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'What you call chaos, I call opportunity.'
It's a line from House of Cards, (Remy, s4, ep4), but could easily be have been a Donald Trump in the run-up to his election, or British politicians in the run up to Brexit. But whilst chaos can be entertaining in a TV drama, it's less amusing when it is the reality you are living through. Today, in an America that seems more polarized than ever before, many of those who didn't vote for Trump are feeling shell-shocked and dazed, struggling to assimilate what's happened. That so many pre-election polls showed Clinton ahead makes it even harder to assimilate what's happened.
We all process things at different rates
Of course not everyone in the US feels negatively impacted – Trump wouldn't have got in if the swathes of supporters hadn't voted for him – but for those who voted for Clinton, what you're experiencing now is akin to what many Brits – me included –felt post the EU Referendum results back in July. I was part of the 48% who voted to remain and in the immediate wake of that result, was numb, then sad and angry. I also experienced waves of anxiety, the worst I’ve experienced in a long while. The sensations were all too familiar and unpleasant – whirling thoughts, catastrophizing, the sense I couldn’t cope with anything and everything; that my brain wouldn’t compute.
For some the breaking point might be the realization friends they thought were kindred spirits have a very different perception of our country than they do, for others a business deal being cancelled. Certainly I was not alone – sales of my little book on anxiety rose steeply around Brexit, and therapists reported ‘shockingly elevated levels of despair and distress' according to The Guardian.
Living with a new reality is a challenge when uncertainty dominates
In a bid to gain understanding as to why political change should hit our mental state so hard, a psychotherapeutic approach can be helpful. As psychoanalyst and social critic Susie Orbach explains eloquently, the question of living with a new reality is not straightforward. Following Brexit, she argued that many of her clients were mourning, and the day the results came in, I posted on Facebook, ‘I feel like my country has committed suicide’, though perhaps divorce was a better analogy. It was as if I had come home to find my other half had just packed his bags and gone, leaving me utterly bereft and in financial crisis. Today I imagine many of my Democrat-voting American friends feel similarly at a loss, trying to take stock of a future that's been turned upside down overnight.
In situations such as these it can be comforting to be reminded that mourning involves a process of forgetting and then remembering. ‘We go in and out of being highly aware, then getting on with just being busy and becoming startled again when the thought comes back to bite us,’ says Orbach. She explains that the sense that we can’t manage it is part of the course of absorbing something deeply unwanted. ‘It involves shock and shock again as a gradual realignment inside occurs.’
‘Uncertainty is one of the most difficult states to inhabit,’ writes clinical psychologist and psychotherapist Jay Watts. It is common in circumstances like these for people to search for someone to blame. ‘We should recognize the underlying need to create scapegoats as containers for our destructive feelings at this time of profound crisis,’ she says.Watts urges us to stop seeing those who voted differently as stupid as this will only increase the levels of anxiety, hate and despair. Nor does she believe we should act on our disquiet; instead ‘we must use this moment to pause and explore new ways of relating to one another in a radically different world’.
This all means living with uncertainty for a long while yet. But first we must quell the panic, because when we are in a state of high anxiety, taking stock is very hard, if not impossible.
So how can we as individuals calm ourselves down?
My instinct when panic began to rise was avoidance. Because my head was full to bursting, I wanted no more news, no more social media, no more discussion, and I know of others who’ve reacted likewise. ‘I’ve been incapable of anything other than watching endless episodes of The Good Wife’, said one author friend of mine; another has been baking cakes and photographing them in a bid to counter Facebook negativity.
To remain calm in the midst of chaos, it’s useful to remind ourselves we are part of a bigger whole. It can help give perspective to spend time in nature – the great outdoors can be healing, not least because election or no election, flowers and trees continue growing, rivers keep running, waves still crash on the beach. In a similar way spending time with animals can remind us we are also part of another kingdom entirely. Cats and dogs and horses and hamsters don’t give a monkeys about Trump, after all.
On the subject of nature, it’s helpful to remind ourselves that anxiety is a perfectly natural reaction. Which is what makes a more holistic approach beneficial, as for all the insights psychotherapy can bring, our heads are no more disconnected from our bodies than our hair from our scalp (toupes excepting, of course). We do not live in a vacuum; anxiety does not only live in the mind.
