Post-Election Stress Disorder (PESD)
One thing we can all do: find ways to come together
I woke up this morning dreaming about making a new form of art. While it was based on the digital art that I’ve been doing for several years, it added a technique which is completely outside my skill set. So, I woke up both excited to try something new and deflated by knowing it was impossibly beyond my reach.
I felt both the tug of new enthusiasm and the exhaustion of the struggle
that would be needed to climb the vision mountain of my dream.
A friend who has been out of touch for awhile wrote this morning about an ongoing feeling of “insularity and lethargy.” His response sparked an insight into some of my own fluctuations of the past few weeks. In the fight-flight-freeze terminology, I am a flight animal and, over the past four weeks, I’ve built at least half-a-dozen heroic castles in the sky … all I needed was a silver-white horse and a tall banner to carry.
(BTW … all of those fantasies blew away like exhausted, late summer dandelions).
My friend’s reaction seems more like a freeze response. Thinking about both sent me off to Perplexity with a question. The following is the response … referring to the 2020 election:
The American Psychological Association's "Stress in America" survey reported that 68% of US adults felt the 2020 presidential election was a significant source of stress in their lives, regardless of political affiliation
Factors contributing to post-election stress include:
Uncertainty about the future
Extreme political polarization
Constant exposure to news and social media
Concerns about potential societal changes
While post-election stress is not a clinical disorder, it can significantly impact mental and physical well-being. If symptoms persist or interfere with daily functioning, it's advisable to consult a healthcare professional.
PESD: Do something! … or … do nothing.
If you are still not feeling like yourself, sit back, relax, blame it on the election. Regroup, marshal your resources, savor any cliché that strengthens you or brings you comfort. This, too, shall pass.
And, as Mr. Rogers’ mom said … “Look for the helpers” … there’s always helpers. Probably the most positive thing I’ve done in the past four weeks is trash can “X” and join Bluesky, where trusted information networks are forming.
In times of trauma and grief, the common wisdom is
to not make life-altering decisions for a year.
Long before trump won the 2024 election, we had problems that needed solutions. We will have problems while he’s here and after he is gone … and he will be gone.
Whatever is headed our way, we are going to need each other. None of us can solve the problems facing us alone. Among all the fantasies I’ve created in the past four weeks, I’ve also joined a local “Justice and Equity” group, followed more trusted writers on Substack, and signed up to volunteer with our amazing local Planned Parenthood book sale operation, now in it’s 51st year. That’s about as much joining as this borderline introvert/extrovert can handle.
** This was the planned post for this week … it is unfinished, unresolved, and may forever remain unposted. **
A money-fueled, shouting campaign season is not the time to discuss possibilities
In every dispute, each side owns a piece of the conflict. It’s easy to forget that simple dynamic. During these weeks since Nov 5, I’ve been trying really hard to ignore that truth, however, it keeps calling me back.
I grew up in a gentler time, one I now recognize as something of a bubble … an economic boom after a Great War, in a small town where most people looked like me and no one was very rich nor very poor. It was a time of expanding expectations with a wide and red carpet stretching to a bright future on the far horizon. Everyone was invited … or so I believed. There were no school shootings.
In those days, we stood, mindlessly pledging allegiance, accepting the fact that we lived in the best country. We were Americans; we were winners; we were exceptional.
Progress crept in … built a highway system connecting our furthest corners … put a television in every living room … introduced time-saving packaged meals with tv trays to eat them on while Ed Sullivan introduced us to Elvis Presley and the Beatles and, if we could stay up late enough, we could celebrate the end of the day as television signed off to the poetry of High Flight.
For many of us, that gentle time ended on a November day in Dallas.
Something of our innocence bled out on those streets and continued to bleed out, wave after wave: Martin Luther King, Jr. ….. Robert Kennedy … Vietnam … Watergate … the Twin Towers … Iraq … Afghanistan …
Historians and journalists pointed laser beams into shadowed and cobwebbed corners … revealing the inhumanity of slavery, massacres of Native American men, women, and children in our hunger for land, hatred of “the other” erupted in burning crosses and unpunished lynchings, workers perishing in deadly mines, factory fires, or the grueling laying of railroad tracks … all to make rich men richer.and on and on as the shadow side became the dark underbelly of the bright side of our great promise while hope became a taunting thing, something we used to have and, back then, could always count on.
Possibly to make up for the pride, trust, and hope trampled by facing the reality of our checkered past and dwindling hopes for the future, we turned to wealth, status, and power: bigger cars, massive houses, more degrees, accomplishment check lists, stock portfolios, exclusivity … perfection.
In that shift as we became a mobile, stressed, over-busy, always behind society, we lost connection with neighbors, family, community and started “bowling alone.”
Trust is broken.
For a complex society to function effectively, there has to be trust … trust in government, institutions such as schools, churches, news media, our legal system, and in our friends and neighbors. Without those bonds of trust, we are open to chaos and the possibility of splintering into tribes, possibly even fearful, warring tribes.
We’ve just come through a divisive election that highlighted this broken trust. It was definitely a surprise to me to see that millions of people preferred to trust Trump’s messages of fear over that of the Democratic message of policies that could help average Americans.
For too many Americans, the “American Dream” is no longer a North star. The “American Dream” term was coined in a 1931 book titled "Epic of America," by James Truslow Adams, who described the dream as, "a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement."
Boiled down, this dream generally revolved around being able to have a job, buy a home, and get an education. Most Americans and their families currently face the realities of the challenges in those areas: houses (both for sale and for rent) are increasingly out of the price range of average workers); jobs seldom last a life-time, and education costs are leaving more young people without hope of ever coming close to the life-style of their parents.
Right now, I don’t know how to finish this, and not sure I’ll ever know, so I’m going to leave it right here. Please share your own thoughts … finished or unfinished.
The life of a country is always an ever changing one, hopefully it changes and grows in a positive way but sadly it often doesn't. America is by and large a positive country with good hearted and well meaning people although the bat shit crazy people often gives a place or country a bad name as the loud obnoxious minority drown out the quiet and respectful
Glad to see you step into Bluesky. I appreciate your subscription to my substack and hope you got an extra good kick out of this one: Bluesky Basics for Never Twitter Boomers We Came to the Social Media Party Late. But We Have the Beer.