I endured the profoundly painful end of a long-term romantic partnership a week prior to the 2016 presidential election.
Of course, the election cycle was by no means responsible for my breakup. To try to hold it solely accountable would be laughable, and a way to shove my own culpability under the rug. But it promoted such intense fear, anxiety and destabilization for myself and my partner — both of us marginalized — that things got ugly in the end. Stripped of effective coping mechanisms for the impending political disaster (and its implications), we flailed out, desperately seeking control. Over each other. Looking back, I feel intense self-loathing and regret. I don’t recognize those two people at all, and I’m not alone.
Immediately prior to the election, I noticed a significant climate shift on social media. The faces I see when I login to Facebook and Twitter every morning are disproportionately black, brown, LGBTQ, poor, fat, disabled, non-monogamous and kinky. They’re also disproportionately strong, intelligent, engaging, empowering, and politically active. I’m used to seeing hope, solidarity and perseverance amid the pain, struggle and loss that comes with institutionalized disenfranchisement. Yet as November 8 loomed closer, everything changed. People were messy. Vulnerable. Scared. Reactive. My peers either went searching for fights to engage in, or became desperate for fights to flee from. At some point our projected national upset got the better of us, and it’s only gotten worse.
Some mental health professionals have noticed an uptick in election-related issues. “Two days after the election, my entire clinical day was one client after another talking about the election results,” says Dr. Sheila Addison, a licensed couple and family therapist who regularly works with queer, trans, disabled, POC and non-monogamous clients. “People were anxious, depressed, hopeless and frightened. People cried. More than one person talked about having fantasies of suicide, or fears of being harmed by strangers as they went about their daily lives.”
Addison has also heard reports of physical side-effects, including panic attacks; self-medicating with drugs or alcohol; insomnia; IBS flare-ups; migraines; and chronic pain flare-ups. Not to mention relationship problems. “People have been doing all kinds of stuff in their relationships that we do when we’re in pain — snapping at one another, shutting down, being demanding and easily wounded, taking out suffering on the person within easiest reach.”
Mental health professionals aren’t the only ones who’ve seen a shift. “I’ve definitely noticed a trend of increased trauma responses and destabilization among marginalized people in the wake of the election cycle,” says Maki Roll, a 26-year-old black bisexual woman in Washington, DC. “Men and women who have been on the forefront of protests and relief efforts for marginalized groups crying and afraid for their livelihoods.”
“I’ve seen a lot of unrest, unease and hopelessness in my community, as well as in myself,” says Nikki, a 28-year-old black queer woman from Oakland, CA. “It’s like I’m stuck in a crooked box, and I can’t stand up straight inside of the box. I keep asking people outside of the box to help me … and they’re just standing there yelling at me to stand up straight myself. After a while, all you feel like doing is laying down.”
While the reactions of other marginalized people are especially apparent, the responses — or lack thereof — from privileged populations in the wake of this unavoidable retraumatization compound the problem.
“In America, national tragedies like this don’t have enough of an effect on people,” says Jazz Goldman, a 26-year-old American-born Black Jewish woman who identifies as queer, kinky and non-monogamous. “In particular, I’ve seen a lot of avoidant behavior in ally populations. … It’s been really difficult to talk about the election, to have engaged conversations about race, class and gender, with people who are under the impression that their dissenting social media posts are akin to martyrdom.”
So why does an event like the election so profoundly affect marginalized people, while allies can almost avoid it? “For marginalized people, one of the skills we develop in order to survive is the ability to extend those ‘tendrils of empathy’ to other people like ourselves (and if we keep growing and stretching, to other marginalized groups) to create bonds of trust and concern outside the traditional structures like family, marriage and geographic community. So when there is a threat or a trauma that involves people we feel connected to via similar identities or vulnerabilities, we feel that more acutely than we would if something happened to a random stranger,” says Addison.
Addison dreaded going to work for the first time post-election, and found herself surprisingly emboldened by clients — many of them allies — who expressed a desire to act. She says that one couple discussed leveraging their positions at work to get their employers to do more. And one woman realized that though she’d pushed back against her family’s biphobia, she needed to challenge their racism and transphobia.
Does this mean that concrete action can help members of marginalized communities fight the effects of retraumatization?
“When the crisis or tragedy is something that touches many people, we’re forced to deal not just with our own response, but the responses of people around to us, whether that’s partners, children, family or just people we have to interact with at work and going about our day,” says Addison.
White, heterosexual, cisgender voters elected Trump. Therefore it’s crucial that white, heterosexual, cisgender allies fight the worst effects of his administration on behalf of the oppressed communities that stand to be majorly impacted. This goes way beyond tweeting out #NotMyPresident, purchasing a few Black Lives Matter stickers or wearing a safety pin. We need you to be intolerant of intolerance.
“I believe that white people need to learn how to truly listen to the communities that will be the most directly affected come January, as well as learn to decenter themselves from the narrative. Doing so is essential to an intersectional politic,” says Goldman. “It’s the job of our elected officials to protect everyone’s inalienable rights. If we have a leader who refuses to do that, then it doesn’t just impact marginalized people; it impacts us all.”
