And then the election happened. And everything shifted. What I wanted to share with you several weeks ago suddenly doesn’t feel as pressing or urgent.
Instead, the only thing that feels present for me, as I imagine it may for you, is the result of this week’s Presidential election.
I feel shocked. Saddened. Angered. Scared. And also a little helpless. (can you relate?)
I cannot and will not be neutral about President-elect Trump. Some may say it’s not my place as a therapist to be political. But frankly I could not disagree more.
As a psychotherapist, my life’s work is dedicated to undoing and healing the damage of explicit and implicit abuse.
Neglect, rejection, shaming, blaming, and ostracizing. Many of us experienced this in our families and communities of origin and in our culture collectively.
My life’s work is to help bring relief to those suffering from anxiety, depression, confusion, despair, and grief.
My life’s work is to support people. All people regardless of their race, sex, gender identity, religious affiliation, or abilities — to become more fully who they are and to live their lives in congruence with their authentic selves.
My life’s work is to help create a world where people feel safe to be themselves and to help heal and shift damaging and abusive cultural introjects and systems that lead to individual and collective suffering.
President-elect Trump and his track record of actions so far embodies everything that I work so hard to help people heal and overcome from: The painful collateral damage of narcissism, grandiosity, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, bigotry, xenophobia, misogyny, divisiveness, bullying, body-shaming, oppression, lies, and on and on the list goes.
Over the last year, what I’ve observed is that his campaign has been particularly triggering for vulnerable minority groups, specifically those denounced for their race, those who are sexual assault and sexual harassment survivors, those who are survivors of sociopathic and narcissistic parents, and frankly anyone who has ever felt and been told that they are “other” and who has felt unsafe for being “other.”
But now that triggering has amplified manifold after the elections.
For so many more of the people in my personal and professional life.
So many of us are grieving intensely this week, waking up each morning wondering if it was all a dream, if maybe there was some error. So many of us are still in shock and walking around in a surreal daze.
One person this week described it to me as a feeling akin to “a sucker punch to the gut that comes with an unexpected breakup.” Yet another described it as “some bizarre glitch in the Matrix that landed us in an alternate parallel reality.”
If you have felt this way this week, you likely already know that you’re not alone.
