The Trump/Grief Series: Four Years Later
Joe Biden won. When I saw the announcement on CNN I burst into tears. I cried with Van Jones when, through tears, he spoke eloquently to what Biden’s win meant to him as a man and a father. I cried when the mayor of Paris, France tweeted minutes after the announcement, “Welcome Back America”.
I cried hearing people say over and over, ‘I feel so much relief we voted Trump out.” I cried watching people of all color, ages and gender dance and celebrate in streets across the country. I cried a lot on Saturday, November 7, 2020 — tears of joy and utter relief.
Less than a week later, I am acutely aware of other emotions creeping in. Where I felt exhilaration I feel the return of exhaustion. While I still feel joy, I also feel a crushing sadness that half the country voted for a sociopath. That first day of hope is being eaten away by numbness that we are so morally divided I wonder if there is a way forward.
Trump has not conceded. He continues his rants of unfounded conspiracies and lawsuits, raging through capitalized tweets that the election was stolen from him. He has begun to fire senior members of his administration he felt were not loyal enough to him. The GSA has been ordered to stay the transition process. Republicans in Congress continue to stand silently with him. The 70 million Americans who voted for him remain steadfast in their support. Trump’s four years of incessant lies, bullying and vilification of his political opponents continues. The abuser continues to abuse — even more dramatically because he has been backed into a corner. This man is very dangerous because he is very very mentally ill.
I have written before I am a psychotherapist. As such I have paid close attention these past four years to the impact Trump’s actions and those of his administration have had on the emotional lives of people in this country. Let us all be very clear that his term of office has not been about principled Republicans disagreeing with principled Democrats on matters of policy. Rather we as a country have suffered emotional, physical, spiritual and fiscal abuse. Trump has battered us relentlessly day in and day out with his hate, rage and paranoid bullying. I am haunted by the dawning reality that the emotional trauma we faced for four years is not over — it continues today and may continue for weeks if not months even years to come.
This brings me to a commentary I heard a number of times this week from respected political analysts and writers. They believe many Americans as well as those in the media are suffering from PTSD as a result of living through and covering this dysfunctional administration. They fear the emotional consequences to us all as Trump continues his assault on the nation.
Most of us associate PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) with severe emotional and psychological distress plaguing military personnel returning from dangerous deadly duty. I would agree that some Americans are experiencing PTSD as a result of this administration’s cruel politics and daily onslaught on civility and liberty, but many more of us are exhibiting symptoms of Acute Stress Disorder, Adjustment Disorder, Disinhibited Social Engagement Disorder, and more.
Typically the stressors in these disorders may be a single event (such as a romantic breakup), or there may be more than one event with a cumulative effect. Stressors may be recurring or continuous (such as an ongoing painful illness with increasing disability). Stressors may affect a single individual, an entire family, or a larger group or community (for example, in the case of a natural disaster) or a nation (Trump). All the stressors above apply to what we have faced in the Trump presidency.
What are symptoms? Here are only a few:
· Flashbacks or nightmares about events or situations which may cause a person to feel numb or detached from themselves.
· Feeling tense, sad or hopeless
· Withdrawing from other people
· Acting defiantly or showing impulsive behavior
· Physical manifestations like tremors, palpitations, headaches, high blood pressure, inability to sleep, stomach aches
· The symptoms may cause significant distress or problems functioning in important areas of someone’s life, for example at work, school, social interactions, marriage and family life.
As I am writing this, I am wilting because I really do believe many of us are experiencing such symptoms every day. As I am writing, I feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the dangers and loss and pain that continue to face us because Trump and his cabal deny Biden’s victory and stand in the way of a smooth transition of power. As I am writing, I feel parts of me ask in despair, “What do we do to help ourselves — to help our country? How do we get out of this — whatever this happens to be?”
Other parts of me cry out longing to be happy, to be carefree, to feel safe, to have fun, to have adventures. Other parts are angry and furious and want to “fight” though they not sure who to fight or how to fight. Other parts want to turn the television off and pretend none of this is happening and life is okay. Other parts want to drink and eat to numb the painful feelings or escape in books, puzzles or bad television.
Other parts seek out good news YouTube videos, tweets, stories of heroism and faith. Other parts want to join protest marches and postcard groups and support social justice advocates with money and action. Other parts want senior Republican Senators and officials to contract Covid and become long haulers — actually some parts want these folks to die. Other parts are aghast at this and say the only way through is to behave like Buddha or Jesus. In other words I am right there with Walt Whitman who stated, “I am large. I contain multitudes.”
