How to combat ‘headline stress disorder’ during aftermath of election

As a couples’ therapist specializing in anger and resentment, I was overwhelmed with distress calls during the recent election cycle. The vitriol and pervasive negativity of the campaigns, amplified by 24-hour news and social media, created a level of stress and resentment that intruded into many people’s intimate relationships. I even named it: “election stress disorder.” Yet, as bad as it seemed in those days, there was an end in sight: Nov. 8.

Alas, from Nov. 9 onward, we’re now having to cope with a kind of “headline stress disorder.” For many people, continual alerts from news sources, blogs, social media and alternative facts feel like missile explosions in a siege without end.

In my Washington areabased practice, women seem especially vulnerable to headline stress disorder. Many feel personally devalued, rejected, unseen, unheard and unsafe. They report a sense of foreboding and mistrust about the future.

They fear losing the right to control what happens to their own bodies. Their male partners are disappointed and angry by the news (there are few President Trump supporters in the D.C. area) but don’t feel the same kind of personal betrayal. Because they don’t get it, they have a hard time sharing the emotional burden, which makes their partners feel isolated. The shock and anger that followed the election threatens to give way, as shock and anger usually do, to anxiety or depression.

The very thing that renders women particularly vulnerable to the aftershocks of this unprecedented election is also their greatest strength: the desire to connect, affiliate, nurture, grow and protect.