How to Stay Sane in Troubling Times

The morning after last November’s election, like many of you, I woke up in disbelief at the results. Under Biden, our economy was the envy of the world. As the owner of an electric vehicle, I had cheered the infrastructure act that would install many more electric vehicle chargers. The Inflation Reduction Act would provide significant climate action, an issue of great concern for me. I had ignored the political ads that proclaimed Bidenomics to be a disaster. Surely the American people were smarter than that.

Yet apparently enough people believed the lies that the economy was terrible and believed the campaign promises to lower the price of eggs, to end the war in Ukraine on day one, etc. to elect Donald Trump. Let’s not forget it was by a small margin. But still it was a victory. He may have denied knowing about Project 2025, but in the last few months we have watched its proposals being implemented as fast as possible. USAID has been destroyed, causing the deaths of many of its recipients world-wide. Funds for scientific research have been cut. Immigrants innocent of any crime have been picked up off the streets by masked ICE agents in plain-clothes and taken to detention centers in foreign lands without due process. The horrors go on and on. Fear and intimidation have spread like a giant can of red paint emptied over the entire country. Reading the daily news began to feel like being assaulted over and over again. I wanted to go back to bed and wake up to a different country, one where the first black woman had become the next president. No luck. Every day I woke up to the same story. Doom and gloom and despair. What to do?

Some friends quit reading the news entirely. Others chose to immerse themselves in it and become paralyzed. During my forty years as a clinical social worker, I learned to help people focus more on what they can control and less on what they can’t control. After the 9/11 attack when news footage of the twin towers being hit played on endless repeat, I counseled people to stop watching and find something within their power to do, even if it was something small, like washing the dishes.

I admit that sometimes I feel like a cork on the ocean. Just keeping up with what’s going on can feel overwhelming. I’m 78 now and unable to do what I once did. But I can educate myself and I can express myself. And I can write.

Long ago I had subscribed to several newsletters through Substack.com. Profoundly disappointed in the main-stream media, who had paid more attention to Biden’s possible infirmities than to the much greater infirmities and danger of Trump, I began to read these Substack emails more closely. Experienced journalists I had followed were leaving the NY Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times and other legacy media to write through Substack, such as Paul Krugman, Jennifer Ruben and Harry Litman. I continued to follow them through Substack. I became devoted to reading Heather Cox Richardson’s daily “Letters from an American.” I learned there were grass roots movements rising up. There were myriad “opportunities for citizen engagement” as shared by Robert Hubbell in his daily newsletters. Protests were being planned. Postcard writing events were being organized. Phone banks for special elections were being held. Experts were offering Zoom calls to tell people the truth and what they could do about it. The main message of all these sources was to speak up. Call/write your elected officials. Express yourself in any way you can.

I learned I was not alone.

Of the many avenues I found (there are many), I chose to work through Jessica Craven’s Chopwoodcarrywaterdailyactions.substack.com. Four days a week, she summarized the current news and provided scripts for calling/writing your elected officials. On Sundays she sent a list of good things. Yes, there are good things!

I found I could copy/paste these scripts into my word processor, tweak them a bit as needed, then copy/paste them into the websites of my two GOP Senators and my Democratic Representative, then hit “submit.” It took at most ten minutes. Ah, I did something!

Eventually, I began to receive responses. I got more from my Democratic Representative, to no surprise. But soon I also heard from my GOP Senators. They were form letters thanking me for sharing my opinion but still…

And protests began happening everywhere. Feeling I had aged out of going to protests in distance places, I attended protests in my local community in concert with mass protests around the country. I made signs and held them high. I felt a sense of community with a lot of others. The people united cannot be defeated! The power of the people is greater than the people in power!

Then I could turn my attention to having lunch with friends, taking my dog for a walk, curling up with my kitty while reading an escapist novel, bingeing a Netflix show, doing something fun with my husband. In other words, enjoying my life. I may be putting only a few drops into the river of resistance but a few drops from all of us makes a flood. So I keep going. How about you?