For a lot of girls, the 2024 presidential election felt private. Within the days since November 4th, girls have reported feeling anxiousness, anger, disappointment, and even hopelessness. Analysis means that politics typically, and election cycles particularly, have turn into a major supply of stress for a majority of Individuals, however girls had been extra probably than males to fret about how the election outcomes would influence their lives instantly. Equally, analysis on the 2016 election discovered that ladies reported larger ranges of stress, anxiousness and worry post-election than males.
Points impacting girls had been often mentioned all through the election season. A variety of opinions and coverage proposals created important uncertainty concerning the future. How would the way forward for well being care search for girls? Would legal guidelines relating to equality within the office be modified or maintained? Many ladies fear about the way to handle stress of their relationships with family members who share completely different opinions. Even with the election determined, uncertainty stays. Nobody is aware of what domains of coverage will probably be prioritized or what legal guidelines will probably be permitted. How will each day life for ladies be impacted by the brand new administration?
A major driver of tension is an intolerance of uncertainty. Anxious minds wish to know what’s going to occur and the way we are going to deal with it. Submit election, there may be some affordable uncertainty, as a result of actual adjustments are being proposed by the federal government. When there may be affordable uncertainty, problem-solving and planning forward could also be warranted. Nonetheless, anxiousness can even produce unreasonable uncertainty, also referred to as “catastrophizing,” through which you bounce to worst-case eventualities, with out proof to assist the concern within the current second.
Within the face of unreasonable uncertainty, we take actions to attempt to achieve management, together with Googling, asking for reassurance, planning forward for each doable final result, or avoidance. Some could also be considering that every one these certainty-seeking behaviors are essential to guard themselves from adverse outcomes. However once we keep within the current second, we could discover that many of those behaviors are literally makes an attempt at defending towards uncomfortable feelings. Sadly, these identical behaviors maintain us caught in an anxious state, serious about the horrifying prospects and fueling extra doubt.
As an alternative of combating towards uncertainty, we are able to apply accepting the discomfort. Acceptance means willingness to really feel all feelings, with out escaping or avoiding. Acceptance shouldn’t be approval, permission, or appreciation. It’s merely saying, “I do know I can’t change this, so I’ll permit myself to really feel no matter I’ve to really feel.”
This doesn’t imply that ladies should be accepting of adjustments that they don’t agree with! However accepting feelings shouldn’t be acceptance of politics. Acceptance means acknowledging that in our present political local weather, the sensation of uncertainty concerning the future is probably going right here to remain for some time.
As an alternative of participating in actions primarily based on worry, we are able to apply selecting behaviors that assist your values. Worth-based actions could embody volunteering in your local people or calling your state’s representatives in native, state, and federal authorities.
In case you are a lady feeling anxious and offended within the aftermath of the election, you aren’t alone. Many are grappling with the uncertainty of not understanding what adjustments are coming. Accepting these tough feelings will help you select more practical methods to reply.
This put up is introduced in collaboration with ADAA’s Girls’s Psychological Well being SIG. Be taught extra concerning the SIG.