Got any good advice for a PoC USian post election?
November 6, 2024 1:22 AM   Subscribe

Not in a happy place. Can already feel my mind about to launch into a worse place. Please give mental health advice suggestions for books to read, your tips for surviving (or, dare I ask, thriving) in 21st century right wing regime, pointers towards activities I can incorporate into my daily practice that bend the long arc of history toward justice.
posted by otherchaz to Grab Bag (16 answers total) 30 users marked this as a favorite
 
Maybe I say this because I am a social worker first and a therapist second, but I think the most important daily practice you could incorporate is community. Talk to people every day. Lend support and take the support when it is offered to you. And take action with people who care about the same things.
posted by Mouse Army at 2:09 AM on November 6 [19 favorites]


I don't have great ideas, but one thing is leaning hard on my community. I didn't have much of one in 2016 (had just moved to a new city) which made it all so much worse. I don't just mean my racial/ethnic community, more like surrounding myself with people who share my values.
posted by basalganglia at 2:11 AM on November 6 [6 favorites]


Find something to take joy so that you don't just focus on the despair. Start something new where you can see improvement little by little.
posted by Art_Pot at 2:41 AM on November 6 [5 favorites]


I wish I had something beyond terror and a deep sadness and bafflement for you. I am following this thread in search of answers too. May we all manage to find some manner of peace.
posted by Alensin at 3:03 AM on November 6 [4 favorites]


A former roommate of mine shared this:

10 Ways To be Prepared And Grounded If Trump Wins
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:16 AM on November 6 [14 favorites]


You don't know what's in the future, you're only telling yourself a story about it. I know this because I'm telling a similar story. Thankfully, I'm in a place where I can recognize that my brain is a suggestion machine. It's constantly suggesting feelings and stories, but I don't have to accept it's suggestions. It will probably keep suggesting the same things, and I will keep responding, over and over, "thanks, but that's not useful right now". Eventually, my brain will get less anxious and move on to something else.

Meditation and buddhist/stoic/taoist philosophy. The meditation is literally practicing, over and over, gently telling your brain that while you appreciate it's input, you're not taking it's suggestion right now.

Wish you well.
posted by Awfki at 4:19 AM on November 6 [15 favorites]


History doesn't end.
posted by SoberHighland at 4:26 AM on November 6 [5 favorites]


I don't know if this will help. I ❤️ the Korean Vegan. https://youtu.be/XEXps5G8i3w?si=gHx5xfwB2DejHe3I
posted by foxjacket at 5:00 AM on November 6 [1 favorite]


I read this Rick Perlstein article yesterday, and am going to be thinking about it a lot in the coming days.
posted by tonycpsu at 5:42 AM on November 6 [1 favorite]


History doesn't end.

I mean, eventually. But not yet and (almost certainly) not because of this.
posted by Foosnark at 5:50 AM on November 6 [1 favorite]


Came here looking for suggestions to help along my own mental health today and this response is the opposite of that.

I read this Rick Perlstein article yesterday, and am going to be thinking about it a lot in the coming days.

The article is repeatedly asking, hypothetically, "what would you do?" about myriad imaginative, dystopian scenarios. My mind is great at imagining and worrying. If you are looking for ~answers~ of what to do, that's not the article for you.
posted by shesdeadimalive at 6:01 AM on November 6 [13 favorites]


I keep returning to two things.

1) building on the idea of community, trying to spread as much love as I can in the world. The time for action will be soon but right now is the time to love each other as much as we possibly can.

2) we aren’t the only country to have elected a far-right or fascist leader recently. I’m looking to the people I know who live in other countries with leaders like Trump. There is still joy and possibility in their lives, even though their fight is hard, just like ours will be.

Love and joy are exactly what the far right wants to take away from us so let’s stick it to them and not let them.
posted by capricorn at 6:22 AM on November 6 [14 favorites]


The link EmpressCallipygos posted I've found very helpful, far more than the dystopian rumination link, given the timing. I.e., this is literally just the day after, so we're still early in it, and it makes the most sense at this point to start laying the emotional/interpersonal groundwork. To that end, I'm just gonna copy and paste item #2, "Find others who you trust," from EC's link:

...But the emotional landscape matters a great deal. Hannah Arendt’s “The Origins of Totalitarianism” explored how destructive ideologies like fascism and autocracy grow. She used the word verlassenheit — often translated as loneliness — as a central ingredient. As she meant it, loneliness isn’t a feeling but a kind of social isolation of the mind. Your thinking becomes closed off to the world and a sense of being abandoned to each other.

