Once there was this man who used to visit philosophy club and he showed up to a discussion and proceeded to say some things that demonstrated a clear distain and prejudice towards gay people in a room that was literally full of gay people. I am not sure if that was something he knew at the time and he was saying these things from a place of malice, or if he just – didn’t read the room, and was saying the same things he would have said in any room. Which is almost worse.
I got up and left the meeting as soon as I remembered I had legs. But then he followed me out into the dark so he could keep saying fucked up things to me. So I screamed at him to go away and told him to fuck off in front of a few fellow students. He did, but then when we went to go hide in the department and lock ourselves in there with the lights off, he and his friends kept walking past the door in the hallway for almost an hour after that before he finally gave up and walked away. And we walked ourselves home in groups of two and texted the group chat to check in that everyone had gotten home safe. And we filed a report and rewrote the philosophy club constitution to try to avoid having to deal with people being the way he was being. And later on he just kept turning up to meetings and we couldn’t make him go away. He even went out of his way to befriend our advisor. So eventually I stopped going to club meetings and the person that was almost ready to crawl out of my shell and start trying to date women in the way that I knew that I wanted to date women very nearly rolled over and died, but at least crawled back into the shell and decided to stay there for a long time.
When I told a librarian what had happened she looked at me and said something like – what has just happened to you is going to mess with your nervous system for days or potentially weeks, if you let it. That was a traumatic experience and the stress is going to effect your body and your mental state in a bad way. You need to do everything in your power to take care of yourself now to mitigate the lasting influence of what has just happened. Take long showers. Get as cozy as possible. Meditate. Do breath work. Read your favorite book. Listen to music. Exercise. Go for long walks. Write. Everything that will help you feel like you are safe and not in danger so your nervous system can get out of fight or flight or freeze mode.
The implications of happened on the morning of the sixth when they called the election results in the US have done a similar thing to my mind and body. I am having a tough time getting out of this fight flight freeze reaction. It is bad and it is making it difficult think clearly about anything else in my life.
My mental and physical and emotional symptoms are here and they are painful. Full body arthritis and panic attacks and worry spirals. I am fragile. I am acutely aware that other people that I care about are roundly more affected by this than I am. I cannot go online right now without stepping into a sea of hate where everyone is blaming everybody else for what has happened and my own kneejerk reaction is to jump right into the sea and start participating. I cannot go online right now without reading thoughtful loving lists of things to do to keep yourself and loved ones safe from what is about to happen. I read a post from a different librarian saying “your vulnerable friends are not okay right now” and I can’t decide how vulnerable I am but I know I am certainly not okay.
My bones ache and my head is spinning and I have been crying and I look at myself and think things that are much less kind than “none of this is helpful to anyone” and just
loved ones ask “how are you” and I cannot even begin to get the words out.