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Surviving Trump: How to Remain Calm and Carry On
Coping with chaos consists of comprehension, context, and control.
People are freaking out about Trump. It’s not just the flurry of Executive orders; he’s ignited a firestorm of disarray, doom, and despair. My patients, family, and friends have been asking me as a psychiatrist for guidance about coping with the next four years.
Some of these distressed individuals are even fans of the president who are unsettled by his inconsistency and poor follow through. Regardless of one’s politics, Trump often surprises his audience with his comments and actions. Fortunately, there are ways for all of us to deal with the chaos and tumult.
I’ll let the political scientists and historians address the content of what Trump proposes, and the legal and organizational ways to address those problems. My focus here will be on ways to cope with the process of living through potentially four more years of the nation’s leader behaving in ways that are unpredictable, unprecedented, and unpresidential.
Of course one way to cope with Trump is to just assume that everything he says and does is preordained by God. Disclaimer: I find that explanation neither plausible nor comforting, so I’m offering other paths to manage fear, anger, disgust, and anxiety.
