Political anxiety & therapy thread

[neverfstop]

I think we just need a place to vent & process this last week...I'm starting to get nervous.  

I've mostly been thinking about how horrible this all feels.  Kamala is such a fantastically qualified, personable, intelligent candidate & it's this close in an election with an idiot.  If the GOP had put up somebody even marginally electable, she'd probably be getting crushed.  How are things this awful in our country?   If she loses, I don't think we will see another woman run for POTUS for a very long time....they just can't win in this country.  I'm so sad for our country in so many ways.

Van Jones had a great line that I keep thinking about. Kamala is flawless & Trump is lawless.  She's had to be and expected to be perfect, and he's jus deplorable (thank you hillary). 

[neverfstop]

Also, as a reminder, it took something like 5 days in 2020 to call the election, so prepare accordingly. With all the new rules in a few states, it could even take longer. I'm crossing my fingers for a blowout, but also preparing for the worst.

[basilosaurus]

Oct 25, 2024 6:08:26 GMT -5 neverfstop said:

Also, as a reminder, it took something like 5 days in 2020 to call the election, so prepare accordingly. With all the new rules in a few states, it could even take longer. I'm crossing my fingers for a blowout, but also preparing for the worst.

I don't think it will be decided in November.

[mcppalmbeach]

Timely because I was just on my local left leaning board and I thought I may need to pause some of this chatter until it’s over. I am definitely anxious and horrified and disgusted. I live in a red area, the rhetoric and support is exhausting and makes me feel isolated, fearful and like a crazy person.

[fernweh]

Honestly I’m trying to decide if I have political anxiety. I am well versed in general anxiety, but I’m not really feeling anxious. I however feel extremely unmotivated. I don’t want to get off the couch to work out and I don’t want to get out of bed to go to work. These are pretty unusual for me, so I’m trying to self exam and decide if it’s the way my anxiety is choosing to manifest or if something else is going on.

[noodleoo]

Timely as I was just reading the NYT newsletter about North Korean troops in Russia and I had 2 thoughts: 1) fuck there is going to be a world war and 2) fuck men won’t vote for a woman to lead during a war.

I’m clinging desperately to my faith that Harris will win. However, if she doesn’t, it will 100% be because of misogyny and I’m not sure I can take that again. 😞

[eb777888]

I have a ton of anxiety! I'm preparing myself for a Trump win, while still feeling encouraged that she has a good chance of winning. It's kind of anxiety ADHD. I also feel unmotivated in general-not just by this but by a couple of things.
So, while I am hopeful, I'm not in the "she's winning by a landslide" camp.

[sonrisa]

One thing I hold in mind: Joe Biden is still president until January. These are the good times. After Trump and COVID I'm not taking these months for granted.

(I get that ADHD anxiety paralysis mentioned above. I'm mostly trying to push through that).

[shauni27]

I go back and forth between being wildly stressed and anxious to just telling myself that being anxious and stressed will not change the outcome.

Mostly I get sad thinking about how divided we as a nation are, and how do we ever come together again? I genuinely do not know how we go forward. Of course I think having a leader with a goal of uniting us is a good first step but the MAGA crowd has gotten so loud and hateful, I do not see that changing for many, many years no matter who is the next POTUS.

[mrsd2006]

I've decided I'm going to take a dose of Nyquil on election night and sleep through it all because I can't stand the uncertainty.

[mala]

I haven't read all the replies but a good chunk of my therapy session two weeks ago was dedicated to my anxiety over the election and what's going to happen in the near future. It's getting bad. Not quite to the point I need to ask for meds, yet, but i also know it's not going to get better for a long time.

[pugz]

Oct 25, 2024 7:44:40 GMT -5 fernweh said:

Honestly I’m trying to decide if I have political anxiety. I am well versed in general anxiety, but I’m not really feeling anxious. I however feel extremely unmotivated. I don’t want to get off the couch to work out and I don’t want to get out of bed to go to work. These are pretty unusual for me, so I’m trying to self exam and decide if it’s the way my anxiety is choosing to manifest or if something else is going on.

my anxiety manifests like this

[redheadbaker]

I am just barely keeping it together.

- my previous medication combo doesn't seem to be adequately addressing my major depressive disorder and PMDD
- it's seasonal affective disorder time again
- this election

I have no interest in anything. I don't bake, I don't cook, I don't clean, I don't exercise. I'm jittery, on edge, quick to rage, tired all the time, and fluctuate between no appetite and binging on junk.

