The New PTSD

[pbmus]

Let’s call this PTSD post-Trump stress disorder, triggered by the election, to the most powerful office in the world, of a man who’s espoused wholesale exclusion of Muslim immigrants, deporting millions of undocumented immigrants, repealing Roe v. Wade, abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency, and encouraging Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia to develop nuclear weapons, among other polarizing proposals. While post-Trump stress in no way equals the level of trauma experienced by combat veterans in Afghanistan, Iraq or Vietnam, this is an experience shared by tens of millions of Americans right now.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. It's kind of an oppressive sense of impending doom,

not so much the intense stress of being (for example) shot at. It sort of reminds me of how I felt right after 9/11 - something very bad had just happened; we didn't know why it happened or what was likely to happen next, except that whatever the result was going to be, it was going to be bad and would last indefinitely.

[pbmus]

2. Yes exactly...well put...

I think I am now feeling a sense of foreboding mixed with outright panic attacks every time I see the fat orange head appear on the tv

[shenmue]

3. Me too

[Leghorn21]

5. Yes, the sense of "foreboding" permeates so thoroughly, 24/7 - Ms. Gessen's take:

"...Autocracies work by plunging citizens into a state of low-level dread. Most of the powers commandeered by the autocrat are ceded without a fight, and the power of imagination, the claim to a past and a future are the first to go. A person in a state of dread lives in a miserable forever present. A person in a state of dread is imminently controllable. The choice to protest, on the other hand, is the choice to take control of one’s body, one’s time, and one’s words, and in doing so to reclaim the ability to see a future..."

From "Why We Must Protest", Masha Gessen
http://lithub.com/masha-gessen-why-we-must-protest/

[BadGimp]

4. I had it First!

I experienced it as

Pre
Trump
Distress
Disorder

it never went away, it only became more real

[The River]

6. Lets NOT

As you admit.

"While post-Trump stress in no way equals the level of trauma experienced by combat veterans in Afghanistan, Iraq or Vietnam,".....

and then proceed to equate the two by saying

"this is an experience shared by tens of millions of Americans right now."

No, there is no comparison.
Just to be clear, you're experiencing disappointment about the election and you are projecting a lot of negativity about the future. Get a grip on your fears and quit equating military PTSD with having an idiot in the WH, again.
We survived Nixon, Regan and 2 Bush's. We'll survive the Orange Shitler.

[pbmus]

8. PTSD not always military ...just sayin

[HDSam]

15. Your response

was pretty nearly the same that crossed my mind when I read the OP.

[OhioBlue]

16. PTSD - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

can come from any Traumatic event and many people are having it triggered by the gut punch of realization that our nation would elect someone who bullies, scapegoats, promotes racisim and brags about sexual assault among many other things. For many people that have been bullied, discriminated against, ostracized by their families, assaulted, violated, etc. it is much more than disappointment in an election.

[The River]

17. What You Say About

PTSD is grossly simplified. I empathize with all who suffer
burdens not of their own making. Life is unfair and imperfect.
People suffer. Help is available and it's getting more effective with time.
Thanks Vietnam vets for forcing the medical community to recognize it.
Military PTSD is much more complex and destructive than the civilian version.
Especially when it goes untreated for decades. I know, first hand.
I have it. I survived it and now I teach it.

If you don't have military PTSD on your VA medical records, you
really have no standing to equate it to civilian trauma.

[BlueProgressive]

7. I have been very depressed ever since the election,

and I'm not shaking it...

[SleeplessinSoCal]

10. I don't think we should shake it. but maybe turn it into action. at least I keep saying that.

It is horrific to find yourself incapable of tuning out because it is so important. We have to find a way to better cope. Eventually I think drugs and pot will become essentials.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

9. I have experienced a divisive blow to me and my family.

On Facebook last week my anger and frustration caused me to post an article with my declaration of losing respect for friends and family who voted for him. Tonight I got an email from my mother expressing her dislike of me over the years and that I alone of her 5 grown children was deserving of a chastising admonition. (And one of my brothers spent time in prison). I am the oldest, a gal, opinionated and left home for 30 years to return to Fox News central and an uncomfortable family dynamic. But at no other time, with no other candidate, would this have happened. I am so full of anger and fear for our future. And I can't fight my way out of this state I'm in.

I think my anger with some in my family hinges on the Obama presidency. It's nullification by a pig like Trump is unbearable. Thinking of the future terrifies me. And one of my half sisters tore into me later this evening because I brought up the fear I feel. I am supposed to subjugate these fears and feelings and pretend to be a happy family living in harmony no matter the election of that person who is a horror show. I haven't responded to my mother. The half sister dynamic was coming apart, but this ripped that tear wide open.

[pbmus]

11. I am sorry that you are going thru such turmoil in your

own family. You might try to look at a slightly larger positive picture in that California is undoubtedly the most progressive state in the USA . I sincerely hope that you and your family can eventually become more civil to one another, in the meantime please don't give up the good fight.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

12. thank you for your concern. it means a lot.

It is what I wish for my family. More empathy. I am at fault in this too. It's the hypocrisy that is extra hard on liberals. Having empathy and compassion for those not born into the Trump landscape is going to be a heavy, heavy load. We need conservatives' help, not their admonition.

[Duppers]

13. You're not alone.

I've experienced much the same with my extended birth family.

It's been a joke in my immediate loving, liberal family. My son got me a beautiful little stuff black sheep one year for christmas and told me how proud he was of me standing up to them and speaking truths that needed to be said.

Tensions were rough to bear and I've paid a price but I've been more content with myself. Most would say I should have bitten my tongue but to each their own. My conscience overcame my need for acceptance.

Take care.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

14. the way we deal with it could help or hurt.

Either you get tuned out completely or you can suffer inside because what matters most to you means little to someone in your own family.

I recall as a child my stepfather taking us to see "Dr. Strangelove". As a Nixon supporter it was a very passive aggressive act. And quite cruel to subject young children to. I have read that Trump's election puts us in a more precarious situation regarding nuclear weapons than we were in the cold war. We don't experience the same reality. They're fed such garbage about science and the 2008 financial crisis and Islam and Christianity and immigrants and refugees, and crime and the 2nd amendment and the first amendment and women's rights and ....

Being in parallel universes is so destructive. But the one we opt for has to be rooted in reality and not this Trumped up version of reality. How do we get on the same page? When will "Post Truth" get traction on the right?