Normally I try to write posts that have some tone of universality, which can be evergreen and interesting no matter whether a person knows me or not.
This is not one of those posts.
I had a minor meltdown yesterday, which lasted for a few hours (my panic attacks and meltdowns tend to be of the “frozen solid” kind; I view my panic attacks as glaciers that absorb my consciousness and reduce all thought and movement to some negative squared algorithm of inaction). And I’m just going to be honest, even if makes me appear just a little (lot) lame: it was about this presidential election.
And, just, HOLY SHIT, I cannot even tell you how many of my friends have been driven to anxiety attacks and insomnia and nightmares and general panic about this election. It’s a lot of them. We’re all suffering some kind of culturally shared PTSD about this election, although can you really call it post traumatic when the trauma is ongoing? No. No, you cannot.
I signed off facebook and twitter, and put a lot of “blackout” words on my tumblr’s x-kit plugin — words like “election” and “Drumpf” and “Drumpf” and “Hillary” and “HRC” and “Super Tuesday” and “vote” and “politics” and “president” and “presidential campaign.”
Because I cannot deal anymore, I really can’t. My fears and worries were becoming obsessive.
What is so surreal to me is how legitimate these fears are. The alt-Right’s fear about [anybody] coming for their guns was always based on fabrication and not on anything any politician of any stature or power actually said. The fears of PoC, queers, Jews, Muslims, women, disabled people, immigrants…those fears are based on real threats spewed out by Drumpf’s supporters, and sometimes Drumpf himself.
This isn’t a drill.
But there also isn’t much I can do at this point.
It’s Monday, November 7th, election eve. I’ve already voted. I’ve made my arguments on social media to the best of my abilities. The crazy right-wing Republicans will still be here, empowered or not, on Wednesday, November 9th. This is the world we’ve made for ourselves, and for the first time in my adult life, that really fucking scares me.