[lilac05]

I know I need to step away. I need to focus on what I can control and accept that’s all I can do. Worrying about things that are outside of my control is only robbing me of the joy of life today.

I recently took a game off of my phone that I had been playing a lot. I downloaded it because I thought that having something mindless to do would help. It had the opposite effect. Playing it gave me extra time to stew about things. I deleted it and am optimistic that’ll help.

My BP has been high, and I blame election anxiety.

[stuffandthings]

I’m so tired and anxious.

@@@@@

I keep hearing how we have to “reach out” and persuade undecideds, so I tried that on social media today. I thought I was kind and friendly and understanding. All I got back was, “YOUR CHILD NEEDS THERAPY, YOU ARE SICK, THERE ARE ONLY TWO GENDERS” etc. etc.

I don’t know how much longer I can do this. I don’t know how long I can keep myself from hating them.

[Bad Dingo]

I've been doing way too much stress shopping. Why yes, Target, I do need two massive stuffed mushrooms! It does help though...until I see my CC bill.

[neverfstop]

I don't think I have anxiety per say about the election, but just general despondency about 50% of Americans.... how the fuck are we even here? (yes, I know patriarchy x class warfare + some racism). But I bet Trump would be beating Biden if he were still in. I'd vote for a corpse over Trump.... it's really depressing that 100 million people are fine with trump or don't care enough about anything more than their own pocketbook.

[underwaterrhymes]

Here is where I sit:

I am going to be utterly devastated if Trump wins regardless of whether I spend the next 11 days spiraling.

So I am manifesting a huge Harris win and am going to spend the next week and a half believing that she will win with 350 EC votes. I’m going to do my damndest to feel amazing about her chances for the next 11 days and hope like hell that the work that we have all been doing - our donations, our signs, our volunteering, our reminding friends and family to vote - combined with the strength of her campaign produces the biggest blow out in years.

[neverfstop]

I don't think it's anxiety about the election as general rage/anger/depression about where this election is at. I get that it's misogyny + racism + class war fare, but I'm just baffled that we're here. I also try to tell myself it's b/c the GOP is lying and distorting the truth about everything, but people also want to believe that garbage.

My favorite politics podcast (Pantsuit Politics) usually calms me down, but yesterday they just did a spicy, let it all out episode & really worked/talked through some of these issues and how the fuck can we even be here? It's not really representative of their normal podcasts, but it helps me cope & understand how we got here

substack.com/home/post/p-150675910?source=queue It should be free to non-paid subscribers.

[ellipses84]

I’ve kept myself really busy leading up to a goal that was completed last week and now I’m kind of spiraling, spending way too much time on screens. It doesn’t help that I’m only working part time and should be looking for a full time job, but nobody wants to hire until after the election. I have so much anxiety as a baseline and both these things have been too much. I’ve been addressing a bunch of health issues with my time off which was helping my anxiety so I’m not on meds for that but I was thinking maybe I need something to get through the next couple weeks.

I volunteered to walk a neighbors big dogs 2x a day for a few days and that was a lot but it got me off screens and in fresh air which was really good for my sanity. I volunteered last minute for an event tonight so I’m throwing myself into a creative process of creating Halloween decor and a playlist. I have a super local campaign I’m helping with. If I can swing it with my work schedule and DH’s schedule, which we never know until super last minute, I might try to volunteer to go door knock in AZ. There’s been a few coach busses going from my city to Phx looking for last minute volunteers.

[heat40]

Im at the point where im just confused. I see promising data, but then someone explains why thats bad, or polls say something but I’m seeing something else. Or people I trust are at odds regarding what data means. I’m just confused and nervous.

Part of me thinks it’s good to be nervous because it keeps us in the game, but then I feel like is my gut telling me something I need to pay attention to? or is the negativity a strategy to not have us complacent??? I don’t know anymore!

[cville]

Oct 25, 2024 11:43:55 GMT -5 underwaterrhymes said:

Here is where I sit:

I am going to be utterly devastated if Trump wins regardless of whether I spend the next 11 days spiraling.

So I am manifesting a huge Harris win and am going to spend the next week and a half believing that she will win with 350 EC votes. I’m going to do my damndest to feel amazing about her chances for the next 11 days and hope like hell that the work that we have all been doing - our donations, our signs, our volunteering, our reminding friends and family to vote - combined with the strength of her campaign produces the biggest blow out in years.

