I recently spent a rough night, filled with bad dreams. Everything I tried to do turned out exactly the opposite of what I had set out to achieve: Several haircuts left my hair even longer than before, and multiple attempts to park my bike near some building I apparently needed to get to were thwarted by regulations that sent me increasingly farther from my destination (“You’re using the wrong brand of lock and chain, so you’ll be fined if you park here”).

I was actually grateful when the dog poked me, much too early, to go outside; enough of that nonsense for one night.

After waking, though, I still felt uneasy. I kept thinking about something that had happened the previous evening.

I’d been messaging online with a Kansas University graduate school friend — a man probably 20 years my junior whom I respect greatly. We’d been discussing current events in Kansas — he as a current resident, I from my still-new home many states away. I was a 26-year Lawrence resident and a homeowner for 18 of those. I lived in Kansas longer than I’ve ever lived anywhere; it’s home, where my family of friends and support still lives.

So I was greatly bothered when this lifelong Kansas City-area resident said what he did.

“I’m starting to think it’s time to live elsewhere,” he wrote. “I’ve always felt like an ideological minority in Kansas, but this is the first time I’ve felt unwelcome.”

This man is no alarmist. He’s a stable, quiet guy who would never draw attention to himself; he’s a calm head, always looking for a logical answer.

So for him to say what he did … well, I couldn’t come up with a single thing to say back to him. I let the conversation drop, closed my computer and went to bed, troubled and saddened.

His words drove home for me the real gravity of Kansas’ situation: Extremism and control have pushed the state to a place where some residents no longer feel either comfortable or safe.

I’ve already decided that I won’t return to Kansas to retire unless its politics become more moderate and the safeguards for LGBT state workers are reinstated.

But lately I’ve seen Kansas teachers, who no longer have due process rights to defend themselves, writing about losing confidence in their teaching, now that their jobs are at the mercy of parents who might wake up cranky and choose to be offended by something their kid hears in class.

University workers I know feel their own free speech rights threatened (see “Heard on the Hill,” March 2). Government workers I know are afraid to speak out against this punitive administration, so they just stay quiet and keep their heads low, doing the work of two and three people, now that their coworkers have been let go.

An acquaintance, disabled by rheumatoid arthritis, says, “If Brownback had allowed federal money, I wouldn’t have a $5,000 (Medicaid) spend-down every six months on monthly disability checks of $1,359.” Her doctor had to beg the pharmaceutical company, on her behalf, for a one-year’s supply of the medicine that allows her to hold up a coffee cup.

And then there’s my friend. Here’s a smart, incredibly well-read man who pays his taxes, works hard and is dedicated to his students. He’s a good neighbor, and both he and his wife participate in charity fundraising.

Yet for all this good he offers the state, the governor and his staff and cohorts have created, and continue to perpetuate, an atmosphere that leaves this couple feeling unwelcome in their own home territory.

To those who say “Good. Leave,” I say, I’m sorry for you, because you’re supporting an administration that’s driving out a really decent couple. And probably many other good couples, and singles. People of all types; people who just want to work and live their lives as they see fit, without feeling unwanted. They want the same things those of you who support this administration want, except they’re feeling they have to leave to find those things elsewhere; you’re helping push them away.

The thing is, the more you enable this extremist conservatism, the further you separate yourselves from a truly functional state.

But eventually, much like a bad dream, you’ll pay for putting the wrong brand of lock and chain around Kansas.

You’ll find yourselves parked far from where you need to be.