Two Spins On How Election is Screwing With Everyone’s Head

We’ve got less than a month to go until the presidential election. Which doesn’t seem that long until you consider the angry bile we’ve been marinating in for months. If you’re angrier, more anxious, less opitimistic or full-on freaked out about now, you’re not alone.

Choosing our new president is taking a toll on pretty much every American’s mental health.

A recent Politico article pointed out that over the summer, some 3,000 therapists signed a manifesto declaring that Donald Trump’s overt sexism, intolerance, and scapegoating behavior posed an actual threat to the well-being of their patients. Months ago, these mental health professionals were already seeing an uptick in their clients’ feeling of anxiety, fear, shame and helplessness.

And when a University of Minnesota psychologist polled 1,000 voting-age Americans, he found that 43 percent were feeling emotional distress because of Trump’s campaign. (In turn, 28 percent said Hilary Clinton was stressing them out.)

Do we really need to unpack why this campaign is torturing us so? Is “Good vs. Evil”/”Love vs. Hate” not clear enough?

Okay then. Let’s break it down.

“Many people are more anxious [about] what’s going to happen because the two [political parties] are so polarized. They fear the other side winning and the consequence of that changing their lives,” explains Dr. Gail Saltz, MD, a psychiatrist in New York City and host of “The Power of Different” podcast.

Our anger’s bubbling up, she adds, “because the gloves are off in terms of politicians modeling civilized behavior and curbing what they will say. That’s given many people permission to speak angrily and disparagingly, which has inflamed our collective way of relating and feeling.”

Some people are bummed about what they perceive as no good choices for president, says Saitz. But let’s face it — confidence in politicians has been on the wane for a while now. And feeling like no one you trust is at the wheel leaves people with “a degree of hopelessness about being able to control and protect their futures,” Saltz says.