The other day I saw a post somewhere on Lemmy, it seems to have been taken down or at least I’m unable to find it again, by some dickwad asking, pretty clearly it bad faith, why people felt like they needed the day off from work or school after the election. It was full of him bitching about basically people being too soft if they couldn’t handle their feelings being hurt and that sort of garbage. This was basically going to be my reply to that.
I work in 911 dispatch, that should tell you that I’m the kind of person who can handle stress well, i’ve dealt with some crazy shit both at work and in my personal life, I don’t think anyone is going to claim I’m someone who’s easily rattled.
And still, despite all of the things I’ve seen, done, heard, and been a part of, I have never felt as physically sick from stress as I did watching the election results coming in Tuesday night.
I was at work, and in the midst of it as it was becoming clear that Trump was going to win, right around 2AM, I got one of those really insane calls, the kind of thing that makes the evening news and that they make true crime TV shows out of, that normally leaves even a hardened tough guy like me a little bit shaken-up, and all I felt was relief because something finally came along to wrench my mind from the election.
I woke up the next day still feeling sick to my stomach. My wife woke up in tears. I spent the day feeling like I was lost in a fog, and by the next day the fog lifted giving way to a simmering rage that I’m not sure will ever go away entirely. Luckily Wednesday and Thursday were my scheduled days off this week, I genuinely don’t think I could have worked Wednesday night feeling like I felt.
I’m an old boy scout, I took the scout motto of “be prepared” to heart, I believe that most people don’t really rise to the occasion but instead they fall to their level of training, and all the other sayings and such about preparedness and self-reliance and all of that, and I’ve prepared myself so that I am rarely at a complete loss of what to say or do in any given situation, I have plenty of training and life experience to fall back on.
No one ever trains you how to watch democracy die.
Or how to handle something like ¾ of your country turning their back on your most deeply-held values either by actively voting against them or by not even caring enough to bother showing up to vote.
And nothing prepares you to look around you in a 911 dispatch center, surrounded by people that people are supposed to be able to trust to stand for justice, safety, law, order, security, fairness, equity, compassion, basic human decency, who are supposed to stand up for and provide assistance to vulnerable members of our community when they need it most, who like to pat themselves on the back for being the “calm voice in the night” or the “thin gold line”…
… And realizing that most of them either don’t care or are actively rooting for a man who stands for the exact opposite of all of those values.
For the first time I can remember I feel well and truly lost. I tend to be the guy people turn to when they have a problem because I know how to fix it or I at least know how to find someone who can. I don’t know how to fix this, and I certainly don’t have a guy for this. I’m gonna keep on soldiering on until I figure it out or I guess I’ll die trying, but I really don’t know what my path forward from here is going to be. And if I need some time to figure this shit out. I certainly won’t think less of anyone who needs the same.
And everyone deals with different kinds of stresses differently and more or less successfully than anyone else. Despite the crazy shit I’ve managed to deal with, there’s other more mundane situations that some people can handle just fine that I can’t hack. Put me in a regular office environment with reports, paperwork, deadlines and presentations, and I’d probably be burned out in a week. It’s like the old saying about trying to judge a fish by its ability to climb trees.
It’s ok to not be ok right now, honestly I think anyone who says they’re ok right now is either faking it or a psychopath. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, if you have it in you, try to check in on others to make sure they’re doing ok and getting what they need too. The only way we’re getting through this is together.
Yeah, I’m not part of any of the demographics that are gonna get hit hard, except for the financial bits, that I’ll probably be screwed on since I’m not making 6+ figures, though I am over the median income in my area.
But just thinking and remembering how chaotic the first term was, and realizing that he’s gonna have sycophants and a freaking playbook, I had to take the day off.
I was one of those people that was thinking at how great all those states were in enshrining abortion access in their state constitutions, but then frickin voting for the people that will very likely enact a national ban. Then remembering that my wife and i are trying for a girl and that if the ban happens during that she could end up like the other stories of women (already mothers or looking forward to being one) dying from infections and/or sepsis because docs wouldn’t treat them. We’ve already gone through losing a pregnancy, she bled for a week and a half, but luckily nothing extra needed done. Who knows what could happen we go through that again.
Then these folks are also typically against renewables, the area i work in. My team is fighting for extra help and our company has benefited and expanded greatly thanks to the IRA. Red team thinks solar/wind = green new deal = IRA = BAD so Im anticipating that affecting many aspects of my workplace. Of course our CEO sent out a letter stating they are “looking forward” to working with Trump and team…….right.
When I got back to work my lead was asking me how i was doing, he pretty much pooh pooh’d my concerns away saying its not gonna be that bad and people were making mountains out of mole hills pretty much. This dude is ex-military. Trumps comments alone on folks that served should have been enough alone to discredit him. Guess what else is probably gonna get hit hard? The VA that my lead uses. He’s also on disability and pretty much gets what i make a month alone on top of his salary. Very much a Joe Rogan/Ticker Carlson “just asking questions” type.
All I can think is that bo matter the general subject, its gonna get very much worse for the next 4+ years. And hopefully I’ll still have my wife around if we continue trying.
It’s so funny to me how a lot of the people that voted for Trump seem to think it’ll not be that bad. Dude, he literally told you ALL of his plans. Even if only half of it goes through it’s still going to get significantly harder for most people. How can you willingly vote for that?
I’m over in the Netherlands but I have in-laws in the USA and many of them either didn’t vote or voted republican according to my partner. I tried my best convincing them to at least vote but it’s pointless, many people believe that it doesn’t matter who you vote for because the secret elite in the background will determine the result anyway.
I honestly feel sick to even be in-law related to Trump voters and it’s really making me not want to talk to those people ever again. It’s hard to realize that much of her family is heavily reliant on medication for various conditions (diabetes, heart disease, painkillers, etc) and that it’ll most likely get much harder for them once Trump takes office and starts destroying Obamacare again.
Yeah most of my family are in the southeast portion of my state and I know most, if not all voted for Trump. While there’s a good degree of separation (its a 6-8 hour drive to visit with kiddos in tow) we were all much closer when I was young and its difficult to wrangle with that.
I know for Thanksgiving some of the family comes up to visit and thankfully we never have politics come up. So no crazy uncle ranting and raving or anything like that. But with my dad just having a transplant recently and a lot of them being anti-vaxx, my parent haven’t been able to go visit their siblings and cousins. Not sure if anyone will be able to come up thanks to their views.