Uncomfortably Numb

In defense of post-election check out

”Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.” ~Mary Oliver

Right now I feel nothing.

Well, that’s not exactly right. I feel numb, and numbness isn’t nothing. It’s something I can grasp and name, but describing it fully feels unduly burdensome. It’s hard for me to finish any task right now, so I can’t complete the assignment of putting this particular numbness into prose.

I can tell you what it’s not. It’s not the comfortable numb from the Pink Floyd song. I am not a distant ship, smoke on the horizon. I’m not 3 chardonnays into a Friday evening in my late 20’s. I am numb AND uncomfortable. Uncomfortably numb. Instead of dulling pain, allowing me to forget it, this numbness has simply covered it in a shroud. I know it’s still there. That’s not comfortable.

Once it became clear Tuesday night that Trump was going to win, I had already stress downed two tumblers of bourbon, a full bag of popcorn and about 20 German chocolate wafer cookies that I’d been saving for my father-in-law. Instead of sending out celebratory texts and tweets, I zombie-walked to bed, fell over sideways and slept in my clothes.

I woke up early Wednesday and pulled my phone off the nightstand, then silently scrolled through the headlines, my head still on the pillow. My body calmly absorbed the words and I slipped out from under the covers, padded into the kitchen and made tea. My husband was awake and we spoke softly to each other, using few words but knowing that we both knew. My resting heart rate remained a cool 65.

My body remembers the icy shock of election night 2016. My first ever Substack post, titled “What the fuck, America?” detailed the nightmarish unfolding I experienced. Two days after Trump beat Hillary Clinton, a colleague tried to get me fired by sending screen shots of posts from my private Facebook account to my bosses, while posing as a viewer concerned about my “vulgarities” and “politically charged comments.”

This time is different. Instead of riding anxiety jolts, I have experienced a vague disassociation, an unfamiliar emptiness in which my finely-tuned empathy has glitched to a screen of static. Passionate feelings, including my ever-present angst, are on pause. Nothingness seems to be my new emotional state. My sleep is dreamless. My days are slow and foggy. My thoughts are still.

I’m almost positive this is a stress response sometimes called blunting, “an unconscious protective response to feeling difficult emotions.” The acute trauma or stress, in this case the re-election of Trump, set off “a stress response that swamps the system and triggers a state of collapse, including emotional numbness.” I can’t feel the impact of his win, because facing four more years in all its terrifying possibilities is not doable at this time. My body’s cortisol has simply circled the drain and dried up.

I’ve dipped into social media and opened my New York Times app, but the words that slide across my eyes quickly slip out of frame, or go blurry. I read a sentence or two—America will disappear, We’re headed for a Constitutional crisis, This country hates women. And then, my mind drifts. I think about ordering a a new power mop and cleaning the floors. I follow my oblivious dogs into the backyard and watch them sniff the dry leaves, blink into the golden sunshine. I have lost the thread.

The thing is, I’ve always felt drawn to difficult subjects and complicated realities. The whole idea of “Moth to Flame” reflects this inner drive to fly toward risk, danger, challenge. I’m not a daredevil, I mean this in a figurative sense. In my work as a journalist and writer, I’m immersed in harm and punishment, some of the gravest realities in our world. But in this moment right now, I just don’t want to know. For maybe the first time in my adult life, I cannot look at the hardest thing.

53% of white women voted for Trump. Some of them, I know. I live in Alabama, was born and raised here, and it would be nearly impossible for me to create an entirely liberal bubble to reside in, nor have I ever wanted to, but I cannot reconcile that vote with the women I know. I scroll through Facebook and see a sea of strangers. This time, I don’t want to know why, and there isn’t a discussion to have.

I voted for the first time in 1992 with my college roommate and best friend, Enid. She was raised by conservative parents and voted for Bush. I was raised by open-minded parents, including a progressive social worker mom, and I voted for Clinton. My friend and I laughed about it as we walked home from our voting precinct, then got on with our lives.

She was my best friend for 15 years. We never agreed on which politicians to vote for, but we shared everything else. We loved each other like sisters. Our different conditioning only made our relationship more textured and interesting. We never once got into a fight. Those were different times.

Enid died in 2007 of ovarian cancer. We could always be real with each other, and I wonder what she would think about this election, but I also don’t want to know. I hate to imagine her continuing to vote Republican, this Trump insanity becoming a bright, white, deal-breaking line in our wonderful relationship. I can’t bear that thought.

