myself as an empowered, healthy, educated, white, woman, but when I interact within American systems of power and privilege / oppression (it's paradoxically both!) there are ways in which any empowerment I feel is undermined and where I experience a deep sense of helplessness and powerlessness. For example, waiting for 6 hours at a clinic to see a social worker for Medicaid screening before I can finally access a doctor for my immediate illness, or even the 10 month process of trying (and retrying) to get Medicaid.

As I move through these systems I find myself feeling embarrassed, ashamed, helpless, powerless, and insignificant. And as I am often treated as such, my self-confidence drops and I find it difficult to speak up for myself or ask for what I need.

There is internal conflict between who I see myself as / who want to be (an agent of change, someone who empowers others, someone who can buy what she needs when she needs it), and how I experience the world / who I am (someone who feels helpless and powerless while navigating our social services as a client, and someone who has so little money she feels the need to comparison shop for 8 months over a $9.50 brush although her old one is down to only a dozen bristles).

I still don't know how to deal with the paradox. Can I be both empowered and dis-empowered at the same time? How do I hold onto any sense of empowerment I feel when I experience this deep sense of powerlessness?