Inside the trauma no one is talking about in America

I’d like to talk with you about a difficult subject.

A significant number of you are disoriented by what Trump and his lapdogs are doing. Many are deeply anxious. Some of us are depressed.

For years, medical experts have recommended that Americans be screened for “anxiety disorders.”

But what many of us are feeling now is not a personal disorder. It’s a rational response to a nation that’s becoming ever more disordered.

What we’re experiencing is not a sickness or individual distress. It’s a sensible reaction to a society becoming sicker and more stressed.

Trump and the enablers around him aren’t just violating the Constitution and disregarding laws. They’re not merely doing cruel and vindictive things.

They’re also spreading fear and fueling hate.

This fear and hate are harming every one of us, even the shrinking minority who support the regime. Hate is a corrosive that eventually consumes the haters. Fear breeds more fear, which causes everyone to be afraid.

The harm may continue long after the reasons to fear and sources of hate have passed into history.

I have a friend who suffered trauma at the hands of abusive parents. She’s spent much of her life trying to cope with that trauma, trying not to let it rule (and ruin) her life.

Another friend is the child of a Holocaust survivor. He has spent much of his life trying to escape the ghosts of relatives he never knew who were murdered by the Nazis, whose deaths have cast a dark shadow over his own life.

Most of us are fortunate enough not to have suffered childhood trauma from abusive parents or been raised in the dark shadow of the Holocaust or other horrors.

But most of us are now suffering a trauma of a different sort — from an abusive president and his lapdogs, and from the dark shadows of fear and hate they cast.

Just as with my friends, many of us now feel powerless and afraid. We don’t recognize our nation. We’re disoriented, vulnerable, anxious.

Trump apologists call it “Trump derangement syndrome,” but the actual derangement is in and around the Oval Office.

I don’t think we’re talking enough about the national trauma most of us are now enduring.

Some of you may assume there’s something wrong with you when you can’t sleep or awaken feeling anxious. You may feel alone in this.

You should be aware of how widespread, and reasonable, your reaction is.

Trump’s cruelty and vengeance will pass. Years from now we’ll look back on this as a terrible period in America’s history. Our nation will survive.

But the fear and hate he has sown could cause lasting blight.

Recognizing this — being aware of the toll it’s taking and will continue to take on us, even years from now — is important to our eventual recovery, that of our loved ones, and the recovery of our nation and the world.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.