For many, the looming Decision 2024 reactivates trauma from years prior, and triggers personal traumas and vulnerabilities exposed by the outcomes ahead.
I didn’t sleep all week. My brain wouldn’t settle. It was the hyperactivation of a profound sense of lack of safety combined with the intensity of loss. Trauma and grief.
It was the week of the 2016 election. I had dressed that day in a white pantsuit that I proudly wore to deliver my ballot, to my office, to pick up my son from elementary school and share the excitement of a momentous day with him. “Today,” I told him confidently, “We will elect the very first female president in American history.” Last time we had elected our first Black president; history was bending toward progress. While ours is a home where the television is only turned on at specific times for a brief show, maybe once or twice each week, I left it on all afternoon to share the experience of history in the making.
It was not the history I anticipated.
With hundreds of millions of Americans I watched in growing horror as the televised map turned increasingly blood red, hopes and dreams and a sense of safety bleeding out into the night. Group texts chimed back and forth as my sisters and I shared our horror. “The Canadian immigration site has crashed!” one sister reported. Repatriation was indeed on my mind, too.
How do I tell my son, I wondered, that what I’ve always taught him – that in the end, LOVE WINS – did not hold true? That this time, in fact, hate won?
How could I reconcile reality with my own crushed worldview? I believed MLK Jr’s words that The arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, and instead, it seemed the bough had sprung back, flinging us all into deep regression.
I laid in bed at night, one phrase and one image chasing themselves in my mind: The image of a little Syrian toddler, washed up dead on a European shore, and as I cried, I wondered How many more will there be with a heartless, isolationist, anti-immigrant president?
And the thought: “They just declared rape is okay.” Again and again this thought reverberated through my mind. All those white male Evangelical voters who saw the evidence of the 24 allegations of sexual assault against him and they didn’t blink at saying “Yep, he’s our man.” How was I to feel safe amongst them ever again? My experiences weren’t a one-off; they collectively and full-throatedly proclaimed their endorsement or at least acceptance of sexual assault.
Sorrow and trauma.
In these final days leading up to the next election, the same rapist faces off against another strong female leader. Caustic versus capable. Criminal versus compassionate. And with days to go, it’s too close to call.
For millions across the country, right now is a triggering and traumatic time. Some of us watched as friends, neighbors, and family supported someone who sees us as objects, bent on stripping away or trampling on our rights. And eight years later, criminal convictions, civil judgments, and the evidence of his own actions proving he is who he showed himself to be, we face the same betrayal of our countryfolk. For some, it’s just a news story. For others, it’s personal.
For those whose marriage may be invalidated, whose ability to pursue pregnancy threatened, whose bodily autonomy denied, whose very ability to remain in the country where their children reside is threatened, this is far from a matter of preference. It may be a matter of life or death, of trauma or healing.
If this is you, know that your feelings are valid.
Perhaps you hold a very different politic than the one I’ve expressed. Perhaps you have come to believe that anything but a conservative outcome means increased crime, communism, unaffordable prices, a failed economy, and you fear for your safety, your ability to feed your family, the future of your nation. Fear and negativity have certainly been the weapons and tactic of your party, and the experience of that fear can be very real. Whether or not I believe your fears are warranted, I see you, too, and I honor your emotions. If this is the mindset with which you approach November 5th, you, too, deserve self-care to cope with the emotional upheaval an unwanted election result may bring.
As November approaches, be gentle with yourself. Consider, based on before, what supports you may need in place. I have breakfast set up with two of my favorite fellow therapists to celebrate or process together. I didn’t know I needed a self-care plan last time; this time I’m ready, either way.
Consider what can be removed from your plate on November 6th. Schedule time to get out in nature. Reserve a massage appointment (no matter the outcome, you may have some stored tension to release!). Set up a session with your therapist. If last time was traumatic, and you haven’t processed it fully (as evidenced by a sense of being triggered by this election season), see your therapist now. EMDR or Brainspotting can do wonders to shift the fear and calm the activated regions of your brain and nervous system.
And between now and then do everything you can to prevent needing these supports. Action reduces anxiety. Call, text, volunteer, and vote. It is not yet lost.
If you struggle to comprehend why I’m writing this, take my word that those around you may be struggling, and be gracious. This is not politics as usual. There is so much at stake.
Be kind and gracious with your neighbor.
Seek to understand.
And please, please, please go vote for justice and compassion, freedom and hope.
May the arc of the moral universe indeed bend back toward justice, and may we be a part of the bending.