Caring For the Wounded
November 6, 2024
I picture them. These millions of people who believe my rights, my daughter’s rights are not worth protecting. My husband and I look at the election returns map, garishly red and blue splayed across the screen and I see, though so many states’ results are not yet in, a lead for Trump. This clown of a man who is hell bent on his own primacy. This bully, this rapist, this criminal of a buffoonish man who whips fear into hearts with only his audacity to credit for his genius. I picture them and shockingly, they look like you and me.
We are so disappointing. But who exactly are we? Why do I think there is a “we” in this experience? Because we have called ourselves a collection of states for a few hundred years? Because nations have identities and I’m so tied to this one of being American?
Or is it because I thought that humans, when collectively tasked with the responsibility of making a choice that would ensure our best chances of thriving as a group, would do so? When history has shown time and again that we will, with our primal brains, choose the protection of the smallest group to which we belong?
Men have chosen, men. Not all men. But most men have chosen to protect the ease with which they can rape, bully, exclude, declare primary over the bodies of women, trans people, people of color, people from out of town. And some women, mostly white women, have hitched their wagons to those alphas, for perhaps as the alphas’ bitches, they will be safe. It’s called allying with the aggressor. It’s not new.
Some people will harm themselves as a result of this return to lunacy. It’s 8:44pm on election night. The New York Times has given Trump, unbelievably, an 89% chance of winning a return to the US presidency and I’m struck by the feeling that I should take care of some things before the whole world changes. Like what? I’d like to think I’ll stay here, in the US, in my house, living life as I’ve known it. But in fact, I’m suddenly aware I have no idea how I’ll live this life. I want to believe I won’t, on principle, give anything up to him that he hasn’t pried from my cold hand, but will I? Can I protect my own mental health? And as a therapist, can I protect the health of others?
I awakened this morning, hopeful and carrying a sense of cautious calm. When my daughter came out to see me though, and she was crying about the prospect of an election that would seize her rights, while we drove to the orthodontist, I sought to reassure her with all the stories I tell myself to calm the frenzy of my terror. She raged at me, barking me into silence. She didn’t want my reassurance. I cried in the waiting room, my calm shattered, having shown its fragility in the face of my daughter’s affectedness. How dare they frighten my daughter. Even worse, then frightening, they had betrayed her. And without a way to reassure her, I had too.
When she emerged from her mouth being poked and drilled she, herself, had calmed. On the ride home I asked, “Would it have felt better if I had said, ‘This effing sucks!’? She gave a resounding, almost joyful ‘Yes!’ What a relief that I had realized what she needed. My rage. I had been containing it - so tidy and controlled. And she needed it, out, in the ring, with her.
I have friends who may put their hands over their eyes and friends who may not recover. I worry about my mother, my father-in-law, some other folks who are deep feelers. And I worry that I will discover, tomorrow morning, a fragility in me that I did not expect.
I worry that my daughter - whom I plan to direct back into the ring we call 'school'; to whom I plan to say that avoidance is the worst thing for anxiety - will need me. Of course. But so will the six clients on my schedule tomorrow. What if I break under the pressure? What if none of us are ready for this? We let ourselves believe this wasn’t possible and now here we are, living in the kingdom of Elon Musk, Joe Rogan and Donald Trump - a parade of clowns sent from an alternate reality.
I want to believe we will go on. Because we will. But not without a lot of collateral damage. First and foremost, right now, for me, that damage is to my peace of mind. And for so many, it will be to the integrity of their very bodies.
Tomorrow, I will begin the work of caring for the wounded. I am angry to have been given this task, but it is all I can do. And it’s good work if you can get it.
The truth is, we all can get it. We all are going to be caring for the wounded. Whether it’s those who voted for him and have been brainwashed by his fear-based rhetoric. Or those who dared to hope for a president who could bring us back to a belief in a better tomorrow. And certainly for those who fear deportation, who need reproductive care, who fear that their abuser has been given carte blanche to harm. We should all crawl out of our caves of despair. And if we have any ability at all, we should care where we can.
We will have to work even harder to find our hope now. But, find it we must. After we have assessed the damage and tended to our wounds. But not before. Hope will be there for us when we’re ready
