Those A-holes Were an Earthquake and a Drunk Dad
The insurrection as seen through trauma and mental health
From the Old 97’s song Victoria:
She lived in Berkeley 'til the earthquake shook her loose.
She lives in Texas now where nothin' ever moves.
Yesterday’s insurrection felt like an earthquake to me. Or rather what earthquakes feel like to a lot of other people. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and got used to them. Just a condition of living there, like gloomy weather and inevitable Bigfoot maulings. My wife is from Chicago and was scared to death of earthquakes the whole time we lived in Seattle. In a quake, nothing is safe because the very ground below you isn’t stable so how can anything be stable? And our house was on a fault line, which certainly was not reassuring to her. Like literally on one. We live in Saint Paul now where nothin’ ever moves.
I’m not going to show any pictures or videos from the insurrection.
I’ve spent this morning trying to organize my thoughts about yesterday into a perfectly insightful mini-essay about the insurrection (which we are all forced to think about) and mental health (which I always think about) (well, that and basketball.)
I can’t quite do it so I separated out the thoughts a little and will provide some whimsical things in between them because I BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF WHIMSY. And the power of Grayskull.
If you’ve never dealt with depression or anxiety disorders, first of all, congrats. Must be nice. That feeling you had as assholes entered the Capitol and then walked around being assholes? That’s a little glimpse into what it feels like. Like there was some kind of resistance for a while but then it all went to shit. Picture that all the time. Welcome to the jungle.
If you HAVE dealt with those disorders, yesterday may have made them worse. The fears you dismissed as cognitive distortions turned out to be real as hell. The assholes have seized the literal corridors of power. “I’m just imagining things,” says you. “Uh-uh,” says universe.
As these assholes busted through the doors like the Trojan army’s fuck-up friends who listen to too much Tool, I kept thinking about alcoholic parents. The government is the parent, we are the children who the parent is supposed to protect. Thing about having an alcoholic parent is you just never know what you’re getting from the person who is supposed to be the most reliable figure in your life. Anything can happen instantly. Anger? Violence? A parent who fails to pick you up when they’re supposed to or vanishes altogether? You learn not to get too comfortable and you stay alert for whatever comes next so you can respond accordingly. And that’s a world out of whack. Children are not supposed to worry about that and when they do have to worry about it, it’s exhausting and traumatic.
A lot of times, this trauma translates into a life where you immobilize yourself and put up shields. Cut yourself off. No one getting into your life means no one can hurt you. Shutting down means no vulnerability. And hello depression. It can also mean being in the world but constantly being aware of all that could go wrong. Always being on guard. If that trust can be shattered, how can you really trust anyone to not hurt you? How can you trust the world to not harm you at any particular moment? And hello anxiety.
These are defensive behaviors and they make a lot of sense. It’s self-preservation. Later, long after the source of the depression and anxiety is out of your everyday life, those patterns of behavior often continue. The threat has passed, the depression and anxiety remain.
In many ways, the president is just as erratic and unstable as an alcoholic parent but with the added ability to mess things up for an entire country. And planet, really. This leaves the rest of us constantly on guard and afraid and utterly exhausted. I won’t say that living under this president is trauma by the strict psychiatric definition but if we extend the Trump-as-alcoholic-parent metaphor, it’s hard to get away from the idea of a trauma we’re all going to need some time sorting it out.
So what was yesterday? Yesterday was the alcoholic parent inviting all his fucked-up friends from the bar into your house and letting them march into your bedroom while you’re asleep. Your room was supposed to be a safe space for you but you wake up and there are the menacing friends intent on fucking shit up.
It’s been a terrifyingly unstable household for four years now but as this parent is getting ready to be thrown out of the house, he’s acting out, self-destructing, and trying to take down everyone with him.
Whew. That was a long one. Let’s enjoy Paul Simon playing “Still Crazy After All These Years” before he’s done writing it.
So then okay, John. John, okay. What do we do now?
Self-care, I guess. And I mean it in the most basic way. Drink enough water. Try to lay off toxins. Meditate, if that’s a thing you already do. Perhaps don’t start meditating if you haven’t done it before, save it for later. I can’t make any recommendations on healing or how to address the crisis through direct action. I wish you luck on that. But maintain the health of your person as best you can.
I do believe that when Trump is gone and the vaccines do their job, we will need to reckon with this. And hell, I do believe it’s trauma and I arrive at that through the “if it quacks like a duck” line of logic. We’re going to need to look at what happened and how it will shape our thoughts and actions going forward. We can’t make it so those jerks busted into our bedroom but we can learn about and manage the effects.
When it was announced that MF DOOM died, it hit my friend Mike hard. DOOM was more than just a favorite musician to Mike. More like a guru, hero, and guide. And favorite musician. So Mike made art about it.
Yes. That pretty much sums up my state of mind. Hiding in the shadows, telling myself that I don't want to stay here. Not convinced yet.