Well, this is the positive healthy attitude I am currently failing to have. Ha!

[TR]

I just keep reminding myself he lost in 2020 and it feels like people are more excited about Kamala now than they were for Biden in 2020.

[stuffandthings]

Oct 25, 2024 12:05:32 GMT -5 heat40 said:

Im at the point where im just confused. I see promising data, but then someone explains why thats bad, or polls say something but I’m seeing something else. Or people I trust are at odds regarding what data means. I’m just confused and nervous.

Part of me thinks it’s good to be nervous because it keeps us in the game, but then I feel like is my gut telling me something I need to pay attention to? or is the negativity a strategy to not have us complacent??? I don’t know anymore!

This is my vibe, too. I have been following political campaigns for a long time (one of my concentrations in college was electoral politics in the US) and I don't understand how the horserace polls can be saying something completely different than all the other indicators--enthusiasm polling, fundraising, traditional economic indicators, approval ratings, etc. All those other things paint a nice picture for a Democratic win, and then polls say it's 50-50. It's weird and confusing.

[Michelle]

Oct 25, 2024 7:54:50 GMT -5 noodleoo said:

Timely as I was just reading the NYT newsletter about Norty Korean troops in Russia and I had 2 thoughts: 1) fuck there is going to be a world war and 2) fuck men won’t vote for a woman to lead during a war.

I’m clinging desperately to my faith that Harris will win. However, if she doesn’t, it will 100% be because of misogyny and I’m not sure I can take that again. 😞

I 100% agree.

My thought was this timing and visibility was 100% strategic by Putin to get Trump in office. Trump will be his puppet.

I am also extremely sad that so many men are that fragile that they will choose someone so corrupt and threatening against our democracy that they wouldn't choose Harris.

I mean, she is ballsy, but not trigger happy. She will depend on the leadership of the military. The fact that 4 star generals are compelled to disclose how vile Trump is shows what a threat to our nation he is - and they would rather her lead.


Come ON people. WTF. 

[Michelle]

I want to go to the Harris rally in Houston today but cannot because of work pressure.

Depression about the election (PTSD from 2016) interferes with my work performance, only making it harder for me to request off.

On the other hand, 1m have signed up and it only has capacity for $20k. So there likely isn't room for me anyway.

[lostrn]

Oct 25, 2024 11:01:29 GMT -5 stuffandthings said:

There some really over the top disturbing people on social media. A guy I knew years ago and was still connected to on Facebook really went after me last week on there. This is not my main Facebook so fortunately good friends and family didn't see it but it was disturbing. He found an old, admittedly terrible picture of me (one my husband had taken and posted in a joking matter 10 years ago), copied it, basically turned it into a meme and posted it on his Facebook and then posted it to every single post of mine he could. The worse part was the number of people he had giving him support during that.
Like what is wrong with people that you find it funny that this belligerent, ignorant man is doing this to someone he has pretty much zero personal connection to? I did admittedly post some memes on my page that would annoy Trump supporters and I did post a couple replies to his posts countering his lies with trustworthy factual articles. That apparently triggered him. And unfortunately he's got a following. Its scary to me that so many people share his beliefs.

[livinitup]

I am going to a Halloween party at a neighbor’s house on Saturday night. It’s a small crowd and I know these people, so I think I am a-okay. We are also in a blue state so I don’t have to convince every potential voter in a swing state to not vote for a felon and his stated plans to end our democracy. But one of the wives was a staunched and vocal R back before Trump, so I don’t know if she’s went MAGA or not. I hope not. Not knowing is a good sign. But MAGA lunatics will surprise you with who is that stupid.

I will probably get some cash to keep in the house for bail money to make it easier on H to get me out. I might hit someone if they get in my face.

Remember when saying something like that was 100% a joke?

[weetabix]

I've been all over the place on this...some days I feel like we're going to be ok, others I'm spinning out over what seems like the inevitable descent into fascism. With WaPo's announcement today, I'm struggling.

[Gato]

One one hand, I see the WaPo giving by zip code article and I get excited. Places I would have expected to be solidly Red, like St. Charles County, Missouri, have more Harris donations than Trump donations! People who are engaged and pay attention, whatever their personal politics, on the whole prefer her.

On the other hand, those undecided voters, who must be very, very low information to not have a clue at this point—I worry these will break conservative, like go with the white man because he’s the more comfortable choice for them.

I’m really not hopeful but so desperately want to be wrong.