Coping With Election Anxiety
Reminding ourselves we are human beings in a body in a local community
Hi friends. It has been a minute since I’ve written! The last few weeks have been wonderful in many ways but also incredibly busy, and I’ve been feeling drained and needing extra recovery. On top of that, election season anxiety has been hitting hard and I’ve been spending too much time reading other political newsletters (love/hate relationship; definitely addicted? 😬) and not enough time finding my own pockets of peace or space for reflection!
This newsletter hit an exciting milestone in October: we’re at over 500 subscribers! What a big deal! (and makes me feel bad for not writing recently! 🙃) I hope people know that I look at every new subscriber email (because I do see all of them!) and I am so grateful that people are here, wanting to engage about religious trauma and exvangelicalism and my various forays into things as diverse as tarot to running to neurodivergence to whatever has caught my interest. You are truly the best!
On to today’s topic: Coping with election-season anxiety.
Was it just me, or was the week before this especially bad for election anxiety? Politics felt very doomsday and I had a hard time fathoming living in a world where hurricanes hit, Democrats are blamed for… changing the weather patterns??, and FEMA workers literally have to leave areas because their lives are being threatened. Even if my preferred candidate won, things were looking so hopeless when 48%+ of the voting population is willing and eager to believe wild conspiracy theories and seem to share no common reality with the rest of the population.
It’s possible it hits harder where I am because I live in a solidly Trump county and see reminders daily of the intensity of Trump devotion. I get political mailers — I call them “hate mail” — almost daily, smearing the Sherrod Brown, the Democratic Ohio senator, and absolutely scapegoating one of two groups: undocumented immigrants aka “illegal aliens” or trans people, whom they always refer to as “biological males.” I try to recycle them as soon as I see them but that shit is still lights up my internal rage.
Two indicators I have of not feeling well anxiety-wise are: a) how frequently I pick up my phone to look for nothing in particular, and b) how much I have to always be listening to something, usually a podcast, in my downtime — especially while running. I was not doing great on either metric lately. I can see myself doing it and observe out loud (e.g. to my spouse) that I’m doing it and I hate it, yet… do it anyway.
All summer and fall I’ve been quietly training for another marathon, which means many, many hours out on the path or trail. This past Saturday I had a 22-miler lined up, but my favorite headphones had died. I wore my second favorite out the morning of the run…but then I tucked them in my hand…and a couple miles later, I tucked them in my pocket. I didn’t use them the entire 3 hour 45 minutes I was gone.
Instead, I listened to the sound of my feet on the rail trail. I smelled the scent of early morning mist and the stinky pond and leaves recently fallen. I watched the first changes of color and the brown leaves on the path and the sun coming up higher and higher. I tasted my salted caramel Gu packet and the lemony sweetness of my Tailwind and reminded my stomach (which didn’t want any more Gu) that we’re training my gut for a marathon too, not just my legs. I felt the cold numbness of my hands and how they slowly warmed up, and I noticed how my legs actually felt injury-free (!) and strong.
When it got hard, really hard, at mile 18, I thought of a personal-connection story told to me recently about the dangers of crossing the border from Mexico, about the dire risks people took and the money they spent and how desperately they longed to be in America— usually to provide for family back in their home country. I prayed, or whatever I call it these days, for their safety. I felt grief and anger that the hateful mailers paint these souls in such a horrific light, but I mostly felt concern and compassion for migrants’ and asylum-seekers’ safety, and marveled at their tenacity and courage. I told myself that whatever voluntary pain I was putting myself through right now was absolute peanuts compared to what so many others like those are going through. I dedicated each difficult step to their suffering that I knew almost nothing about.
I won’t say it was a magic elixir, but I did feel a sense of release from the anxiety, fearfulness, and anger as I let myself be in the moment. My last long-long run was rough, and I relished how the cool weather and new shoes and months of hard work were paying off in feeling good today. Nothing in the outside world had changed, but I didn’t have to be drowning in the uncontrollable and immersing myself in the chaos every second.
A few days later, after my religious trauma support group (one of the highlights of my month!), I was chatting with the new owner of my favorite coffee shop. She and her wife bought it and are creating a queer-empowered, open, embracing, loving community right here in ruby-red Ohio. She noted how the business is thriving, and most of the old customer base has come right with the new acquisition: including a small group of very obvious Trump supporters who gather on some weekday mornings and often talk loudly about politics. It was pointed out to her how she’s created a welcoming space for everyone, even those who might reasonably be considered her political enemies. Hopefully it is not lost on them how this (VERY obviously!) queer-friendly hub is willing to do for them what they are unwilling to do in return.
Often, politically-minded folks will suggest concrete political action one can take to help combat election anxiety. Giving money, writing postcards, calling potential voters, knocking on doors. Those ideas are great! I support them! But they also keep you caught up in a certain version of reality where politics are the underlying layer to everything.
So I am also suggesting that we find ways to ground ourselves in our own lives, our own loves, our passions, our connections. Running ridiculous distances happen to be my thing, but what’s yours? What reminds you that you are a human in a flesh-and-blood body that needs attending to? Where can you go that reminds you that your solo human body craves and even needs connection with others to thrive? Where do you find pockets of hope and love in your little universe?
Congrats on 500 subscribers, Christine! Love the fall trees and that you’re back on the trail.
“I won’t say it was a magic elixir, but I did feel a sense of release from the anxiety, fearfulness, and anger as I let myself be in the moment.” So good!
I’ve been walking and hiking and biking in our new town a lot (we moved from San Diego to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho a few months ago so I’m feeling that ruby-red rub). I’ve found I don’t even want my headphones or extra noise. I’ve also been taking a ridiculous amount of fall tree pictures and collecting leaves to send back to my SoCal peeps.
Nice reflections on the joy and hardship of running and the renewal from being in nature, Christine! Joy and renewal feel essential as survival refuges during this intense election time when so much is at stake. Our nation's constitutional existence and our personal freedoms are threatened by a man who should not even be allowed on ballots after multiple felonious and treasonous actions. It's nothing less than a mind-fuck! We must have respites from it. Mine are daily 5-mile walks in the woods and reducing my check-ins on politics from minute-by-minute to a few times a week. I had to do it for sanity's sake. I can't say what I'll do for sanity if he gets into office (probably not by popular vote but by manipulating the "system"). I guess we will all learn to live day by day, finding more refuge in the things that give us joy and peace.