We Are Animals: What Your Therapist Thinks About the 2018 Midterm Elections
I turned on the television yesterday afternoon and about 30 minutes later I realized I’d been stress-eating an unfair amount of my 5-year-old’s Halloween candy. As any good therapist would, I took a deep breath and prompted myself to connect mindfully to the present moment. On display on the screen was a futuristic scene: a reporter in front of multiple more enormous screens used a finger to navigate, rapid fire through maps and charts, a stream of info verbally and visually assaulting my system. No doubt he had a team of people in his ear and devoting their life’s work to that broadcast. He could have been reporting on a storm, a dystopian horse race, a strange auction of some sort. It was, however the actual analysis of a battle taking place: the 2018 midterm elections. The genre could have been science fiction.
Later as the scene continued to play out, intensity increasing as the evening went on, I remarked to my husband, incredulous “Is this real? Have we really not come any further? Haven’t we known all along that we can only change things if we come together?… This is the opposite of that! Does anybody really care?” Like many Americans, I went to bed and thought instead of slept. After a while I gave up and with the TV off, phone out of reach I did what most of us (myself included) largely forget to do: I reflected.
What the actual fuck is going on?
The historian and writer Yuval Noah Harari explained in his seminal, 2011 book ‘Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind’ that humans did not rise slowly to the top of the food chain, like the majestic lion or great white shark for example, but instead quite rapidly ascended following the cognitive revolution. This did not give the ecosystem (or ourselves!) time to adjust. Yet, precariously perched atop this apex we remain: guerilla dictators of sorts, promoted to our own point of incompetence- needing to grow.
And just like our close relatives, actual gorillas, in a group of people there are usually 2 conflicting and competing factions jockeying for leadership. As a social worker and psychotherapist, I see this as not a negative, but just the opposite:
conflict is opportunity for growth.
What I saw yesterday, on TV and in all forms of media, was a focus on conflict. I looked for the growth, but what I saw was an extreme furtherance of an “us vs. them” mentality; a win or lose mindset instead of a focus towards growth. No wonder we are failing! As Stanford researcher, Carol Dweck, Ph.D. describes in her book ‘Mindset: The New Psychology of Success‘, her research shows that a growth mindset is the only path towards meaningful success- in any realm.
After reading Dr. Dwyck’s prolific book some years ago, I have become more and more tuned in to a cultural fixed perspective (a focus on win or lose and conflict void of growth) that is pervasive. This has created a quicksand of disconnection in our society that is no longer simply conflict, but instead constitutes a violent threat- a total absence of love, a divorce from others and from the self, a void of nothingness.
This disconnection from others and from the self is at the root of the changing and extreme violence that we see now in our society today. It is not new, but it is proceeding and thus, there are more and more of us neck deep in this quicksand. Instead of growth, we appear to be perfecting our neurosis on a large and catastrophically dangerous scale. We need leaders who can bravely push us forward, through the messy work of growth.
Redefining ourselves… together.
Now, more than ever we must pull ourselves out of this by recognizing and thinking critically about the forces that are stoking conflict, pushing us deeper apart and deeper down. We can only change this country for the better by coming together in order to heal and grow. Great thinkers, activists, and the mindful among us have been professing this fact for the ages. In the words of the late, great Audre Lorde, we must “… join together to affect a future the world has not yet conceived, let alone seen.”
Why have we not made more progress down this path? In part, in order for change to be lasting and meaningful, truth needs to come first. Truth, however often acts as an inadvertent dog whistle to fear and ego, who then arrive on scene in a tornado of shame, pushing us further into the quicksand. This is key makeup of our guerilla dictator psychology that needs to be examined and adjusted in order that we right ourselves on this path.
Foremost also, we must confront the tricky fact that logic (and social workers) dictates: in order for there to be people on the top, there must be people on the bottom. It warrants understanding, that there are those who benefit from this quicksand (in some shallow and fleeting, yet highly significant ways) and who use fear and ego (both consciously and subconsciously) as weapons to push us down, to keep us stuck. When presented with fear and ego, our own fear and ego tend to rise to meet them.
How can we come together differently? We need bravery, heart, we need authenticity, and connection to pull ourselves out and to grow. We need to fully embrace growth- needing to redefine ourselves has no bearing on our worth or whether we are “great” or need to be made “great again”. Growth instead is the ideal. It is what we are meant to do, as humans, as a group of humans that forms a nation- as the complex animals that we are.
Open eyes, open hearts…
As a therapist, I can’t diagnose any of our leaders or politicians (and don’t trust anyone who says they can!), but I can describe their behavior. I can identify a widespread narcissistic abuse and gaslighting that is being perpetrated against us and undermining our sense of who we are as a nation. This is not new and it is highly effective. We have been walking this road with lead in our boots for many generations. It has prevented us from developing a positive, firm sense of who we are as a country, as a human race. It’s time to get the lead out, or we will sink deeper yet.
It may be counter-intuitive, but we can only accomplish this through connection. In order to connect, we must recognize and stand against gaslighting and we must listen to each other. A family/couples therapy rule of thumb is that the person with the biggest feelings goes first. On a national scale, that might mean Trayvon Martin’s mother Sybrina Fulton, the Parkland survivors, any and all of us who have been oppressed and have not historically had a voice. Our votes and our following organizational efforts should first be towards these ends.
Ultimately, our task is to find a way to identify and overcome the obstacles, the lead in our boots, the quicksand that pulls us further apart and to come together through our hearts- our authentic selves- to build a healthier culture, a healthier world. Love will come flooding in!
…
Currently however, the upheaval that we are experiencing is uncomfortable. We must get comfortable being uncomfortable and with courage instead of shame, take this chance to redefine ourselves, and to evolve in order to survive. If we were all in a miraculous, giant family therapy session our therapist would point out: these patterns are repeating throughout our history! But we are not in family therapy. If we choose to walk away from each other, this human family fails. We may feel negatively towards those who’s views differ from our own, but it’s being in this thing together that is ultimately, actually our greatest gift: the potential connection, love. The love may be the gift that’s on the highest shelf, but it is within reach… if we work together.
My prayer today is that we shift from conflict mode to growth mode, through seeking truth and connection, regardless of temporary discomfort. We must elect leaders who are interested in doing the same. There is no single issue of higher importance.
When I feel nervous about this quicksand all around us, I look into the eyes of my 18-month-old, cherubim daughter. I recall the many infants that I worked with running parenting groups with people living with generational poverty, mental illness, substance abuse; I bring myself back to some of the breakthrough moments with clients that were sent to me as a “last resort” and I remember that there is pure love within us all, no matter how deeply buried… and it’s power is infinite. It’s time to do better. Let’s give this our best.
-Alisa Reed, LCSW-R
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