Because it’s a physiological response, this means we cannot avoid anxiety or get rid of it completely. We need anxiety, just as we need laughter and tears and friends and family. To put it at its simplest, this is because anxiety is the biological vestige of fear, and we need fear to safeguard us against danger, however horrible it feels to be afraid.
What happens to the body when we are anxious or panicky?
Maybe you remember learning about the ‘fight or flight’ response at school. If not, here’s a swift reminder:
- When we experience fear, we get a rush of adrenaline. From this point, it’s all systems go.
- Our breathing becomes faster and shallower, supplying more oxygen to the muscles.
- Our hearts beat more rapidly and blood is driven to the brain and limbs so we can make split-second decisions and a quick getaway. Hence the symptoms of anxiety such as heart palpitations, chest pains and tingling.
- Blood is taken from areas of the body where it’s not needed like the stomach, because in a life-threatening situation, you’re not going to stop for food. Thus when you’re afraid, you may feel sick and unable to eat.
- The liver releases stored sugar to provide fuel for energy. Excess sugar in the blood can cause indigestion.
- Muscles at the opening of the anus and bladder are relaxed. Food and liquid are evacuated so you’re lighter to run. Hence diarrhoea and frequent urination.
- The body cools itself by perspiring. Blood vessels and capillaries move close to the skin surface, leading to sweating and blushing.
As I explain in my little book on anxiety, anxiety is your body signalling something is not quite right, and if we experience these responses in ‘normal’ situation such a supermarket or business meeting – or the Brexit referendum – they can be very frightening. Often these physical symptoms arise together – a panic attack can involve difficulty in breathing, palpitations, dizziness and chest pains, for instance. Yet whilst panic attacks are scarier than nausea or diarrhoea, all these symptoms are connected to the release of adrenaline and are not problematic in themselves.
It’s also worth stating that fighting makes anxiety worse. It’s easy to get caught up in a spiral of self-doubt and just want the feelings to disappear. Believe me, I find it hard too. The trouble is if we fight anxiety, we will trigger the fight or flight response again, and the anxiety will continue. If we understand that our bodies react to fear to protect us, it is easier to see anxiety as a friend not foe.
10 ways to ease anxiety
1. Pare back. Do not cancel. We cannot avoid what goes on around us, however much we want to. In days of yore I’d have taken to my bed and pulled the duvet over my head, but I’ve learned that this not the best solution. Avoidance can create a vicious circle and it’s all too easy to stop facing what we fear entirely. Instead I find a combination of understanding why I’ve been triggered, together with some gentle practices designed to put me in touch with my body most helpful. So however you decide to participate in this time of change, do it in a way that you can manage. If you don’t like crowds at the best of times, avoiding demonstrations is eminently sensible, for instance, no matter how keenly your friends urge you to go on a march. Email your local political representative or write and share a blog instead.
2. Exercise. Physical exercise burns off stress hormones such as adrenaline, reduces excess energy and tension, forces healthier breathing and releases brain chemicals which are natural antidepressants.
3. Eat well. Anxiety is exacerbated by irregular meals and too much caffeine and/or alcohol.
4. Do what you enjoy. No one person is going to sort out the country overnight. I’m not suggesting you don’t engage politically (see 1), but make time for pleasurable experiences.
5. Laugh. Cartoonists can hardly draw fast enough. Being able to see humor in a situation can be a great release.
6. Breathe. By slowing down the heart rate and inhaling more deeply and slowly, we can reduce the amount of adrenaline the body produces. Your breath can function as an anchor and help you still your mind.
7.Focus on the here and now. Imagining the future and worrying about all the things that could go wrong doesn’t make them any more predictable. It just stops us enjoying the present.
8. Accept things as they are. Acknowledge your feelings, and trust that they will pass.
9. Remember you are not alone. People have been anxious for millennia. Talking to others can help and you can find the Making Friends with Anxiety & Depression Facebook group here.
10. Finally, be kind, to yourself and to others. For as John Donne wrote back in 1624, ‘No man is an island, Entire of itself, Every man is a piece of the continent, A part of the main.’
The world can get through this, but it will take patience, understanding and a sense of the whole.