So what is the way out of this mess? Is there even a first step? Actually there is if I go back to the roots of my profession. Getting through this mess starts with the individual and that individual naming what they feel. What, you say? I repeat — the answer out of this mess starts with me/we naming our emotions which I started to do above. I gave voice to some of that multitude I contain.
World famous author, Tara Brach in Radical Acceptance presents the most beautiful illustration of naming I have ever found. She writes about her friend, Jacob, a clinical psychologist for decades and meditator for more than twenty years. He was diagnosed with midstage Alzheimer’s at age 70.
He attended a retreat Tara was leading and she asked if he would like to present a teaching. He eagerly agreed. Taken from her book Tara writes, “Jacob looked out at the expectant faces of one hundred participants before him…and suddenly he didn’t know what he was supposed to say or do. He didn’t know where he was or why he was there. All he knew was that his heart was pounding furiously and his mind was spinning in confusion. Putting his palms together at his heart, Jacob started naming out loud what was happening: “Afraid, embarrassed, confused, feeling like I’m failing, powerless, shaking, sense of dying, sinking, lost.”
For several more minutes he sat, head slightly bowed, continuing to name his experience. As his body began to relax and his mind grew calmer, he also noted that aloud. At last Jacob lifted his head, looked slowly around at those gathered and apologized.
Many of the students were in tears. As one put it, ‘no one has ever taught us like this. Your presence has been the deepest teaching.’ Rather than pushing away his experience and deepening his agitation, Jacob had the courage and training simply to name what he was aware of and most significantly, to bow to his experience. In some fundamental way he did not create an adversary out of feelings of fear and confusion. He didn’t make anything wrong.”
I have read that passage more than a hundred times over the years and I still cry.
I often sit with a client overwhelmed by their life and the life of this nation and suggest they just start naming as Jacob did. It never ceases to amaze them (and me) how they begin to soften. Their outer world has not changed one bit but by naming every single emotion — and I mean every emotion whether light or dark over and over and over again — all their parts feel heard and seen. They begin to soften; they begin to feel just a bit of spaciousness; they being to breathe a tiny bit better.
Yesterday when I read Bill Barr instructed the Justice Department to begin investigating national voter fraud and that McConnell and other Republican Senators stated the election had been stolen, I felt overwhelmed just like Jacob.
I started to name in my journal page after page after page after page after page:
Too full of anger
Too full of rage
Too full of sadness
Too full of sorrow
Too full of grief
Too full of fear
Too full of anxiety
Too full of worry
Too full of abuse from the past
Too full of abuse in the present
Too full of abuse to come
Too full
Too full
Too full
Around and around and around more than one hundred times I named and wrote that sequence. Hours later I felt a small softening; I felt compassion for my parts and their suffering; I realized I had the capacity to sit and witness them in the same way as the student’s witnessed Jacob’s courageous naming. I also had just enough spaciousness to feel that under the entire trauma of Trump, these parts of me are in deep grief.
My therapist part harrumphs and says, “Of course there is grief. What is wrong with you? Grief is your expertise; it is the focus of your practice. You know grief is the foundation of every problem that ails us. You work with the emotions of grief every day. For God’s sake you have been in therapy for years working on your own grief. You think that is some big insight? Ridiculous!”
Other parts of me are concerned and say, “Well, yes that is all true but something is amiss in our inner world. For everything we know, we are stuck in some mess that gets darker every day. Don’t you think it might be good if we look at that?”
The therapist part harrumphs again. She goes silent for quite a while. Eventually she sighs. Finally she says, “Yes, we often talk and think about collective grief of this country. We talk and process the grief of others. We even look at our own intellectually, but yes, something is amiss with us.”
In the classic story of the hero’s journey, Joseph Campbell writes about the legend of the Holy Grail. When Percival, a knight of the Round Table stumbles upon a dying king and dead kingdom, he heals the man and the kingdom when he asks, “Uncle, what ails thee?”
It is time for me to pose that question to myself in this time of Trump cruelty and dysfunction, not in a superficial “pop psychology” sort of way, but to drill down and name at the deepest personal level what ails me. Honestly, I do not want to, but I cannot move forward in these turbulent times and find even a glimmer of hope or joy or peace until I understand my own grief. Here goes…