But other women from this same college friend group aren’t dead, they are very much alive and I have not gone there with them. It’s easier to ignore the monster in the room, or just allow our friendships to become distant, superficial. I cannot unsee the “Make America Great Again” bumper sticker on one of their cars the last time we all got together in 2017. Back then, I just winced and continued with the party. This time, there is no party. And if there is, I will not go.

Wednesday morning, I scrolled through Twitter and saw a few predictably negative responses to my tweet congratulating Shomari Figures on his win for Alabama’s 2nd U.S. House District, one of the few positive stories from Tuesday night. One guy called me a “retard,” an offensive slur recently revived by MAGA supporters. Block. Another man responded with “Fuck no. Move to California.” Block.

A third poster got my attention. “Bitch, please shut up,” he wrote under my Tweet. I reported it as harassment to the platform.

Five minutes later I got a response. Turns out this is protected speech under Elon Musk, sanctified under the new rules of what matters most on X.

I deleted the Twitter app from my phone. I’ll leave my account there, but I must step away from interacting on a platform governed by fascists. All social media is full of distress, poison milk, and I need to get my mouth off the digital tit. I know some of this must eventually be faced again, but today is not the day. This week isn’t the week. Media right now is nothing but outrage porn and I’m tapped out.

I saw someone post “maybe now is a good time to just be in the world,” and that sounds like good advice. What does that look like? Instead of news, I’ll immerse myself in art and books and poetry and music. Last night after teaching, I watched the incredible documentary about Birmingham’s civil rights warrior Fred Shuttlesworth, that’s been on my “to watch” list all year. One of my students recommended a podcast called “Ologies,” that combines science with humor. I’ve already started an episode that features a candy expert who studies the cultural and sociological implications of candy. Brilliant!

I pulled out my favorite poetry collection, “Devotions” by Mary Oliver. I hear eyeballs rolling like marbles in the skulls of all you serious poetry scholars. Frankly, I don’t give a fuck. Words of Mary Oliver have helped me shake off many a funk. Elitists be damned.

I haven’t been able to read through an entire poem, but the list of titles is grounding.

Whistling Swans, Blue Iris, Do Stones Feel?, The Poet with his Face in his Hands

Sea Leaves, Black Oats, Skunk Cabbage, I Don’t Want to be Demure or Respectable

I haven’t watched Kamala Harris’s concession speech. I can’t read the think pieces or even summon a positive message to share with friends, many of whom have sent an encouraging word, a teensy bit of hope, a way to redirect. My dear and wise friend

Maura James McNamara

sent a text Wednesday morning—”We have to learn how to be witnesses to this time and keep our hearts soft.”

She is exactly right, but I’m not yet ready to witness. I need to take care of my tender heart before I can be any good to anyone, including myself. Maura also published this essay naming a path to make space for what’s next, and even though my cooked brain hasn’t processed it yet, I’ve bookmarked it, and you should totally read it if you’re looking for thoughtful, compassionate direction. Her words never fail to lift me up.

As I was drinking my watery tea this morning, I thought about how for years I doused my system in strong coffee first thing. Waking up was less a sleepy bud opening, more like a star exploding. BOOM! My heart would rev up and pound all day, and I would keep the caffeine flowing and grit my teeth as my brain sizzled. My armpits were always damp, and often I would sweat through my clothes. I’d drop my soiled blouses off at the dry cleaners, and sometimes they’d come back wearable, but other times they’d return with yellow, half-mooned stains under the arms.

I thought that’s how I was supposed to be. Caffeinated, grinding away, pushing my body and mind to the limits of stress. Working hard is success, right? But my body was trying to show me something else, those ruined clothes told the truth. There was a better, healthier way for me to be that didn’t involve stimulating my nervous system into fight-or-flight. And in this moment, I think my body’s numbness is saying my soul, heart and mind need some time to rest. It’s OK to check out for a while. I don’t always have to confront the hardest thing.

I pulled out my Mary Oliver collection again, and this time noticed a message I’d taped to the inside cover. I remember now, this was left on my newsroom desk after the 2016 incident, a lovely gesture from an anonymous colleague who wanted me to know that not everyone was out to get me.

I love this so much, a succinct reminder that life is a giant mystery and we are not responsible for outcomes. I don’t remember why I decided to tape this inside my copy of “Devotions,” but maybe my body somehow knew I’d really need to see this again in 2024, a month after I turned 50 and couldn’t feel anything.

It’s OK to not be OK. Take care of yourself in whatever way you need, and let go of the rest. Listen to your body and follow its instructions. I give you permission.