She’s identifying a societal breakdown that we’re all experiencing. Under a Trump presidency, this trend will continue to accelerate. The constant attacks on social systems — teachers, health care and infrastructure — make us turn away from leaning on each other and towards ideologically simple answers that increase isolation (e.g. “distrust government,” “MAGA is nuts,” “anyone who votes that way doesn’t care about you”).

In extreme cases, like Chile in the 1970s and ‘80s, the dictatorship aimed to keep people in such tiny nodes of trust that everyone was an island unto themselves. At social gatherings and parties, people would commonly not introduce each other by name out of fear of being too involved. Fear breeds distance.

We have to consciously break that distance. In Chile they organized under the guise of affinity groups. This was, as its name suggests, people who shared some connections and trust. Finding just a few people who you trust to regularly act with and touch base with is central.

Following Trump’s win: Get some people to regularly touch base with. Use that trust to explore your own thinking and support each other to stay sharp and grounded.

For the last several months I’ve been hosting a regular group at my house to “explore what is up with these times.” Our crew thinks differently but invests in trust. We emote, cry, sing, laugh, sit in stillness and think together.

...

All of us will benefit from actively organized nodes to help stabilize us. In a destabilized society, you need people who help ground you.

posted by obliterati at 6:57 AM on November 6 [5 favorites]


So, this may not be for everyone, but I am personally finding it helpful to read histories/books about previous fights for democracy in the US. I'm finding a strange kind of comfort in realizing that there have always been very, very good reasons for those who came before us to despair and rage, and I personally find it helpful to read about those who have felt those same feelings, often in political and social moments marked by the same violence, apathy, and hatred that we are contending with today.

For me, today, that's going to be Jonathan Eig's biography of Martin Luther King. What stood out to me about this book was just how often King and many leaders of the civil rights movement felt despair, rage, and profound terror. I find King's late writings in particular to be moving in this regard: he, like many of his fellow activists, spoke often of hopes, and dreams, and aspiration, but just as often of despair and uncertainty and anger. Reading the historical precedent for what I'm feeling makes me feel far less alone in the utter fury and despair I feel right now.
posted by lavenderhaze at 6:58 AM on November 6 [2 favorites]


Purely on the mental health side, here are some ways to calm your body and your nervous system so that you can use your energy in productive ways:

Guided Progressive Muscle relaxation if you can find a calm, quiet place to spend sixteen minutes to help yourself relax.

Guided meditation "Accepting Emotions" - a secular, calm voice guiding you in how to accept painful emotions. Twelve minutes.

Quick ways to activate your parasympathetic nervous that gets you out of flight / flight and able to rest:

Cold water in your face, or a cold, wet cloth on your neck.

Box breathing: Deep, slow breath in - hold it, deep slow breath out, hold it. Try to make each stage - in, hold, out, hold, equally long.

Go outside and look at something far away - clouds or the horizon. This has a physiological calming effect.

Listen to nature sounds: ocean, distant thunder, rain, rain on car roof etc, whatever you find soothing. Some examples: Rain with distant thunder ocean sounds Rain on car roof

If you're having a panic attack or feel trapped, this is an emergency calming technique:
Ease your breathing
Try to find three things you can see. Just note them. "Tiles. Hand. Shampoo bottle"
Try to find three things you can hear, close by, or far away.
Try to find three things you can feel - your clothes on your body, your breath on your lips.
Check where your hands are.
Check where your feet are.

When you're feeling calmer and have space to think, take stock of your situation. What can you control? What is out of your control? Take careful note of these things, and try to accept that the things that are out of your control, are not your responsibility, and you can't do anything about them. Make your world as small as you need to, find small, useful things to do that make things better even if it's only in a very small, private way.

Watch your negative small talk. Don't try to fight it, don't judge it or try to force it to stop - just note it in a non-judgemental way. "Hmm. I'm ruminating again." or "I'm fighting with an imaginary person" etc. The act of noting your thoughts puts a bit of space between them and you, and makes it easier for you not to be swept away by them.

Try to replace catastrophising with realistic compassion. "I don't know what will happen, it might be bad, but I will find a way to cope, just like I have in the past." or "Soon this moment will pass. It will soon be a memory. I won't be trapped in this moment forever, even if it feels that way."

Sending you all the kind, compassionate vibes. Be so, so gentle and patient with yourself.
posted by Zumbador at 7:19 AM on November 6 [3 favorites]


The "10 ways" article, linked above, is down for (for me at least). Here's the wayback link.
posted by mabelstreet at 7:27 AM on November 6


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