Have National Election Results Kept People Up at Night?

Have national election results kept people up at night? The simple answer to the title of this post is, “yes.” Since Tuesday’s election outcome, I have spoken with many people about their feelings and about their struggles with the unsettling rhetoric of the Republican candidate, now President-Elect. The consensus? Young and old, white and non-white, rich and poor, straight or LGBT, many people are ill at ease and many aren’t sleeping. Many don’t feel safe; many don’t feel protected.

As I discussed in my posts Sleep and Attachment and Fear of the Dark and Insomnia people tend to lie awake at night when they don’t feel a proper “holding environment.” That is, when one’s community is fragmented or fragile, be it a family community, a religious community, a work community or a national community, anxiety arises.

National Election Results and Insomnia

When we don’t feel understood, when we don’t feel someone has our back, when our pain goes un-soothed, we can remain vigilant and, as a result, insomnia can set in. The equation is simple: when we feel compassionately and consistently responded to, we feel secure and security brings a restful state; when we feel dismissed and abandoned, we feel insecure which breeds an anxious state.

Many of my clients, some of my colleagues and even a few of my children’s friends couldn’t sleep the night of the election as Donald Trump was not a soothing response to their needs and desires as a member of our national community.

Because Trump’s campaign has been anything but inclusive and has threatened war, walls and waning support for our planet, many people feel threatened. While some worry about losing health insurance benefits and others fear being estranged from their families through deportation, the list is long and the anxiety is high with reference to what Trump may actually do or not do for the American people.

If you are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender you may lose your rights to marriage equality, if you are a woman, you may not gain your right to equal pay and you may lose the right to make decisions about your body, if you are non-white, you may continue to suffer from economic discrimination against you and if you are an immigrant, you may lose your right to stay united with your family, just to name a few. This is scary. This is dark.

As I referenced in Fear of the Dark and Insomnia, people naturally stay vigilant when they sense something threatening lurks in the darkness. Many of Trump’s statements are threats and the darkness is the unknown. In other words, will he actually do what he says he’s going to do? We don’t know. Thus, we remain agitated, vigilant, unable to rest.

One of my patient’s, who suffers from anxiety and occasional insomnia, has repeatedly said over the years, “I need a plan.” In other words, as long as she feels lost in the darkness, without a beacon, she lies awake at night. When she establishes a plan, a strategy about how to affect her life, she feels contained. She has a “holding environment.” Another patient has learned that if she acts on her thoughts vs chews on them, her anxiety subsides and she sleeps better.

Election Results: Conclusion

Perhaps, the comfort we can find amidst the current threatening darkness of the national election results is a plan, a course of action. Perhaps we need to, at first, “stay awake” in order to establish that plan. And, if that plan, individually and collectively, is compassionate, productive and cohesive, it will make things safer, clearer, more inclusive and less fragmenting for all of us living in the United States. Therefore, a “secure attachment” to our nation could result. After all, in the spirit of our forefathers, we are meant to be a nation that is “indivisible with liberty and justice for all.” Maybe you can think of your plan and sleep on that.