I found myself, Tuesday night, stunned by the midterm election results. I am a born and raised liberal Texan. I have spent many an election night, feeling the tiny whispers of hope weave their way up, only to have them slowly crushed as the night has gone on. I have sat for hours with my friends, solving the world’s problems only to be met with resistance and road blocks in the reality of my everyday life in the South. I’m used to losing. I’m used to dusting myself off in the following weeks, giving myself time to mourn and then giving myself a stern pep talk. “Hope is a discipline.” (a quote from the organizer and activist, Mariame Kaba) has been my election cycle mantra. So, to say I was stunned by Tuesday’s results, is putting it mildly. I felt as though a boulder that I hadn’t known was on my chest, had been lifted.
I began to notice an interesting thing happening to me on Wednesday morning. I was hope scrolling, reading through the widespread blue victories, the victories for women, people of color, Indigenous victories, trans victories and I began to get anxious. I began to have this feeling like I had done something wrong. It wasn’t a feeling of generalized worry or dread, it wasn’t a societal concern. It felt personal. Specific to me. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop specifically on me.
I am one of those people that has social anxiety. I will replay a singular conversation over and over in my head for hours, sometimes days, after it’s happened. Looking at it from different perspectives. Analyzing my responses, making sure my words matched my intent, that I hadn’t accidentally hurt someone’s feelings or said something I didn’t mean to say. So, anxiety over an event isn’t new to me. Obsessively replaying a time frame isn’t new to me. I am like the IRS during an audit… there is no receipt too small. This instance, however, felt new. I replayed watching the election results, the conversation with my husband, the texts with my friends. Nothing felt out of place or like it could be misinterpreted. So, where was this anxiety coming from?
Because of the work I do as a somatically trained trauma-informed guide, I was able to drop in and follow the feelings my body was communicating to me. I have a certain level of trust with my body. I am deeply intuitively attuned to it. So, I am comfortable sitting in silence and allowing the feelings and images to come forward without judgement. I was able to trust my body at the unfolding of the story it was trying to tell me. And when it finally revealed what it needed to show me I was amazed.
I was in a full-blown trauma response that was running in the background through the whole election. If I’m being honest I’ve had trauma responses quite often to the current Republican/Maga administration. Watching someone who has done such horrific things to other humans, hold the most revered position in the United States, and not be held accountable while also being fawned over and placated by other horrible humans, has been really challenging to stay centered with. So the surprise wasn’t that I was having a trauma response, it was how subtly it had started playing in the background causing my body to tense and feel anxious without me knowing why.
So, to break this down, just so we’re all clear. When the country overwhelmingly responded by REJECTING the current administration and flooded American politics with a blue wave almost entirely across the board; my body responded with a full-blown trauma response. Immediately following my overwhelming sense of renewed hope, relief and joy I went into panic and anxiety. It has slowly swirled into a jumble of hope/fear, joy/sadness, relief/anxiety. The likes of which I’m still feeling the residuals of today… nearly three days later.
And I’m not the only one to have a traumatic stress response brought on by this administration. I know when the current president was elected for a second term it magnified and brought up all the stress, fear and anxiety I had experienced during his first term. It also magnified the response I had to all the things he promised to do in his second term. There were a lot of people describing the same or similar feelings. There’s a name for this: collective political trauma. It’s what happens when big groups of people carry real psychological distress from political events, systems, and rhetoric. You’ll find the term used for everything from political violence to what a lot of us have been feeling for years, and those aren’t the same thing. But the American Psychological Association also says we can take on parts of a traumatic event just by watching it happen to people in our group through the media.
Thank the Cosmos, I knew/know what to do with it.
And for those of you who may be experiencing something similar; who may feel confused by this undercurrent of unease and worry, you aren’t alone. I feel it too. My advice to you? Try to dedicate some time to yourself. If you feel safe enough, allow yourself to quiet the noise and get introspective. (If, at any point any of the below suggestions don’t feel good to do. Stop. Open your eyes, put your feet on the floor, wiggle your toes. Go outside, listen to the birds… do something enjoyable. You don’t have to force any of this.)
First, notice where do you feel this in your body? (It’s ok if you don’t know exactly what you feel… what part of your body is drawing your attention when you slow down enough to pay attention?)
Now, what does it feel like? It can be a “heaviness,” a “lightness,” a “tightness,” a “fluttering”… etc, etc. try to define what it feels like. If you go blank, that’s ok, sit with the blankness.
Next see if you can ask yourself why you feel this way. Sometimes this is the hardest question of all. If you come up blank, that’s ok. Go back to the what and just sit with that feeling. See if it’s possible for you to find compassion, understanding, and maybe even appreciation for the protection this feeling is providing for you. Let it know that you see why a part of you would feel this way and you appreciate it for protecting you.
If you feel like it’s too much to try to do this yourself, I am happy to help. The entire reason I started my practice was so no one has to try to go through things like this alone. Schedule a 15 minute conversation with me to explore how I can help you specifically or, if you’re ready to dive straight in let’s schedule a 2 hour Intensive Session!
Articles referenced for this article:
https://www.apa.org/about/governance/president/grief-toolkit/collective-trauma.pdf
https://www.pressreader.com/usa/santa-fe-new-mexican/20181025/281500752239532
https://www.nourishandbloompsychologicalservices.com/new-blog/ft81sowzne22a9ll555b9mauu4iat7